Lunar Russkies! SPACE WESTERN "Spurs Jackson and His Space Vigilantes Battle the Red Menace Beyond the Moon"

Didn't think we could do a Western-themed blog post that related to travel to the Moon?

Then you don't know about Charlton's 1950s title, Space Western Comics, which we covered HERE!

And, because it was the 1950s...there had to be Russkies lurking about...

This seldom-reprinted (once in b/w in 1992) tale from Charlton's Space Western Comics #43 (1953) was written by Walter (The Shadow) Gibson and illustrated by Stan Campbell.
Considering how poorly the Russkies are doing in Ukraine, it's doubtful they ever could've mounted an attempt at lunar conquest!

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 Space Western Comics Store

Halloween on the Prairie BULLSEYE "Devil Bird"

They just don't make comics like this anymore!

Masked cowboy hero vs pterodactyl!

It's the sort of concept a nine-year old would come up with while playing with his (or her) brand-new action figures under the Christmas tree, mixing the dinosaurs with superheroes and cowboys!

But, damnit, writer/artist Jack Kirby makes this cross-genre tale from BullsEye #4 (and Blazing SixGuns #12) work for both genres!

Believe it or not, this wasn't the cover story for it's first appearance (even though it was the lead story)...

Art by Jack Kirby

...but it was the cover-feature for the Super/IW reprint!

Art by Ross Andru & Mike Esposito. Note that BullsEye is miscolored!

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Sci-Fi Western
(A Comics Anthology of Science Fiction Tales set in the Old West)

Halloween on the Prairie TALES OF HORROR "Vampire Goes West!"

You'd think the American West would be the most unlikely place to find a vampire...

...and you'd be wrong...dead wrong!

"Silver bullets work on vampires as well as werewolves?" you ask?

Yep!

There are many methods to kill vampires in the folklore of Europe and Asia.

One of the lesser-known is the use of silver instead of wood to penetrate the vampire's vital organs.
This vampire/Western story is not from a Western comic, but the final issue of Tales of Horror (#13 from 1954)
The writer is unknown, but the penciler is Medio Iorio and inker is Sal Trapani.
Oddly, every comic story Iorio penciled, Trapani inked!
Weird, eh?

What's really weird is that there are several Western vampire films, all quite dissimilar to each other!

The earliest one is 1959's Curse of the Undead, starring Eric Fleming of Rawhide fame as a vampire hunter!

(There might have been an earlier flick had Bela Lugosi lived longer!

Ed Wood had a script entitled The Ghoul Goes West in preparation when Bella died!)

The 1960s gave us the ultra-low budget Billy the Kid vs Dracula, starring John Carradine as the Lord of Vampires.

Though there wasn't a 1970s vampire Western, the 1980s had a contemporary take on the concept with Near Dark, starring Aliens cast members Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein, and Bill Paxton as vampires wandering the Southwest in a van.

But my personal favorite, from 1988, is Sundown: the Vampire in Retreat, a tongue-in-cheek flick starring a host of genre vets including David Carradine, Bruce Campbell, M Emmett Wash, Elizabeth Gracen, Dabs Greer, and John Ireland.

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Wicked West

Volume 1

Asians Out West ZIP COMICS "Nevada Jones: Quick-Trigger Man and the Jungle in the Desert"

In early 20th Century pop culture, the "Yellow Peril" could pop up anywhere...

...even the Old West, as this never-reprinted tale from MLJ's Zip Comics #9 (1940) demonstrates!

Why would a gunfighter using his real name need a mask?

Leaving that aside, the Nevada Jones strip was not your usual Western.
It was loaded with "high adventure" elements like ancient lost cities, mad scientists, and even criminals pretending to be supernatural demons/ghosts turning up in the tales.

So a Fu Manchu-type villain operating out of a hidden jungle in the desert was just another baddie to be captured or killed to the "Quick-Trigger Man"!
Artist Frank Volp started out illustrating pulp magazine stories, and added comic books to his already-crowded portfolio, working for both MLJ and Lev Gleason, doing everything from Westerns to crime to romance!
The writer of the feature is unknown.

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Golden Age Western Comics

Asians Out West LONE RANGER "Chinese Gold"

Though infrequent, there were Old West comic book tales involving Chinese who had come to America...

...such as this never-reprinted one from Dell's Lone Ranger #70 (1954).

"If you don't fight to preserve the rights of all Americans, someday you may find your race or your religion the object of some mob's prejudice!"

As John Wayne would say..."Words to live by, pilgrim!"

You'll note the Chinese miners are supporting characters and told to not bear arms in their own defense.
Yet, if they were Irish, Italian, or any White ethnicity, they'd be side by side with the Ranger and the townspeople!
If the story seems a bit "talky"/dialogue heavy, that's because it was adapted from a script for the May 31, 1952 episode of the Lone Ranger radio show which you'll be able to find HERE, at our "brother" RetroBlog Secret Sanctum of Captain Video tomorrow!

The writer who adapted the script to comics is unknown, but the illustrator (pencils and inks) is longtime Ranger renderer Tom Gill.

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Lone Ranger on Radio

CD Set