The Fastest Gun Western

There is a small hole on the top right hand corner where the issue number should be, but that didn’t worry me. I recognized this as the first issue of The Fastest Gun Western anyway, without needing to confirm it via print on the spine. Not that I recall seeing a copy before, but hours misspent poring over old K.G. Murray comics advertisements when I was a kid meant instant recall when the quick decision had to be made whether to purchase this copy or not.

Up until a week or so ago I didn’t own any Fastest Gun Western issues – I have had some over the years, but always traded them or sold them – but, on the heels of a purchase in the last week, a neat bunch of early issues fell into my lap this morning, and it’s hard to resist such well preserved specimens (the hole mentioned above on #1 is the only fault to speak of in the whole bunch!)

The contents of the early issues appear to follow a pattern. The lead feature is Vandalia West by George Dollart (this is the only Google link I could find…) and Marculeta (I assume I have the right artist here…). The back-up features are generally a mix of Two-Gun Kid or Rawhide Kid reprints, or other similar Marvel material.

At some point Vandalia West is dropped in favour of Jackaroe as the lead feature. The credits say Robert O’Neill, presumably the writer, and art by Dibujos de Dalfiume (who may or may not also be Gianni Dalfiume, a Charlton war comics circa 1967-68).

The title later becomes Charlton-centric in it’s contents.

I don’t pretend to know much about this series or the lead contents, I’m just briefly laying out some of the information I’ve gleaned from browsing though them this morning and the obligatory Google hit.

The main reason I looked at them in the first place was on the off-chance of scoring some Alex Toth reprints, but I reckon I cashed that paydirt voucher a week ago, and I’ll let you know all about that one tomorrow.

The Wall of Flesh: A Pre-Code Horror Classic!

Bob Powell’s The Wall of Flesh!, from This Magazine is Haunted #12, 1953 is a certifiable horror comics classic. The wall of flesh itself is one of the more bizarre and grotesque concepts to be encountered in pre-Code horror comics, so oddball and off-the-wall (sic) that it would not be out of place in a Grant Morrison Doom Patrol issue (maybe on Danny the Street – now that’s a team-up I’d like to see!). Or maybe even a Mr. Monster comic!

If it wasn’t for the play of formal elements in Colorama maybe The Wall of Flesh! would be the most oft-reprinted Powell story. As it is, black and white reprints can be found in AC Comics’ own Wall of Flesh #1, and in at least two K.G. Murray issues: Doomsday #6 and Haunted Love Tales of Gothic Romance, Planet Series 3 No. 2.

The Doomsday reprint comes complete with Dr. Death’s visage overseeing proceedings, and a small correction in the dialogue - “Vietnam” is inserted into the dialogue to replace "Korea". The Haunted Love reprint appears to be the Doomsday version as the “Vietnam” correction is in place and the handwriting appears to be identical in both.

The Haunted Love version suffers from a bit more tampering than the Doomsday version. For example, the Dr. Death images are removed from the beginning and end of the story; the title text is slightly reformatted; and the left foreground on the last panel has been filled by a rather formless shape to cover the space left by the erased host – a bit of surplus wall flesh courtesy of a K.G. Murray sub-editor!

Most jarring is the crude intrusion by a keen amateur black spotter. For example, in the panel above there are four black patches forming a virtual border around the clock and figure in the centre. In the original only the clock on the side is shaded. Maybe the editors were not accustomed to borderless panels operating outside the regular beat of the grid. Or maybe the two-panels-in-one appeared to require correction or balance. The open clock/figure/flesh image is replicated on the facing page, which is also corrected by a lick of black ink, so maybe they thought this was necessary to avoid the reading eye flowing from the bottom of one page directly across to the bottom of the following page.

I don’t know… maybe best to assume good intentions poorly executed.

Oh, and love those lurid colours on the original... not to mention the details not picked up by the black line art!

Update

In a neat little junkyard coincidence, it turns out The Wall of Flesh is being reprinted in The Comics Journal #190, May 2008. Not only that, it features an introduction by Michael T. Gilbert! Spooky.... Thanks to Dillon for the heads-up on this.

