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[The Australian Panther]

It's now 11:30 am on Monday here in the Southern Hemisphere. So here is my post.
It's become clear to me during my time with CB+ that I am drawn to the art in comics possibly more than any other element.

So I chose these three as a selection of Golden Age artists. 

The Hawk 12 - St John
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=19069

Masked Raider # 1 Charlton
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=18157

Steve Donovan Western Marshall
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=34869

Happy reading.

[SuperScrounge]

Four Color #675 (Steve Donovan Western Marshall) was a pick in Week 271.

[The Australian Panther]

I think that is long enough ago. I'll let it stand.
cheers!

[SuperScrounge]

Okay.

Four Color #675 - Steve Donovan Western Marshall

Okay story and art.

I assume the shooting the guns out of hands rather than shooting to kill was a Steve Donovan show thing the writer duplicated. Hmmm... all those bullets flying around and the only thing killed in the story was a dog??? Okayyyyyyyy...

[bowers]

 SuperScrounge, Donovan was not the only one with this type of magical pistol. In the movies and his series, Roy Rogers also had one. To the best of my knowledge, he only shot the pistol out the hands of anyone he ever aimed at! Western heroes in the 40's, 50's and very early 60's were almost sacred icons in American culture and, on TV or in the comics, only rarely did they actually kill anybody. Usually, the bad guy would meet his end by slipping off a cliff, getting hit by a falling tree, getting blown up by the dynamite they planted, run over by a stampede, etc. Strangely enough, these endings were all perfectly acceptable to the censors of the time! Movies were, of course, a different matter. Cheers, bowers

[The Australian Panther]

Quite apart from Westerns, I've been watching a lot of 1940s-50s Noir and Detective movies on YouTube.
Whenever someone does get shot, they do a lot of groaning, writhing on the ground and falling spectacularly but there  is never a bullet-hole on the body and certainly never blood. Occasionally a 'powder burn' on the body.
I don't remember ever seeing a Hollywood movie where they realistically show what a bullet does to a body. 
Understandably.         

[SuperScrounge]

Usually, the bad guy would meet his end by slipping off a cliff, getting hit by a falling tree, getting blown up by the dynamite they planted, run over by a stampede, etc. Strangely enough, these endings were all perfectly acceptable to the censors of the time!

Well, in some cases a non-lawman hero killing the bad guy could be seen as promoting vigilantism, whereas a villain getting hoist by his own petard, or stopped/killed by an act of god, is not something that the viewer could duplicate.

Whenever someone does get shot, they do a lot of groaning, writhing on the ground and falling spectacularly but there  is never a bullet-hole on the body and certainly never blood. Occasionally a 'powder burn' on the body.

Well, it is cheaper.  Just an actor pantomiming the effects of being shot saves the filmmakers from bringing in some special effects and/or makeup men to add the effects of a real bullet. Also it doesn't risk potentially offending the home viewer with a 'gory' scene.

Oddly enough the one time I remember a 1960s TV show putting a blood effect on an actor's shirt was Star Trek. In, I believe, A Private Little War, Spock is shot with a bullet and afterwards he is wearing a shirt with green blood added to it. I suspect the fact that Vulcans have green blood, instead of red, is why they took the chance of showing blood on the shirt at all.

[Quirky Quokka]

Quite apart from Westerns, I've been watching a lot of 1940s-50s Noir and Detective movies on YouTube.
Whenever someone does get shot, they do a lot of groaning, writhing on the ground and falling spectacularly but there  is never a bullet-hole on the body and certainly never blood. Occasionally a 'powder burn' on the body.
I don't remember ever seeing a Hollywood movie where they realistically show what a bullet does to a body. 
Understandably.         

We've got a fairly big collection of classic Noir DVDs, and we often comment on the lack of any kind of damage such as a bullet hole or blood. But in a way, I prefer that to the more gory effects in some of the more modern TV shows and movies. I had to close my eyes for part of the beach scene in 'Saving Private Ryan' and I don't even attempt to watch ones that I know in advance will be gory. More realism doesn't always make for a better movie. Though a little tomato sauce on the shirt would help from time to time 

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

I'm reading these out of order this time, as the second one drew my interest in my initial flick through.

Masked Raider #1

I liked the realistic art on the cover, though the eagle would probably swoop down rather than come in horizontally at head height. But then, I've never been that close to an eagle 

I'll look at the three Masked Raider stories first, as they help explain the background.

