Billy the Kid Western Annual [1955]

[1954] Annual. Original price 5/.
96 pages. Tone art contents.
World Distributors (Manchester) Ltd.

Painted cover by Walt Howarth (uncredited)

Contents:

 2 UNTITLED endpaper (items found in the West); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

 4 Indicia

 5 Billy the Kid Western Annual title page; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

 6 Contents illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

 7 The Battle of Coyote Pass text story by Jeff Delmar; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

16 Death Travels Northward! w: UNKNOWN (uncredited); a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: Billy the Kid Adventure Magazine (Toby Press) #19 (Nov 1953).

27 Ghost Town Gold text story by Zachary Farland; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

38 Stagecoach Blow-Up! w: UNKNOWN (uncredited); a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: Billy the Kid Adventure Magazine (Toby Press) #19 (Nov 1953).

46 The Cactus Kid text story by Alton Boyd; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

53 Dry-Gulch Terror! w: UNKNOWN (uncredited); a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: Billy the Kid Adventure Magazine (Toby Press) #19 (Nov 1953).

60 The Phantom Ranger text story by Jesse Allard; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

76 "Billy the Kid - Avenger!" w: UNKNOWN (uncredited); a: Howard Larsen (uncredited).

r: Badmen of the West (Magazine Enterprises) #02 (1954).

83 Walk of the Tribes text story by Cal Gundon; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

94 UNTITLED endpaper (items found in the West); illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

While it isn't clear what the purpose of such an elaborate endpaper is (to locate the items throughout the annual, perhaps), it is nevertheless a treat to see such care taken with the presentation. There seem to be a few shortcuts taken, especially with the Derringer, and the Texas Longhorn appears rather stiff, though these small concessions to style are appreciated.

Ted Barlow and Pete Maxton, scouts for a wagon team, spot signs of Sioux in the hills. Riding back to the wagons, they relay their sighting to Dan Danvers, the train boss, though the threat is discounted - a lone hunter rather than an advance for a war party. When two of the other scouts, Bull Carson and Jud Bentham, dismiss any possible threat from the Sioux, Ted decides to uncover why the men are lying to Dan, and what they have to gain from doing so.

Told in a very simple style, The Battle of Coyote Pass isn't the type of tale which immediately comes to mind when Billy the Kid is concerned, but gets across an adequate sense of the era. It is, however, a story which has serious problems, not least of which is the inclusion of sound effects - what is fine for a Bugs Bunny story is, here, completely off-putting and intrusive. The theme of treachery and betrayal somehow work for in annual's favour, and as it is a brief excursion there isn't much to gripe about.

North or South... there's never been a faster drawing sidewinder than Death! When folks heard that that bony owlhoot was coming, they'd take to the hills! Everybody agreed there was no stopping him... But Death's path crossed Billy 'the Kid'

Forget Billy the Kid Versus Dracula, this comic strip has him facing the grim reaper himself - Death. And thirteen years prior to that film, no less. Okay, so it is merely a bandit with a skull mask, but acknowledging this fact so early in the narrative (on the second page, for shame) robs the story of some of the horror potential inherent in the strip. What's the deal with explaining away everything that touches on the macabre?

Death shoots Tom, a youngster who wished to ride with Billy, and with his dying breath Tom reveals the identity of his murderer to the gunman. Billy digs a shallow grave for the boy, and a passing Federal Marshal, Jim Maxwell, tells Billy that Death has been operating just north of the Rio Grande, working his way northwards, killing and robbing all the way. Maxwell has managed to narrow the suspect pool for the killings to three men:

First one's Art Diamond... Mebbe yuh've heard of him. He's a big gambling man. Diamond's as fast with a six-shooter as he is with a poker deck, whenever thuh need 'rises.

Second one's Luke Gant. Luke's a wolf-poisoner. Travels from ranch to ranch hirin' hisself out to ranchers troubled by wolves. Gant has special poisons.

Third one's Doc Cockrell... He sells patent medicine. Doc's a walkin' dictionary... Keep cloudin' thuh sky with high-falutin' yappin' till folks buy what he's sellin', just to clear thuh air...

Why a Federal Marshal would tell all this to a perfect stranger, who has just buried a body in the desert, is a whole other question. Billy vows to track down Tom's killer, though refuses to ride with the Marshal as he hasn't always seen eye to eye with the law.

A week later, one hundred and twenty miles north of Tom's grave, Billy finds Art Diamond, taking him with him to talk about the murder. Riding through the desert, Art sees the glint of a barrel, pushing Billy out of the way of a sniper's round - and takes the bullet himself.