Renegade Raiders

In the early 1980’s Murray Comics published numerous magazine-sized one-off titles. The bulk of them would be superhero-related issues – titles such as Dr. Fate or Superman and Manhunter from Mars. Along with the superhero titles came a variety of other genres, such as horror eg. Shock and Suspense! and Carnival of Fear; science fiction/adventure eg. Space Adventures and Space Warriors; and war eg. Men in Combat and Army Attack.

There were also a number of westerns published, some with recognizable characters carrying the titles such as Cheyenne Kid, Pow-Wow Smith and Tomahawk, as well as generic titles such as Trail Blazers of the West, Epic Western Action and Western Action and Adventure.

Renegade Raiders is another such 1980’s Murray Comics one-off. The cover looks like it might be a Spanish painted illustration with K.G. Murray text overlays. The contents range from recognizable features such as Cheyenne Kid, Texas Rangers in Action and Billy the Kid, to a number of nondescript Charlton-esque stories, to even a Spanish instalment. It is not uncommon to find Spanish westerns in various Gredown titles, but I am surprised to find one slotted into a K.G. Murray title. (Then again, I'm no expert on the westerns, so maybe it's not so uncommon).

Anyway, it's another little-known western to add to your wants lists!

Free Plug: Word Balloons #6

A free plug for Word Balloons #6, Philip Bentley's “Australian Magazine of the Graphic Story Arts” which came out late last year, and includes an interview with local collector/dealer Mick Stone, and also reprints an updated version of Robert Thomas’ article on Newton Comics (which I think first appeared in an issue of Collectormania… or was it some other paper…? can’t remember, I know I have a photocopy of it here somewhere… but I digress).

And hey, even The Junkyard rates a passing mention!

You can order copies directly from Philip for $5, PO Box 286 Sandringham Victoria 3191, or secondshore@yahoo.com.

Fear #2: The Yaffa edition

Here’s a nifty Yaffa issue I picked up this morning – Fear #2, which happens to be a facsimile reprint of Marvel’s Fear #1, November 1970.

It’s no surprise that the Yaffa edition reprints a complete US issue, I’ve come to expect that sense of order and fidelity from Yaffa.

I have no idea how many issues were in the Yaffa series, nor if there was a #1 for that matter, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a digest edition of Fear.

Also interesting to note that some, if not all of the stories in this issue were previously published in K.G. Murray issues. For example, I immediately recognized “I-Am-The-Genie!” (a Kirby-Ditko collaboration!) from Doomsday #8, as well as “Something Lurks Inside!” from Climax #12, both of which I’m sure were sourced from Fear #1 to begin with.

Fantastic Four #2: The Yaffa Digest

Following on from yesterday's post, the Yaffa digest Fantastic Four #2 reprints US Fantastic Four #'s 26-28, omitting splash page #28, and using the original cover from #27 for cover duties.

I'll also put up a scan of #3 after Danny sends it through. In the meantime, if anyone has a cover scan of #4, or can even confirm sighting one, please let me know.

Fantastic Four #1: The Yaffa Digest

I don’t know how many Fantastic Four #1’s have been published since 1961, but few would be as charming and small as this digest from Yaffa circa 1981.

This issue reprints the original Fantastic Four #'s 23-25, omitting the splash page from #25 and opting for that issue’s cover image for cover duties here. The next issue continues where this one leaves off.

I’m not sure how many issues were in this series, nor how many titles Yaffa published in the digest format, other than the number is substantially higher than I would have guessed some months ago – they seem to be suddenly turning up everywhere I look!

I have a sneaking suspicion that the contents of some of the Yaffa digests might be related to the end of the Newton Comics series. According to Danny Best, after the Newton Fantastic Four title ended with #15, the series of US reprints numbered in the mid-20’s mostly turned up in scattered one-shots and specials. The US #25 appears to have been reprinted a few times, yet no mention of #’s 23 and 24. The regular Yaffa Fantastic Four series reprinted contemporary US issues, not 1960’s issues. So maybe there’s a continuity of sorts between the exhaustion of the Newton series and the Yaffa digest series. I understand Yaffa picked up the license to reprint Marvel comics after the demise of Newton, but I had not considered that there might be a form of continuity between the Newton reprints and some of the Yaffa digest issues. Something to mull over as more of these strange little things turn up.

