Showing posts with label Butch Cassidy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Butch Cassidy. Show all posts

Saturday, January 20, 2024

RED MASK...or...MAVERICK??? Either Way, He's the "Man Who Lost Yesterday!"

We told you the tale of how 1940s Western movie star Tim Holt became comic book hero "Red Mask" HERE!
But that Masked Western Hero went through another metamorphosis, which we'll detail at the end of this story!
While this somewhat-cliched story of amnesia and imposters from Magazine Enterprise's Tim Holt #37 (1953) is a decent enough tale, what happened next was downright pitiful!
In 1971, fledgling comic publisher SkyWald, desperate for filler for their comics, used photostats and printing films from defunct comics publishers to add reprints behind 20-page new stories in their double-sized 52-page, 25-cent books!
In some cases, they used the material without any change.
In this case, Butch Cassidy #1 (1971), they re-titled the tale's lead character, and re-colored the story.
However, as you'll see, neither the editor nor proofreader did a very good job, as most of the captions and word balloons identifying the hero as "Red Mask" weren't altered!
Even the first paragraph calls him both "Maverick" and "Red Mask"...
Note: Skywald reprinted other Red Mask stories without trying to re-name the character!

Monday, March 26, 2012

BUTCH CASSIDY "Thunder Across the Border"

The fictional adventures of Real-Life Westerners...
...tend to take them far from their usual stomping grounds, as seen in this tale from Butch Cassidy #1 (1971).
Writer Gary Friedrich also handled the 1960s Marvel version of the 1950s Western hero The Ghost Rider a couple of years earlier.
He later co-created the motorcycle-riding mystical Ghost Rider with Mike Ploog.
Penciler Tom Sutton had done several Western stories for Marvel, including a Wyatt Earp tale, before taking on this series, but he's best known for his horror and humor art.
Though John Tartaglione did the majority of the inking, John Severin retouched several panels to keep characters "on-model".
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Monday, January 16, 2012

BUTCH CASSIDY "...in Paradise"

Why is it that towns named "Paradise" usually are anything but?
While I'm not sure the syntax quite works, I think you'll get the idea...
The box-office success of the 1969 Western movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, inspired Skywald Comics to make the duo the title protagonists of two of the five Western titles they launched in 1971.
Oddly, instead of Butch and the Kid headlining a book together, they were each given their own titles, along with new sidekicks/partners!
Butch's new buddy, as seen in this story from #1, was Lance Carter, a "loveable rogue" but with a penchant for getting them both into trouble and not based on any real-life Westerner.
The book lasted only three issues, with the Sundance Kid making a guest-appearance in an attempt to bolster sales.

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