Showing posts with label western. Show all posts
Showing posts with label western. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Reading Room: ZORRO "Mark of Zorro" Part 2

Art for inside front cover by Bill Ely
Don Diego Vega, secretly the masked man known as Zorro, battles oppression of the middle and working-class citizens of Los Angeles while romancing (as the dashing Zorro), Lolita, the beautiful daughter of caballero Don Carlos!
Art for inside back cover by Bill Ely
Meanwhile, Sgt Gonzales is in search of the man known as El Zorro (The Fox)...
To be concluded, tomorrow, at Western Comics Adventures™, where the previous chapter also appeared!
This book-length tale in Dell's Four Color #228 (1949) was adapted from the novella "Curse of Capistrano" by Johnston McCulley.
(The title "Mark of Zorro" was first used for the 1920 silent film adapting "Curse" and starring Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro/Don Diego.
Since then, when the story is reprinted, the story tends to use the "Mark of Zorro" title instead of "Curse".)
The writer of the comic adaptation is unknown, but the artist is Bill Ely, who has several hundred comic stories covering every genre from 1937 to 1967 to his credit.

This entry is part of our Retroblogs™ Masks Marathon, celebrating the new Dynamite comic series Masks which combines, for the first time, the major masked mystery men of pulps and comics including The Green Hornet, The Shadow, The Spider, Zorro, The Black Terror, The Green Lama, and Miss Fury (ok, a masked mystery woman), among others.
We'll be presenting more never-reprinted stories featuring these characters throughout the month of December.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Reading Room: LONE RANGER THE MOVIE Part 4

The Lone Ranger and Tonto have become enmeshed in a plot involving a rich rancher who wants to move an Indian reservation off land that includes a mountain sacred to the First Americans.
But the rancher, Kilgore, is doing everything he can to incite the local settlers to take up arms and attack the Indians, including inciting race hatred!
Returning to town, The Ranger and Tonto again run into a band of "Indians" who display very un-Indian characteristics...
Can The Lone Ranger and Tonto stop a potential massacre?
Why does Kilgore want Spirit Mountain?
The Saga Continues 
TOMORROW...at
The only blog devoted to Western comic books!

Friday, July 1, 2011

Reading Room: LONE RANGER THE MOVIE Part 3

Part 1 appeared HERE and Part 2 appeared HERE
When Last We Left Our Heroes...
The Lone Ranger and Tonto save a man being attacked by Indians who, in fact, aren't Indians!
The attacks tie in with plans by local rancher Reece Kilgore to force the local Native Americans off their reservation so he can acquire their land, including Spirit Mountain.
Why?
Now, Kilgore is secretly shipping in a load of high explosives.
Why?
The Ranger and Tonto plan to find out...
(BTW, Part 1 appeared HERE and Part 2 appeared HERE, in our "brother" blog Secret Sanctum of Captain Video™.  You didn't miss anything.)
Art by Tom Gill and Joe Sinnott.

Have Red Hawk and his braves "gone on the warpath"?
Or is something else going on here?
Same Blog Time!
Same Blog Feed!

Monday, February 21, 2011

ButterFly...Against the Brothers of the Crimson Cross Part 2

Read the earlier ButterFly story HERE!
Art by Rich Buckler. Perhaps a rough for a splash-page or cover for a color comic reprint of the two Butterfly stories together. It was used as the cover for the fanzine "Fan Informer" in 1971.
After her performance was interrupted by an assassination attempt on a politician in the audience, singer Marion Michaels donned the garb of The Butterfly to try to capture the gunman.
However, the Senator's bodyguard manages to shoot the killer before he can fire again.
A small device on the dead man's belt detaches and flies off with Butterfly in pursuit.
She follows it to a warehouse and is captured by the Brothers of the Crimson Cross, a group of racists who intend to brainwash the helpless heroine and use her to provoke a race war...
 Issue #3 of Hell-Rider never came out.
A cover by Gray Morrow was shown in the back of some of the other Skywald magazines, promoting a "full length" tale (which was probably like issue #1's "linked" individual stories of Hell-Rider, ButterFly and The Wild Bunch).
Now, as to the "Secrets Behind the Strip" we advertised yesterday...
Rich Buckler, who drew this strip told the collector who bought the original art shown at the top of this entry...
It was Butterfly, a character I drew for them (but didn't create)--and I had given her a makeover (made her and supporting players more black).
I also wrote the story (but not the final script) that dealt with the KKK and corrupt politicians.
This was, I believe, the first black super-heroine in the comics, and I thought I was doing something important for them.
I got flack for this and Bill Everett was hired to touch up many of the faces (to make them look more white--go figure), and I quit when I saw the final result.
There's more, and I suggest you go to this entry of the blog 20th Century Danny Boy, where it originally appeared, to read it.

Thanks for joining us as we presented the never-reprinted Silver Age stories of Lobo (The FIRST Black comic character with his own book) and Butterfly (The FIRST Black SuperHeroine)!

We'll be doing more online complete story re-presentations of this type, so bookmark us or you'll be left out of the fun!

And don't forget...
to check out the  
or

Monday, February 14, 2011

Lobo #2 Part 3--Showdown! (And THE END of Lobo!)

Read previous chapters of Lobo HERE!
 When last we left our hero...
 After "The King's" plan to frame Lobo (in order to trick the local sheriff into hunting and killing the hero) fails, the crazed criminal is forced to do his own dirty work...
But Lobo didn't return...
This was his last appearance...anywere!
(There's never even been a reprint trade paperback.)
That's why it's up to you, dear reader, to spread the word!
Link to this blog's entries on Lobo!
Tell others of the FIRST Black character to have his own comic book!
Let the Lobo legend live!

And, don't forget your Lobo comic collectibles, including t-shirts, mugs, and other goodies at...