Masked Raider Story 1 - Masked Raider and 'Talon' the Golden Eagle

The art is generally good, though the pose in the very first half-page panel didn't look right to me. He looks a bit pigeon-toed to me with his left knee pointing in a different direction than his left toes. Though maybe I'm reading the fabric folds incorrectly.

So Polly wishes Les would be a bit less 'dudish', at least for his Dad's sake. I guess dude had a different connotation then. Perhaps some of our American friends can help me out.

I did like seeing a feisty woman do what none of the men seemed willing to do, but the Masked Raider popped up in time to save the day.

The idea of an eagle as a sidekick was original, though I had to smile at the idea of an eagle deciphering drawings of stick figures. However, the next story fills in a bit more detail about how the relationship between the Masked Raider and Talon developed.

Masked Raider Story 2 - The Boy and the Eagle


This filled in some of the detail we didn't know from the first story, providing more of an origin story. I know very little about eagles, so I don't know if they can develop a bond with people, though this story gives a reasonable explanation of how that could happen, at least in the world of comic books.

Masked Raider Story 3 - The Sentinel

Talon is really the star of this one, as he spots the murder and alerts Les/the Masked Raider. In the first two stories, I did wonder why the father was so disappointed in Les and why Les didn't just tell his father that he was also the Masked Raider. Surely then his father would have been proud of him. But this story gives a bit more of the background to that and also shows that the father still loves his son even though he turned out differently to his father's expectations.

Now for the other features.

Flying Eagle

The name is in keeping with the eagle theme. I liked seeing a First Nations man as a hero, though he was pretty westernised in his speech ('Gosh, that rider appears to be in an awful hurry to get somewhere!'). Also, I can understand him wanting to see justice done by taking down the swindler, but would he be that keen to help two 'good' prospectors who probably found the gold on Indian land? Oh well. At least he was a good guy.

Some of the art was good, but the proportions seemed out on some of the head shots (e.g., the head and neck of the prospector on the right of the first panel and the guy in the yellow hat on the next page).

Slim-Jim and Roly-Poly

Light-hearted, but the humour is a bit lame.

Cowboy Hats

Will come in handy if I ever want to mould a straw hat.  By the way, I think of a straw hat as being pretty light weight. Wouldn't it be easy to blow off when riding a horse? But maybe it's a tougher kind of straw than what I'm thinking. I come from Akubra country.

https://akubra.com.au/

Pistol Packing Pattie

Pattie's advice still rings true today. It's easy to blame others for your own lack of success or misfortune, but sometimes the problem is with us. A shame this was only one page. I would have liked to see Pattie in a full story.

Overall - An interesting mix of stories. I must admit I'm not a huge fan of westerns, but these ones showed promise.

Cheers

QQ

[bowers]

 Interesting comments, QQ. I'll read that one next.

I decided to start with The Hawk no12, and it starts with a very good cover by Baker. This issue seems to be missing the title character, Marshall Bob Hardy (The Hawk). He appears to have been replaced by The Bold Buckeroo in his first (and last) appearance. Not a very interesting character, certainly not good enough to be the lead off story. Art by Tuska was adequate. His other story was about the same.

The Buckskin Belle featured some fast action and fun art by Tex Blaisdell. I particulatly liked his rendering of the facial expressions on the characters. You can tell he was a strip artist by the way he sometimes crammed as much as he could into a single panel!

Mustang Jack was my favorite. Battlefield's drawings conveyed action and a playful use of perspective to give us some rather odd (but fun!) panels, including one with nothing but feet! I found the art and writing in this tale to be probably the best in this issue, the last of the title. Also a bit strange to have the text story as the last feature in the book.

Ziff-Davis published the first three issues of this title and St. John later finished the run, sometimes using reprints from the Z-D issues. If you look at the overall body of work, you will see this mag had some excellent artists. These included Murphy Anderson, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert, and Carmine Infantino, as well as strip artists bob Lubbers and Dan Barry.  Cheers, bowers

[The Australian Panther]

QQ said,

I would have liked to see Pattie in a full story 

I liked Pistol packing Pattie too and there are other stories in the other issues. They are all short tho. 
Bowers said,

this mag had some excellent artists. These included Murphy Anderson, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert, and Carmine Infantino, as well as strip artists bob Lubbers and Dan Barry. 

That's what interested me in the series in the first place.

[SuperScrounge]

The Hawk #12

The Bold Buckaroo
Soooooo... the Bold Buckaroo will prove his innocence  after letting the crook fall to his death? Oh, sure Rusty will testify that Jake killed Chuck, because who wouldn't believe the known sidekick of a man accused of a crime?

