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.

Support Small Business!

Visit the 

Real-Life Westerners store...

...for duds and provisions!

ZORRO "Zorro's Secret Passage"

"Out of the night, when the full moon is bright, comes the horseman known as Zorro!"

"This bold renegade carves a 'Z' with his blade, a 'Z' that stands for 'Zorro"!"

Continuing the saga begun in "Presenting Senor Zorro", this story was adapted from the second episode of Disney's Zorro tv series by an unknown writer and artist Alex Toth.

If you want to see how close it is to the filmed ep, look below...

Support Small Business

Visit our 

Western Comics online store...

 ...for duds and provisions!

SPACE WESTERN: "Geronimo's Return!" & "Trip to the Moon"

Let's start off the New Year with a finale!

The month after Space Western reverted to Cowboy Western, this story, featuring the Space Vigilantes, appeared, unheralded, in the back of Charlton's Cowboy Western Comics #46 (1953)!

To make the closure complete, here's the very last appearance of Spurs Jackson himself, from the same issue...

Art on both stories by John Belfi.

That was it for the first sci-fi/western comic.

Cowboy Western Comics remained an anthology of various strips, some based on real Westerners like Wild Bill Hickok and Annie Oakley, and some fictional characters like Golden Arrow, whom Charlton Comics had acquired from Fawcett Comics when it went out of business.

As of #59, the generic Wild Bill Hickok strip became an adaptation of the TV/radio series Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok starring Guy Madison as Hickok and Andy Devine as Jingles.

The covers also featured a new "Wild Bill" logo and illustrations of Madison and Devine.

As of #68 the book changed it's title to Wild Bill Hickok and Jingles, continuing until #75 in 1959, ending simultaneously with the TV/radio show.

Christmas Comics: BULL'S-EYE BILL

Yes, they celebrated the Yuletide in the Old West...

...although technically, this was the contemporary (1940s) West!

Though the series started with a standard 1800s Old West setting, after creator Bill Everett left, the new writer, Bea Holmes, and artist L. Kennerly, began inserting contemporary references and technology.

By the time of this tale from Target Comics #12, the series was firmly-set in the present-day.

In fact, Bull's-Eye was recruited by the Army for special duty to prevent sabotage at Western bases in the very next issue!

We're taking next week off, so we'll see you in 2012!

Merry Christmas

and

Happy New Year!

"Billy the Kid"

There are many theories as to how the legendary gunfighter Billy the Kid died...

...but this one is probably the most outlandish!

Billy the Kid has been one of the most popular (and controversial) Real-Life Westerners ever to appear in the media.

Portrayed as everything from a psychopathic killer to a misunderstood teen-ager, he's been the subject of movies, radio and TV shows (both as the title character, and as a guest-star), theatre productions, novels, and no less than a half-dozen comic book titles as well as several hundred comic stories.

(He even fought Dracula in the 1966 b-movie Billy the Kid vs Dracula and traveled thru time in an episode of The Time Tunnel!)

This one-shot tale, illustrated by George Woodbridge appeared in Masked Ranger #6 (1955), and was Woodbridge's first published comics work!

He later became one of the mainstays of MAD Magazine, as well as a military history illustrator noted for his accuracy in rendering uniforms and weapons.

Support Small Business this Christmas!
Visit the

Western Comics Adventures Store
featuring Billy the Kid!

CISCO KID "Gunwise Cowpoke"

From #2 of his own comic (which was actually the first issue)...

...comes the "Robin Hood of the Old West", as they said on his radio show!

Even though the last few b-movies had starred Duncan Renaldo and the tv series (also starring Renaldo) was about to begin airing when this issue came out, Cisco in this issue looks remarkably like Gilbert Roland, who played him in several b-movies in the mid-1940s, indicating that this story may have been created back then, but not published until 1951.

In the next issue, Cisco shaves off his mustache and begins to look more like Renaldo.

Support Small Business this Christmas!

Visit the

Comics Collectibles Shop