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[MarkWarner]

Last week's book was "OKish", but hopefully this week's book will start our year off with a bang! It's a long overdue western Border Patrol #2 from  P.L. Publishing. I looked at the published date and it will soon be celebrating its 65th birthday!

The book can be found here  https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=40397 and the story we are concentrating on is the first one "The Golden Fraud".

[Morgus]

I really liked the art and the cover...the STORY was predictable...but it was sort of fun in a neat way...I think you could make a game out of how many clich

[narfstar]

Cover looks great. I really liked the interior art also. The faces were distinctive and not all handsome. Yes it was predictable but it was predictable that it would be predictable. It was an OK western story. The worst part for me was the start where he just happened to be riding by in the middle of nowhere to hear the argument. I did not read the rest but looked through and really enjoyed the art

[Morgus]

an after thought: is it even POSSIBLE to bleach horses without damaging them a lot? Plus, wouldn't the burns from the bleach create all sorts of problems that even my gramma could spot right off the top? I really don't know..I'm ASKING...

[narfstar]

Good point Morgus. But it read like this was something that actually happened a lot back in the day

[crashryan]

With some quick Googling I learned that it is possible to bleach a horse like one does a "peroxide blonde," but it's terrible for the horse. It doesn't seem to have been used in the way the story suggests. There are "whitening shampoos" which make light horses lighter by removing stains and such. They use these to make a horse look whiter for showing. I doubt if there were such shampoos in the Old West. I suppose it's possible an  unscrupulous crook might bleach a horse, sell it, and  clear out before the animal has a chance to sicken. But passing the horse off as another breed seems unlikely.

I admit that when I read the story it had enough incidental detail that I believed the writer must have read about horse-bleaching in research and built a story around it. However a couple of sources say people call using whitening shampoos "bleaching." Perhaps the writer heard this expression and winged it from there.

[narfstar]

thanks for the research Crash

[SuperScrounge]

The Golden Fraud - A white horse named Ebony? Does this guy like ironic naming? Rough art, not a great story. Could have been a lot better, but wasn't.

The Lost Cities of Gold - Eh.

The Matador of Merzon Mesa - Meh.

Bullet Bait! - Not great, but so far it's the best story in the book.

The Secret of the Longhorns - Well, this was the best of the lot, but that abrupt ending had me wondering if there was a page missing.

[MarkWarner]

It seems to be an age since we last read a Western, so let's hope this is a good one.

We start with the "Golden Fraud" featuring Ramrod Adams. He has a white horse, named Ebony. Go figure that one out! Wait, we now have a bunch of horses which have been bleached white.

Now I have finished it, I'd say that was OK. It liked the redemption message. One observation is; I have heard a man having big boots, but Ramrod has a BIG hat!

So our next border patrol officer is Sheriff Jeff Lassiter in The Lost Cities Of Gold. He has a different sort of hat and obviously pays attention to his appearance. It looks very much like he could sing a family friendly song or two about cowboy life and riding the range.

This is followed by a not very nice bullfighting story.

OK and the name of the next Border Patrol Officer is ... Rick Dawson. I think he has a fine array of neckerchiefs and female admirer in every town. You know the sort!

Our last officer (hopefully) is Stuart Grant who has a fairly big hat, looks well groomed and wears a smart red neckerchief. His is a rather dodgy story about counterfeit money being hidden in live cattle horns. It also has a little bit too much dialogue about past rope tricks with Susan ...

Verdict: Certainly a hit, with readable story lines, but by the end I was getting a bit Border Patroled out.

[crashryan]

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