Western comics
Western comics is a comics genre usually depicting the American Old West frontier and typically set during the late nineteenth century. The term is generally associated with an American comic books genre published from the late 1940s through the 1950s. Western comics of the period typically featured dramatic scripts about cowboys, gunfighters, lawmen, bounty hunters, outlaws, and Native Americans. Accompanying artwork depicted a rural America populated with such iconic images as guns, cowboy hats, vests, horses, saloons, ranches, and deserts, contemporaneous with the setting.
Origins
s, films, and pulp magazines were extremely popular in the United States from the late 1930s to the 1960s.Western comics first appeared in syndicated newspaper strips in the early 1910s. Victor Forsythe introduced humorous takes on the genre with Bad Bill the Western Wildcat and Tenderfoot Tim, both published in the New York World. In October 1927, J. Carrol Mansfield, best known for the educational strip High Lights of History, launched Buffalo Bill, Scout of Scouts, a daily continuity strip recounting the formative years of young Billy Cody. In June 1927, Harry O'Neill's Young Buffalo Bill, distributed by United Feature Syndicate. After O’Neill’s departure, Fred Meagher continued the feature briefly, and the title was later replaced by the actual Buffalo Bill strips.
Starting in the 1938, Red Ryder, Little Joe, and King of the Royal Mounted were syndicated in hundreds of newspapers across the United States. Garrett Price's White Boy was another syndicated strip from the 1930s.
The first Western stories to appear in the comic books were in the mid-1930s: National Allied's New Fun Comics #1 ran the modern-West feature "Jack Woods" and the Old West feature "Buckskin Jim"; Centaur Publications' The Comics Magazine #1 ran the feature "Captain Bill of the Rangers"; and David McKay Publications's Feature Book #1 and a single issue of King Comics featured King of the Royal Mounted reprints before Dell took over licensing of the character. Dell Comics' The Funnies published a run of short adaptations of B-movie Westerns starting in vol. 2, issue #20. Whitman Comics' Crackajack Funnies ran regular Western features beginning with issue #1 in June 1938.
The first stand-alone Western comics titles were published by Centaur Publications. Star Ranger and Western Picture Stories both debuted from the publisher in late 1936, cover-dated Feb. 1937. Star Ranger ran for 12 issues, becoming Cowboy Comics for a couple of issues, and then becoming Star Ranger Funnies. The series ended in October 1939. Western Picture Stories ran four issues in 1937. Dell Comics published Western Action Thrillers #1 shortly thereafter, and began publishing Red Ryder Comics, initially reprinting the long-running comic strip, in 1941. Edward “Tex” O’Reilly, the creator of the fakelore figure Pecos Bill, collaborated on the Pecos Bill comic strip with cartoonist Jack A. Warren distributed by George Matthew Adams Service from 1936 to 1937.
In 1939, the Associated Features Syndicate, run by Robert W. Farrell, launched the newspaper strip Lightnin' and Lone Rider. Written by Farrell and illustrated by two young artists at the beginning artist: Jack Kirby and Frank Robbins, the strip was later reprinted in Eastern Color Printing's Famous Funnies.
"Golden Age": 1948–1960
Western comics became popular in the years immediately following World War II, when superheroes went out of style. Adult readership had grown during the war years, and returning servicemen wanted subjects other than superheroes in their books. The popularity of the Western genre in comic strips and other media gave birth to Western comics, many of which began being published around 1948.Most of the larger publishers of the period jumped headfirst into the Western arena during this period, particularly Marvel Comics and its forerunners Timely Comics and Atlas Comics. Kid Colt Outlaw debuted in 1948, running until 1979. The company soon established itself as the most prolific publisher of Western comics with other notable long-running titles, including Rawhide Kid, Two-Gun Kid, and Wild Western.
The six-issue 1950 Harvey Comics series Boys' Ranch, by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, was a seminal example of the Western comics genre. DC Comics published the long-running series All-Star Western and Western Comics. Charlton Comics published Billy the Kid, Cheyenne Kid, Outlaws of the West, Texas Rangers in Action, and the unusual title Black Fury, about a horse that roamed the West righting wrongs. Both Dell Comics and Fawcett Comics published a number of Western titles, including The Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy. Many issues of Dell's Four Color featured Western stories during the 1950s. Avon Comics published a number of Western comics, the most notable titles being based on historical figures like Jesse James and Wild Bill Hickok. Youthful published the Western titles Gunsmoke, Indian Fighter, and Redskin. And Toby Press published its own Billy the Kid Adventure Magazine.
