More Lone Ranger Covers
Here are two covers from the Dell Comics run that I especially like. Though created with different media, both have a nice pulpy feel.
Unlike the later Clayton Moore photo covers, each of these features Tonto and the Lone Ranger together. Top to bottom, they are numbers 24 and 39.
Lone Ranger Covers
Here are the covers from those Lone Ranger comics I wrote about yesterday.
Note that No. 14 sports the King Features Syndicate logo. The cover is essentially an enlarged comic strip panel, pencils and inks probably by Charles Flanders.
The dramatic painting that adorns No. 108 is more difficult to credit. It’s sunset, the Ranger has both guns ready, and the town is literally ablaze. Interior art is by Tom Gill.
The Lone Ranger at Dell
A couple of great Lone Ranger posts over at David Cranmer’s blog (here and here) rekindled my own interest in the legendary masked hero, so for a quick fix I dug into my long box of comic book westerns.
Already a star of radio (1933), motion picture serials (1938) and newspaper comic strips (1938), he came sorta late to a regular comic book series. Appearing sporadically in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s (Large Feature Comic, Dell Four Color), The Lone Ranger finally settled down in 1948 to a healthy run of 145 issues from Dell, a span of nearly 15 years that roughly coincides with the 1949-1957 television series.
One of the earliest Lone Ranger comics I have is No. 14, which like all issues until No. 37 is a paste up reprint of the newspaper comic strip, sporting cartoonish, but no less exciting, cover art. The Ranger and Tonto appear in two feature length stories, both possibly written by the characters’ original creator, Fran Striker.
“The Lone Ranger and the School Teacher Sheriff” brings us into the troubled town of Elmtown, Texas, a lawless place that needs a real “town-tamer.”
They also need a school teacher.
Two men come to town around the same time looking for work, and well…this being a pretty light-hearted tale, you might guess that identities are mistaken, the gunslinger becomes a teacher, the teacher becomes a sheriff, hilarity ensues.
You know the routine.
Enjoyable enough, this first piece features too many talking heads, so the follow up story, “The Lone Ranger and the Redskin Ambush” with finely detailed panels packed with action (panel above), is a real treat. A “thousand Indians” wait in the forest to ambush General Carter and his men, and only the Lone Ranger and Tonto stand in their way.
That’s it, and in this case, it’s all you need.
The second issue I pulled was No. 108, June 1957, featuring one of the last painted covers. The prolific and incomparable Paul S. Newman was scripting the series (he later co-created Doctor Solar for Gold Key/Western), but the influence of the TV show and impending Comics Code was heavily in evidence. The Ranger, dressed in blue shirt and those odd blue trousers is drawn to resemble Clayton Moore, gun play is employed only to knock a villain’s hand from his own weapon or deflect a throwing knife in mid-flight, and all the familiar conventions are firmly in place (panel right).
Again two stories are offered, “Hostages of The Crows” and “The Lawless Gold Town,” but they somehow lack the charm of the earlier stories.
It’s interesting to note that in September of that year, the TV show was cancelled and its star moved to the cover of the comic. With issue No. 111, and until the end of the Dell Comics run, Clayton Moore appeared in a series of photo covers that were pretty dramatic and well imagined for the times.
A Conversation With Laurie Powers, Part Two
MB: How has your life changed with the publication of Pulp Writer?
LP: Well, the best part is that is has opened up a whole new world of people for me, like those people that I’ve met through the marketing of Pulp Writer and through online groups like Pulp Mags, Western Pulps and Black Horse Westerns, which was the one that started it all for me (thanks to Matt Mayo who introduced me). Unfortunately the income from the book has been miniscule. But that’s the way of the book world right now I guess.
MB: Along with westerns, what genres do you read? What other pulps are you interested in?
LP: For pulps, I am beginning to read more of the detective pulps. This summer I bought my first issues of Black Mask and I’m trying to collect more anthologies. I’m also interested in the romance pulps, mainly because I’m interested in the life of Daisy Bacon, the editor of Love Story Magazine. As far as other reads, I enjoy all types of genres, as well as classics and memoirs, and a history book now and then.
MB: What can you tell us about your experience with horses?
LP: It’s a long history that started when I was ten and living in England. I started to take riding lessons there and was never the same. But I really didn’t start riding seriously until I was in my twenties; my family couldn’t afford lessons when I was growing up, much less a horse. I started riding and showing in my twenties and really didn’t stop until just a few years ago, when time and finances put a stop to that.
MB: You’ve written on your blog about female pulp writers. You’ve also written a wonderful series about movies shot in the Santa Clarita valley. Is there potential in either topic for a new book?
LP: I’m interested in pursuing something about Daisy Bacon, who was an editor, but again, the data is so sparse, it’s hard to say. The movies in Santa Clarita Valley series has been fun, but really, I’d have to devote a lot more time and research in order to do a respectable book. We’ll see.
MB: What are you working on currently?
LP: Right now, I’m trying to see which direction to go. I’ve been so busy lately with blog stuff that I haven’t had time to blink. But I can see that working on getting this collection of his stories out there is paramount. Other than that, I’m looking at how I can write about Daisy Bacon and also maybe some memoir writing is in my future. I’m going to England the end of February and hope to get some creative juices going while I’m there.
MB: Your blog, Laurie’s Wild West, has rapidly become one of my favorite stops on the web, thanks to a unique diversity of content and your upbeat writing style. How do you approach it each day?
LP: By the seat of my pants! I have no plans except I try to mix it up so I don’t go stale and the readers don’t get bored. I have so many different interests and my readers are the same, so it behooves me to give everything equal time.
I found it striking that you commented on my ‘upbeat’ writing style. Over the past several months I’ve noticed how I tend to interject more and more humor into my writing. But in real life, I’m relatively quiet and tend to be too serious. Really. I guess I’m like my grandfather that way, who outwardly was on the intense side but could be very funny in his stories. He was also a joke writer before he was a fiction writer.
MB: What are the pros and cons of blogging?
LP: The pros are meeting other bloggers like you who become friends. I also learn so much from reading other people’s blogs. In addition, writing a blog is good practice for other writing: it can loosen up blocks and the positive reinforcement you get from comments really helps a lot. The only con I can think of is an obvious one: how much of a time hog it can be.
MB: Having studied the pulp years and your grandfather’s career, what are the major differences between being a professional writer in the 1930s and the 2010s?
LP: There’s still much of the same as far as the challenges in writing a good story, overcoming your own demons that keep you from writing, and the lack of good money in writing. But I think the internet has helped a great deal when it comes to bringing writers together, which cuts down on the isolation. In addition, there is the computer factor itself – nowadays you can correct as you go. Pulp writers never had that luxury in the 1930s.