Battle Action Album #14: Paydirt Award April 2008

I’m not very interested in war comics in general (surely I've mentioned my barely defensible genre biases before...?). I pick up the K.G. Murray war comics in much the same way I might pick up other K.G. Murray genre material of only passing interest, such as a western or a romance comic. That is, partly as a representative sample to complement the main K.G. Murray collection, and partly in the hope of snagging a choice reprint by the likes of Alex Toth or Bernie Krigstein.

As such, Battle Action Album #14 gets the Paydirt Award for April 2008 for featuring Toth’s “The Tally” from Our Army At War #254, February 1973 (subsequently reprinted in Sgt. Rock Special #2, 1988). It’s the best value I’ve had for my $1.50 all year! I’ve come across a few more Toth reprints since my last tally, I hope to update it in the near future.

The other interesting thing is that, like other issues in this series, this issue reprints stories from early issues of All-American Men of War circa 1953, stories which, according to the GCD, did not appear in later DC reprints as one might expect. I’ve been coming across quite a few instances of unexpected reprints of this type in various K.G. Murray issues from the late 1970’s/early 1980’s, that is, reprints which don’t appear to have been sourced from contemporary DC issues. Too early to draw conclusions, but a pattern may emerge when all these issues are finally indexed.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who knows of DC war comics/series being reprinted in Australia in the 1950's or 1960's. I can't recall any such regular series in K.G. Murray titles, but in conceding my scant interest in the genre, I must also concede a possible blind spot in this regard. I'm aware of other war comics reprints in Australia eg Horwitz, I'm just curious whether these DC-sourced reprints in the late 1970's/early 1980's appeared in previous Australian comics.

The Hundred Comic #90: Pressing the Strange/Uncanny button

I’ve probably mentioned this before - I get a kick out of seeing key images and covers reprinted in books and magazines. The other day I saw a bit of a dvd documentary which flashed various familiar comics pages and covers on the screen, and I felt the same buzz. There’s something about the new context which invigorates the well-worn image. Modernists might say it’s estrangement doing it’s stuff, and I’m sure that’s a critical dynamic playing itself out. Freudian analysts might cue The Twilight Zone theme as they invoke the uncanny, and I would have to concede a point there too.

The cover to The Hundred Comic #90 is another recent instance of this for me. A classic image in its own right, made strange and interesting in a new context, mainly by virtue of the new title (although I'm sure other minor differences such as the subtle colour adjustments play their role.)

I could add The Flash looks ‘faster’ in the Hundred version – the cropping of the image on the left hand side makes him appear to arrive more suddenly on the scene than in the original from The Flash #139 – but I consider that to be just a little variant bonus.

I now look forward to future unexpected, strange and uncanny instances of this image.

An overview of Haunted Tales

Haunted Tales (45 issues c.1972-1981) followed closely on the heels of Weird Mystery Tales and Doomsday as the third of K.G. Murray's primary non-magazine sized horror series. The series had two distinct phases – the pre-Code/ACG issues (#’s 1-12), and the DC/Charlton phase (#’s 13-45).

The pre-Code ACG phaseThe first phase predominantly featured reprints from ACG horror titles circa 1951-54 (with a few earlier exceptions). Most of the material I have identified from these issues originally appeared in Adventures into the Unknown, Forbidden Worlds, Out of the Night, Skeleton Hand and The Clutching Hand.

There is also a smattering of material from various pre-Code Stanley Morse publications. Morse published a number of black and white magazines in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s such as Stark Terror, Chilling Tales etc. These were comprised of reprints of pre-Code inventory from not only Morse’s Gillmor and Key publications but also from ACG. Given this coincidence of material, it suggests these latter Stanley Publications provided the supply for the first dozen Haunted Tales. There were also Australian and UK editions of the Stanley Publications titles a few years later (from Page and Portman respectively).

