BULL'S-EYE BILL "Trouble's 'a Coming!"

Anthology comics used to cover multiple genres...

...as you can see from the series titles on this cover from 1940, they ranged from Western to superhero to aviator to secret agent!
Yet, for the first issue of this comic book, the Western feature was the one given the coveted cover spot!
So let's take a look...
(Note: there are a couple of ethnic stereotypes common to the period and genre. May be NSFW.)

You'll discover if Trent stayed hogtied in the near-future.

Bull's Eye Bill only appeared twice more on the cover, in a group shot with the other strips' characters saluting Uncle Sam (he's 2nd from right)...

Though he wouldn't make the cover again until 1947, Bull's-Eye Bill appeared regularly in the back of the book for 59 consecutive issues, then on an irregular basis until his last Target Comics appearance in #100.

Dick Cole Comics ran a couple of unpublished stories, then filled out their back pages with several reprints of early Target Comics tales.

After that, Bull's-Eye Bill rode off into the sunset.

Though the signature on the cover is "Blake" and the title pages lists "Everett Blake" as the author, the actual creator-writer-artist of the strip was Bill Everett, one of the more prolific creators of the Golden Age of Comics. ("Blake" was his middle name.)

Many of his strips and characters are still being published in new stories today, including Amazing-Man, HydroMan, Skyrocket Steele, and The Fin.  

His two best-known characters are Prince Namor: the Sub-Mariner, and (with Stan Lee & Jack Kirby) Daredevil: the Man Without Fear!

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BILLY NEVADA "No-Gun Sheriff"

Some consider it a noble ambition to be totally non-violent...

...in the Old West, that noble ambition can land you in Boot Hill...unless you have a guardian angel packing shooting irons!

From Skywald's Butch Cassidy #1, published in 1971.
It's believed to be an unused story from the Billy the Kid comic published in the 1950s by Toby Press, relettering "Billy the Kid" into "Billy Nevada".
Pencils by Don Heck, but the inkers are unknown.
The style varies every couple of pages, with only the last two pages looking like Heck's own inking.

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BUSTER CRABBE COMICS "Maid of Mars"

The new movie, Cowboys and Aliens, opens today...

 ...but extraterrestrials have been popping up in Western comics since the 1950s!

The amazing art for this tale from 1952's Buster Crabbe Comics #5 was by Al Williamson and Roy Krenkel, who were astonishing comics fans with similar quality work at EC Comics on Weird Science and Weird Fantasy!

The cover was by fellow EC artist Frank Frazetta, who was also doing covers featuring Buck Rogers (whom Buster had played in the movies) for Famous Funnies, as well as illustrating the White Indian strip and covers for Ghost Rider! so he had handled both sci-fi and Western genres before doing this mixed-genre piece!

Enjoy Cowboys and Aliens, the newest version of a long-standing Western tradition!

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BUSTER CRABBE COMICS "Invaders from Beyond"

Though Buster Crabbe starred in more Westerns than any other genre, he's best-known to the public at large as the movie serial Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers!

As we mentioned earlier,  his comic book adventures included sci-fi and high adventure tales as well as Western stories.

This story, cover-featured in Buster Crabbe Comics #9, combined sci-fi and Western action, though set in the "present" (1953), like Space Western Comics, which was being published at the same time.

The writer is unknown, but the art on both the cover and story is by Mike Roy, who worked steadily in comics from the beginning of the Golden Age in 1941 until 1980!

Note that Buster is Buster Crabbe, not "Buster Crabbe as a character like Billy West" or somesuch in the tale, and it's assumed that he's actually able to do anything he's been shown doing in his films.

There was one other mixed-genre tale in Buster Crabbe Comics, and we'll be presenting it in a special posting this Friday to celebrate the opening of Cowboys & Aliens!

We've taken the art from the cover of this issue, digitally-remastered and restored it, and emblazoned it on a variety of kool komic kollectibles!

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Captain America in the Old West

A Western-themed Captain America pin-up from Captain America's Bicentennial Battles (1976)

Jack Kirby had done covers and stories for numerous Western-based characters including Bull's Eye, Lone Rider, and Marvel Comics' Western titles including Kid Colt, Two-Gun Kid, Wyatt Earp, etc., as well as co-creating Captain America with Joe Simon.
So this was an almost-inevitable combination of the super-hero and Western genres by a creative genius in both!

(My wife bet that I couldn't find a way to put Captain America, whose big budget movie opens today, into my Western blog!  If I couldn't, we were going Italian.  Since I won, we're eating Tex-Mex!)

KIT CARSON "Guns of Death"

Leaving space aliens behind (for now), let's look at another Real-Life Westerner...

...in a tale from Blazing Six Guns #1!

Kit Carson was one of the most famous of real Westerners to be adapted to popular culture.
He was among the first to be immortalized in dime novels and "blood and thunder" pulps.

Besides a movie serial and several feature films, Kit was portrayed in a long-running 1950s tv series starring Bill Williams.
Oddly enough, there was no tie-in comic to the tv series, in an era when almost every Western tv series had a comic book spin-off!

In addition, the same publisher (Avon) who ran this tale in Blazing SixGuns, published Kit in his own title.

The story's artist, Gerald McCann, did a little of everything from Westerns to horror to romance, but eventually specialized in illustrating movie/tv tie-ins because of his ability to render accurate likenesses.

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SPACE WESTERN: Strong Bow in "Return of the Aztecs"

Another of the "Space Vigilantes" takes center stage...

...as Strong Bow meets up with Aztecs from the stars in this tale from Charlton's Space Western Comics #42 that could've inspired Chariots of the Gods!

Like The Lone Ranger's partner, Tonto, Spurs' associates can certainly handle themselves against aliens, or Commies, or any other threat when the boss is out of town!
Penciled and inked by versatile artist John Belfi, who did a little of everything for almost every comic publisher in the 40s-50s before moving over to newspaper syndicate work both on strips and editorial illustration.