Buckskin Belle
What a bunch of wimpy ranch hands. Not what you'd expect from the Old West where men were expected to be tough. Must be a low testosterone region of the West. 

Mustang Jack
Well, I suppose a 'dead man' testifying that you were set-up is a novel defense. 

Dude's Dictionary
Finally, something in this issue where I don't have a problem with the writing. 

Jack Dalton
40 years of courtship? Talk about indecision.

The Bold Buckaroo 2 (Electric Boogaloo)
Did the writers have a chart of these convoluted plots or did they just make it up as they went along. My money's on the latter.

Thirty Yards To Justice
Okay text story.

Judy and Jim Defy Savage Gorilla!
So was it Judy or Jim who were trying to prove their innocence? Or was the gorilla innocent all along?!? 

[crashryan]

He appears to have been replaced by The Bold Buckeroo in his first (and last) appearance.

For what it's worth, "The Bold Buckeroo" is a retouched reprint from Chesler's Red Seal Comics. In the original Tim Rollins, The Bold Buckeroo, was Jim Collins, The Gay Desperado. His sidekick Rusty was named Patsy(!). The Buckeroo had earlier (1949) appeared in St John's The Texan. On the cover of the first issue he's misidentified as The Gay Buckeroo.

Here's the source of The Hawk #12's Buckeroo / Desperado story (starts on page 9).

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=71315

You'll notice one change right off the bat: in the original splash page, the Desperado has a noose around his neck! It's funny that while St John removed the nooses, they let stand other code violations, like mentioning dope and showing a bloody bullet hole in a crook's hand.

By the way, this is the only time I've seen "buckaroo" spelt with an "e." Online sources say the term developed from the Spanish vaquero. Officially it refers to "a working cowboy who generally does not participate in rodeos."

[bowers]

Crash, I was wondering about that spelling... Cheers, bowers

[SuperScrounge]

Masked Raider #1

The Masked Raider and Talon the Golden Eagle
Okay, but nothing special. No reason given why the hero has a double identity, or how he and Talon came to work together (seems like it would have taken some time to train Talon). Bad Mike Galt is a terrible name. If he'd had a cooler sounding name he might have survived. I wonder if this started off as an idea for DC's Johnny Thunder series and was rewritten after being rejected?

Flying Eagle
And this one makes me think of the Flash. Although I imagine a rejected Flash script would have had more superspeed stunts (and Flash had ended a few years earlier.)

The Boy and the Eagle
Well, at least this explains the Talon part of the backstory.

Slim Jim and Roly-Poly
Eh. Didn't care about either character so them becoming friends again just doesn't matter to me.

The Prince Albert Kid
Okay.

The Sentinel
Does the Masked Raider alter his voice so no one recognizes him?

Cowboy Hats
Something I watched or read recently mentioned that the ten gallon hat wasn't actually worn in the old west and is more of movie cowboy hat, I think the derby hat was actually the most common in the Old West.

Pistol Packing Pattie
I liked the more serious beginning, but felt let down by the jokey ending. It wasn't terrible, but it didn't seem to mesh well for me.

[SuperScrounge]

So Polly wishes Les would be a bit less 'dudish', at least for his Dad's sake. I guess dude had a different connotation then. Perhaps some of our American friends can help me out.

I grew up thinking "Dude" was an insult as it was used by western he-men to describe those wimpy, city-bred 'men' who visited the west and tried to ride horses.  "That damned dude thinks he can ride a hoss."

Although if someone pronounces it with a California surfer-type accent, I don't automatically assume it's an insult. ;-) "Like cowabunga, doooood!"

[Quirky Quokka]

So Polly wishes Les would be a bit less 'dudish', at least for his Dad's sake. I guess dude had a different connotation then. Perhaps some of our American friends can help me out.

I grew up thinking "Dude" was an insult as it was used by western he-men to describe those wimpy, city-bred 'men' who visited the west and tried to ride horses.  "That damned dude thinks he can ride a hoss."

Although if someone pronounces it with a California surfer-type accent, I don't automatically assume it's an insult. ;-) "Like cowabunga, doooood!"

Thanks SuperScrounge. In Australia today, I wouldn't think of 'dude' as a negative, so we probably adopted the Cowabunga surfer dude vibes from all those American TV shows we watch. And the American dude ranches are probably like the Aussie and New Zealand farm stays. (I did like the original City Slickers movie with Billy Crystal).

https://www.farmstayplanet.com/farm-stay-rural-travel-guides/australia/

So come on Downunder for the perfect dude experience 

Cheers

QQ

[Morgus]

I always thought the Cisco Kid was a brilliant solution to all the censorship rules you had with guns going off in westerns. Since there were so many rules about what could and could not be hit by bullets, Cisco didn’t USE guns and had to figure out alternative methods to solve crime.