Characters
The first Western hero published by Timely Comics was the Masked Raider, beginning in 1939.Timely/Atlas/Marvel favored Western characters with the word "Kid" in their name, including the Apache Kid, Kid Colt, the Outlaw Kid, the Rawhide Kid, the Ringo Kid, the Two-Gun Kid, and the Western Kid—as well as the more obscure heroes the Prairie Kid, the Arizona Kid, and the Texas Kid. Other companies followed suit, with DC's Stuff the Chinatown Kid and the Wyoming Kid; Charlton Comics' Billy the Kid and the Cheyenne Kid; and Dell's the Cisco Kid.
Black Rider and Phantom Rider were two other Marvel company characters from the genre's peak. Other early DC Comics Western characters included Johnny Thunder, Nighthawk, Pow Wow Smith, Tomahawk, the Trigger Twins, and Vigilante. A new version of the Lone Rider was launched in 1951 by Robert W. Farrell through his publishing house, Farrell Publications. The character was subsequently relaunched under the title The Rider in 1957.
Dell Comics featured the Lone Ranger, and Dell's Lobo was the medium's first African-American character to headline his own series.
Cowboy actor comics
's prolific comic book presence was an extension of his popular radio show, The Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters, in which actors voiced his part. This radio success directly spawned his first comics: a single-page advertisement in New Fun #1 where the cowboy star endorsed "official Tom Mix Zyp-Guns." His first proper narrative appearances followed in Dell Comics' The Comics, Popular Comics and Crackajack Funnies from 1936 to 1939. This was succeeded by a direct mail-order series from Ralston Purina, the sponsor of his popular radio series; from 1940 to 1942, the company produced nine issues of Tom Mix Comics and three issues of Tom Mix Commandos Comics, available to fans in exchange for cereal boxtops.The years 1946–1949 saw an explosion of titles "starring" Western film actors and cowboy singers. Almost every star, major or minor, had their own title at some point; and almost every publisher got in on the action: Fawcett published Allan Lane, Monte Hale, Gabby Hayes, Lash LaRue, Tex Ritter, and Tom Mix comics; Dell published Gene Autry, Rex Allen, Roy Rogers, and Wild Bill Elliott comics; Magazine Enterprises published Charles Starrett and Tim Holt comics; Toby Press published a John Wayne title; and DC produced short-lived Dale Evans and Jimmy Wakely titles. Most of the cowboy actor titles featured photo covers of the stars; most series had been canceled by 1957.
Faux cowboy actors
Publishers sometimes used models to portray “faux cowboy” heroes. Actor and model Steve Holland posed as Bob Colt, a fictional Fawcett cowboy who appeared in ten issues. Timely Comics used the same trick with Tex Morgan, Tex Taylor and Rex Hart. In a notable instance, Timely editor Stan Lee himself dressed up as the title character for the cover of Black Rider #8.Creators
Since Westerns were such a popular genre in the 1950s, many of the period's notable creators spent at least some time doing Western comics.Writer Paul S. Newman and artist Tom Gill had an 11-year stretch on Dell's The Lone Ranger, a 107-issue run that marks one of the longest of any writer/artist team on a comic-book series. Larry Lieber spent nine years as writer-artist of Marvel's Rawhide Kid. France Herron and Fred Ray were the long-time writer and artist of DC's Tomahawk. Gaylord DuBois excelled in writing Western comics featuring realistic animals: he wrote the entire run of The Lone Ranger's Famous Horse Hi-Yo Silver, the entire run of National Velvet under both the Dell and Gold Key imprints, and many other animal stories for a number of publishers.
Carl Pfeufer was the longtime artist of Fawcett's Tom Mix comics. Artist Fred Guardineer had a long run on Magazine Enterprises' The Durango Kid. Pete Tumlinson illustrated most of Kid Colt's early stories. Later, Tumlinson drew Western stories for Atlas Comics' Outlaw Fighters, Two-Gun Western, and Wild Western. Russ Heath drew a corral-full of Western stories for such Marvel titles as Wild Western, ''All Western Winners, Arizona Kid, Black Rider, Western Outlaws, and Reno Browne, Hollywood's Greatest Cowgirl. Vic Carrabotta worked on such Marvel Westerns as Apache Kid, Kid Colt: Outlaw, The Outlaw Kid, and Western Outlaws. Artist John Severin was known for his 1950s Western comics art for Atlas. Artist Mike Sekowsky drew such characters as the Apache Kid, the Black Rider, and Kid Colt for Atlas; he later freelanced for other companies, drawing the TV-series spin-offs Gunsmoke and Buffalo Bill, Jr. for Dell Comics.
Artist Rocke Mastroserio specialized in Western stories for such Charlton Comics series as Billy the Kid, Black Fury, Jim Bowie, Rocky Lane's Black Jack, Sheriff of Tombstone, Six-Gun Heroes, Texas Rangers in Action, and Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal. Pat Boyette worked on such Charlton Western series as Billy the Kid, Cheyenne Kid, and Outlaws of the West''.