Three weeks later, and one hundred and twenty-five miles north of Art Diamond's grave, Billy watches Gant as he works. Noting that Gant rides a black horse, just like Death, he believes he has found the killer - only to discover Gant dead when he gets near. Riding on to Yellowstone Country, Billy closes in on Doc Cockrell, his final suspect. As he walks to Doc's wagon, a shot rings out, and Billy falls to the ground with a flesh wound. Death approaches, and reveals his identity... Joe Laredo. Having killed the real Maxwell, Laredo has been posing as both a lawman and Death.

There are multiple problems with this strip, having too easy a central puzzle to carry the narrative through - added to which are two unlikely suspects, unlikely threats, and the single dumbest criminal to ever wear a skull mask in the old west. There are, for those interested, quite a few similar skull-faced Western characters in American comics, and, for those keeping score, the character of Death predates Ghost Rider by fourteen years.

Stagecoach Blow-Up! begins with, naturally enough, an exploding stagecoach - which has the word "boom" placed over the explosion, in case readers imagined some silent explosive to have been utilised in the deed. I really dislike clumsily-handled sound-effects, and this is one of the least polished uses of the kind. Billy the Kid, for reasons not explained, was travelling on the stagecoach, and is knocked unconscious by the blast - the sole survivor of the thieves responsible.

Billy finds a cigarette case with a stamp for tailor-made cigarettes, then sets out to track a horse which survived the assault and bolted from the scene. He finds the horse, and after calming it down, rides into Ponca City - where the robbers are waiting - to inform the Sheriff of events. A slight improvement, yet there's a lingering sense of hurriedness to the telling, as if the script was rushed, with some jarring cuts from one panel to the next sitting uneasily beside more measured storytelling.

Dry-Gulch Terror! is a fantastic title, which ought to be aligned with an appropriately tense story. Unfortunately, despite a terrific set-up, this isn't a story worthy of its name - after the train he is riding on is robbed, Billy assists Ed Randall, shot in the exchange, to Dry-Gulch so his bullet wound can be attended. After ensuring Randall gets to Dr. Prince in one piece, the Sheriff draws on Billy, though is overpowered before he can shoot Billy in cold blood, or locked up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Learning that the Sheriff is behind a crimewave, Billy sets out to thwart the man's criminal empire. Overhearing the Sheriff's plan to strike the assay office, he prepares to take down the men in one fell swoop.

And things are wrapped up so clean and neat that there is no question as to Billy the Kid's sense of morality, his personal motivations, or even his ambitions. Where spaghetti westerns would have twisted and tormented a character put into the position Billy is given here, there isn't a pause in the telling where possible repercussions are laid out, nor are recriminations from unseen associates of the corrupt lawman offered. There is a lot of potential, but there's not enough room to exploit such a delicious notion as a wanted criminal taking down a sheriff.

The Phantom Ranger might have been an attempt to provide quasi-superhero adventures in the west, though neither the name nor the story holds much appeal beyond spot-the-inspiration games. A rather unimpressive outing for a character whose appeal isn't immediately obvious, and the square-awed heroics wear out their welcome far too soon. There's simply far too many heroic western characters to immediately work a new figure up to the status of the big names in a single short story, and as much as I appreciate something different being attempted, it doesn't work for me.

This is the story of a private war - a war that forms the backdrop against which the gunman-killer the West knows as Billy the Kid first came to prominence! A war that takes its place in the South-West as one of the grimmest tales of death and killing ever written by roaring Colt .45s! It has been dug from old letters, from an old bible, from the dying whispers of men hired to kill!

It is the personal war of-

"Billy the Kid - Avenger!"

Seven pages is far from adequate to cover the Lincoln County War, and there are many instances where I know that things have been shortened, altered, or cut entirely - without even glancing in the direction of half a dozen accounts of the conflict which cover events comprehensively. If there was ever a crying need for an illustrated version of events, then the complete story of the rise of Billy the Kid, drawing on all the myriad published accounts, is right up there. The classics have, by and large, been mined for most of their worth, yet true-life stories are painfully absent.

Go ahead - try to name a work of considerable length which recounts Billy the Kid's story without embellishments.

While this annual has to be appreciated in light of its age, and the climate in which it was published, it is nevertheless a disappointing collection of material. Yes, the cover is wonderful, but it is also the best part of the annual - there is nothing within its pages crafted to the same level of care and attention.

[1954]

Billy the Kid
Western Annual

[1956]