Hey Super, I loved that line about ‘was the gorilla innocent all along?” Don't know WHY but it cracked me up! And I always thought the same way you did about ‘dude’. Crash, way cool info on buckaroo. One of the reasons I keep coming back is I learn gnarly cool stuff like that.

Nice selections Panther. Baker cover art and Tuska on the inside with journey man westerns to fill up the rest. I probably read a hundred of these comics when I was 6 or 7 and could have read a hundred more.

[Quirky Quokka]

He appears to have been replaced by The Bold Buckeroo in his first (and last) appearance.

For what it's worth, "The Bold Buckeroo" is a retouched reprint from Chesler's Red Seal Comics. In the original Tim Rollins, The Bold Buckeroo, was Jim Collins, The Gay Desperado. His sidekick Rusty was named Patsy(!). The Buckeroo had earlier (1949) appeared in St John's The Texan. On the cover of the first issue he's misidentified as The Gay Buckeroo.

Crash, that's interesting that Rusty used to be Patsy. When I first looked at that story, I thought the artist was clearly depicting Rusty as a girl. But I got confused later when they seemed to refer to Rusty as 'he'. So is that a hangover from the earlier version?

Cheers

QQ

[crashryan]

When I first looked at that story, I thought the artist was clearly depicting Rusty as a girl. But I got confused later when they seemed to refer to Rusty as 'he'.

I can understand you thinking Patsy as drawn by Tuska is a girl. However in the stories the captions refer to the character as "he." The Desperado's first appearance (Punch Comics #13) was drawn by Paul Gattuso. Gattuso drew Patsy more obviously as a boy. No explanation was ever given as to how a boy came to be named "Patsy." This opens up a salacious conspiracy theory: Patsy was indeed a girl but the Depsperado disguised her as a boy to avoid accusations of hanky-panky. Not that it helped Batman and Robin, but, you know...

[SuperScrounge]

Hey Super, I loved that line about ‘was the gorilla innocent all along?” Don't know WHY but it cracked me up!

Glad you liked it. 

It just popped into my head after I wrote the line about Judy & Jim and I liked the way it just upped the absurdity of my joke.

[Quirky Quokka]

When I first looked at that story, I thought the artist was clearly depicting Rusty as a girl. But I got confused later when they seemed to refer to Rusty as 'he'.

I can understand you thinking Patsy as drawn by Tuska is a girl. However in the stories the captions refer to the character as "he." The Desperado's first appearance (Punch Comics #13) was drawn by Paul Gattuso. Gattuso drew Patsy more obviously as a boy. No explanation was ever given as to how a boy came to be named "Patsy." This opens up a salacious conspiracy theory: Patsy was indeed a girl but the Depsperado disguised her as a boy to avoid accusations of hanky-panky. Not that it helped Batman and Robin, but, you know...

Thanks Crash. Ah, the plot thickens. That's going to keep me up at night 

Cheers

QQ

[Robb_K]

The Hawk 12

(1) The Bold Buckaroo - Drawn by George Tuska
This story was drawn very well, and the plot of an innocent cowpoke being framed for a murder which the framer actually committed himself is also quite good.  Unfortunately 5 pages plus a large splash panel, is far too little space to show all the main action to show all story elements that would expose the reader to the emotions he or she should feel seeing the problem resolved.  We only see a small slice of the whole story.  We don't get to see the hero vindicated, and whether or not he is legally found innocent of the murder, and if he gets his stolen ranch back or it is auctioned off or awarded to the deceased murderer's closest relative.

(2) Buckskin Belle - Drawn by Tex Blaisdell
The artwork on this story is adequate, although not as good as Tuska's.  The plot, of the daughter of a murdered rancher continuing to run the ranch, with most of the ranch hands leaving in fear of the ever-present cattle rustlers, and with the help of only her foreman and her young brother is good enough, if a bit tough to believe.  And Belle is a better shot than Annie Oakley, while the rustlers can't hit the broad side of a barn.  The Dude, dressed like The Cisco Kid, turns out to be a villain, spy for the rustlers (which is not obvious, as he could also have seen that Belle needed help badly, and would help her, instead.  So, their was a little suspense, until a couple panels later, he nonchalantly plays his guitar while rustlers are shooting to stampede Belle's cattle, and rides away from the ranch while Belle notices the rustlers.  This story had a little more room for action, but also seemed to be cut off short.