Note also that the reprint of Basil Wolverton’s “Swamp Monster” in Haunted Tales #8 (cover reproduced above) is missing the last page, which I understand is also the case for the reprint in Stanley Publications’ Shock Vol. 1, No. 2, July 1969. That can’t be a coincidence! (For a complete black and white reprint see Tales Too Terrible To Tell #9, July-August 1993; for a complete recoloured reprint see Doc Stearn...Mr. Monster #3, March 1985).

Another interesting fact about the first dozen Haunted Tales is that the covers are original Australian illustrations. These appear to have been solicited for each individual issue as they each reflect the opening story of each issue – indeed they are usually adaptations of the splash panel.

The artists for the first 6 issues are unidentified. Certainly issue #’s 2 and 3 look to me to be by the same artist; issue #4 appears to be in a similar style; and there are discernible traces of the style even on issue #1, so the first 4 issues could possibly be by the same hand. However issue #’s 5 and 6 have distinctive styles, so by my reckoning there are at least three different artists involved in the first 6 issues. If anyone can enlighten me further on the artist’s identities…

The covers for issue #’s 7-12 are possibly of even greater interest as they are not only in a distinctly different style to the first 6 issues, but they appear to be the unsigned work of Phil Belbin. Belbin was a prominent and popular Australian artist who produced artwork for a variety of publishers (including other K.G. Murray publications). He was also Art Director for Gredown, and a number of unsigned Gredown covers are believed to be by Belbin (I hope to cover these in a future blog).

I’m confident that Haunted Tales #’s 8, 9 and 12 are the work of Belbin. There is a good chance that the other three issues (#’s 7, 10 and 11) form a set from Belbin, but I will await confirmation from those more familiar with Belbin’s style before I assert it more firmly.

The DC/Charlton phaseAfter the first 12 issues the profile of the series changed. For one thing, the covers were no longer original Australian pieces – they were reprints of US comics, with altered text and mastheads.

For another thing, the material was no longer exclusively pre-Code horror – rather, it mainly consisted of contemporary material from DC titles such as Unexpected, Ghosts, The Witching Hour, Secrets of Sinister House, House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Weird Mystery Tales, Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion – even the occasional Strange Sports Stories or Black Magic feature could be spotted.

There was also a fair representation of Charlton material, particularly in the early part of the post-ACG phase. Indeed the first three issues of this next phase sported Charlton covers - a couple from Tom Sutton and a painted cover by Pat Boyette. Following these exceptions, DC covers became the default option (most if not all from Unexpected and House of Mystery) just as the series itself came to be comprised exclusively of DC material.

Which is not to say there was no longer any vintage material appearing in the series as there were plenty of reprints sourced from DC’s archives via their 100-Page Giants, thus the likes of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, John Prentice, Ruben Moreira and Curt Swan rubbed shoulders with contemporary artists such as Jerry Grandenetti , Jack Oleck, Tony deZuniga, "Rubeny", Frank Redondo and Alex Nino. And there were also some unexpected surprises popping up now and then, such as a Phantom Stranger or Johnny Peril feature, and even the odd Marvel story too.

Haunted Tales maintained the M rating until the final issue, but this was no longer mandated by the contents (if it ever truly was). By this time the title had long been a DC-centric horror book with nothing scarier than a graveyard or a skeleton or a devilish beast on every second cover. It was Code Approved material in a book which could sit rather comfortably alongside the other Code Approved superhero titles in Murray’s stable. Indeed #35 sported the 1979 Murray Publishers logo for the first time, and #’s 37 and 38 brandished the Murray the Cat logo, making them look unambigously like regular DC/superhero kid’s books.

The last 7 issues witnessed a page count increase to 96 pages (100 pages including the covers) with a 90c price tag (95c for the final issue). I think of these as the Haunted Tales Album issues (Murray titles typically converted to Album with a substantial page increase eg. Doomsday).

My thanks to Kevin Patrick for his help in preparing this article.

UpdateA few points to add following some offline correspondence.
1. It is possible there is a higher numbered issue than #45, but I have not see one.
2. My notes said Haunted Tales #1 was published in late 1972 with a 30c cover price. Having reviewed the data to hand I now believe it was published c. February 1973.