(3) Mustang Jack - Drawn by Ken Battefield
Innocent heroes being framed for murder seems to be a popular Western theme. Battefield's artwork is very good, but I don't like the unnatural colouring in this story. This story, like the others in this book, has another abrupt ending that seemed too easy.  These aren't really "stories" to me, but rather, a couple scenes which imply what happened before, and attempt to imply what will happen after.  A tiny slice of "Western life and action", instead of viewing an entire "story".


(4) Dude's Dictionary
I'd rather have had them use this page to add to, and beef up the 6-page "story".  The artwork isn't all that good or funny-looking, and the jokes comparing each idiom to the literal meaning of its words weren't very clever or funny.  The are fare for 5-6 year olds.

(5) Jack Dalton - Drawn by R.H. Livingston
40 years of courtship is, indeed a long time.  Most women wouldn't stick with that situation anywhere near that long (the prison term aside). I didn't know that one of the Dalton Brothers' gang reformed, married his captor after his release from prison, and became a "model citizen".

(6) Graveyard Gulch - The Ongoing Story of The Bold Buckaroo - Drawn by George Tuska
Back to the hero from the first 'story" trying to find out who framed him, and why he is being framed.  A drug ring tries to pin their own murders on Buckaroo. The ending is unexpected, and a bit confusing.  The Sheriff tells Buckaroo that his "evidence' doesn't exactly clear him from the murder, and Buckaroo should accompany him back to his town.  Yet Buckaroo and his sidekick, Rusty don't go with him, and the sheriff just waves goodbye.  Buckaroo tells Rusty they will slip away before rounding the bend of the road.  That will buy him time to get the "evidence" needed to prove his innocence. like the first story, the artwork by Tuska is quite good.

Overall Assessment
This wasn't very enjoyable for me.  All the so-called 'stories' had decent plot ideas, but were way too short to provide the proper building of background, show enough of the events, and provide the proper pacing to build up suspense and have a satisfying resolution and epilogue. 

[Quirky Quokka]

Steve Donovan, Western Marshall

I wasn't familiar with this TV series, so I looked it up and found that it only went for one season in 1955-1956. I assume the story might be one that they did in the TV show? If so, they may have been using some of the stills from the show for inspiration?

In any case, it was good that it was a full-length story. It gave time for the situation to develop. It was good that they had a blurb at the beginning to explain the role of the Western Marshal. Though being an Aussie, I still wasn't sure how the marshal differed from the sheriff. I thought it might be that the sheriff is based in a town, whereas the marshal covers wider areas to bring in the bad guys and hand over to the sheriff? I looked it up and I wasn't too far off. The marshal is hired at the federal level, but it would have been nice to explain that if they're giving an explanation at all.

The art was very good. The greyhounds on p. 1 didn't look like greyhounds, but the rest was very realistic. I especially liked the artist's use of different perspectives and angles; for example, the close-up of the gun falling from the baddie's hand as the marshal shoots in the middle ground (p. 2 of story), the overhead angle from the position of the lamp (p. 3) and the close-up of the horse from nostrils down with the other action in the middle and background (p. 4).

I did wonder why we suddenly have one black-and white page second from the end. Maybe that was the wrap-around page that matched the introductory blurb about the TV show.

A good pick, Panther, especially for the art.

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

The Hawk

Really great cover art on this one. Very realistic, with attention to detail, such as the facial expression of the man on the floor. Even though he'd gagged, there's plenty in his eyes to show his fear.

The ad for the miniature dog grabbed me right away. He looked so sad, I had to read on. The blurb says he's 'real', he'll still fit in your pocket when he's fully grown, you can teach it tricks etc. But it can't possibly be a real dog, can it? It must be a toy. But there's no mention of it being a toy. I wonder how many kids sent away for their miniature dog and then received a disappointing toy?  Please tell me I'm right and that this woman was not shipping dogs across the US? Sometimes the ads are more gripping than the stories 

The art was quite good, though as I mentioned before, Rusty looked like a girl but was referred to as 'he'. (Crashryan has already replied to my comment on that point). It was good to see a whole story on the gun-toting Buckskin Belle, perhaps modelled on Annie Oakley or Calamity Jane. Though the one-page Jack Dalton bio did have a real-life heroine in 'Cattle Annie' who single-handedly captured Jack Dalton and his gang, then married Jack after 40 years of courtship. Now that would have made an interesting story.

Cheers

QQ