Billy the Kid Western Annual [1957]

[1955] Annual. Original price 6/.
96 pages. Colour & tone art contents.
World Distributors (Manchester) Ltd.

Painted cover by Walt Howarth (uncredited)

Contents:

 2 Fighting Men of the West endpaper; 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 Stagecoach Showdown text story by Duke Manton; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

21 Billy the Kid The Range Battle w: UNKNOWN (uncredited); a: UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

29 Railroaded! text story by Frank L. Lester; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

39 Billy the Kid Ordeal by Fire w: UNKNOWN (uncredited); UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

47 The Secret of Rancho Randall text story by J.L. Morrissey; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

63 The Durango Kid Whole Town Gone Loco! w: Gardner Fox (uncredited); a: Fred Guardineer (uncredited).

r: Charles Starrett as the Durango Kid (Magazine Enterprises) #39 (Jun 1955 - Jul 1955).

71 Rustlers Round-Up text story by Zed Montana; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

83 Billy the Kid "Six Gun Fandango!" w: UNKNOWN (uncredited); UNKNOWN (uncredited).

r: UNKNOWN.

75 Black Bart's Big Plot! text story by Jay Masterson; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

94 UNTITLED endpaper; illustrated by UNKNOWN (uncredited).

Billy the Kid had a long-standing score to settle, and it looked like he was using the overland stage route to settle it.

The annual opens with a text story which, wonderfully, actually features Billy the Kid. Not that I don't appreciate the stand-alone western stories, but tying the contents to the character is what the title should have been doing all along - although it takes its sweet time getting going. Appealing to the wish-fulfillment of readers, the story opens with Bob Britton and Tom Lawless staying in Arizona, though hailing from Langdale School in Berkshire.

The tone of the story is, sadly, very British. Those familiar with earlier boys' papers will find parallels in the text.

A tall black horse with magnificently-tooled saddle and bridle was tethered against a tree. On his heels beside the stream was a man. He was not big, nor was he very old. In fact, in some ways he looked little more than a boy.
   But as the chums rode up he raised his head and the eyes which looked out of the lean, tanned face were just about the coolest eyes the chums had ever seen.
   He was maybe twenty years old, very slimly built and his lithe body gave an odd impression of tremendous power - almost like an animal. He was dressed entirely in black and his hair rode thickly down to the back of his neck.
   The chums came to a standstill. Bob was the first to speak. "Er ... good morning ..."

It is no bad thing for culture clashes to inform narrative, as this can lead to otherwise unspoken revelations being voiced, but it is handled so politely, with so proper and cultured characters, that there is no sense of the youths relaxing into the landscape they find themselves in.

A lot of rustling went on West of the Pecos, and the most vicious gang leader of the rustlers was Gringo Bengston. And when Billy the Kid caught him one day in the very act of changing the brand on a stolen steer... Six guns began... "The Range Battle"

An extremely simplistic strip, which spells out every action with text boxes, leaving no room for ambiguity or subtlety, this is a frustrating story due to its opening scene - stopping a group of rustlers caught in the act, Billy sets upon them. This doesn't seem the act of an individual whose well-reported rustling exploits is an integral part of the Billy the Kid legend. Is it because he's not getting a cut? Is it because he's connected to the ranch? The prose accompaniment to the strip doesn't inform us why he intervenes so, leaving a hole at the centre of the telling.

Railroaded! looks back to the early days of Billy the Kid, finding Billy Bonner (as he was then known) looking forward to a fishing trip with Alton 'Tall' Canlon, the sheriff of Bucktown. Before they head out, the sheriff pins a notice, from Tucson, Arizona, to the wall of his office:

WANTED

$10,000 Reward will be paid for the capture, dead or alive, of Dan Qualey, alias Trigger Dan, for armed robbery, rustling and robbery with violence. Trigger Dan is wanted by the Sheriff of Tucson, is believed to have headed for Shelton County, Texas, in the company of Lefty Louie, stagecoach robber and horse-thief.

The trip is set aside while Tall goes out in search of Qualey, as the bandit goes out in search of Tall for plastering his image around.

An oddity, which ignores the fact that Billy's criminal career started when he was so young, this has the audacity to throw in a carnival to complicate matters, and plays out with predictable results. The end is a complete surprise, I must admit, with a conclusion which doesn't seem to have taken into account a single iota of Billy's real personality or sense of place in the world.

   The Sheriff dropped a kindly hand on Billy's shoulder.
   "Sump'n else, too - there's a ten thousand dollar reward for you kid for capturing this hombre!"
   Billy's eyes twinkled.
   "I'll give it to the new school fund, Sheriff ... on one condition."
   "And what might that be, young feller?" asked the Sheriff.
   "That you take me fishin' every day for the rest of the summer," said Billy.

It isn't quite the slap-up feast which ended so many stories, but might as well have been. The opportunity to lay hints about the future of the character is neglected, and any sense that this is actually about William Bonney is missing. While such tales of the younger lives of characters can provide wonderful glimpses into both personality and things which occurred later in life, but without clear parallels to events which would define his activities in later years there is a chasm which cannot be surmounted by the narrative alone.

Billy the Kid is being escorted through Indian country by a young Indian brave, Wa-Ha Jim. Wa-Ha is friendly and responsible for white man's safe conduct in his tribal territory. But a great forest fire turns the Indians hostile. The king of the west has to think fast and act even quicker, to save two strangers from a terrible... Ordeal by Fire

Downright ugly art, a horribly problematic story, and some of the most racist caricatures seen in the annuals, this strip is a low point in the saga of Billy the Kid's comic strip adventures. While I try to find something positive in works which appeal to me through genre or thematic elements, this strip fails in every regard, and compromises the title's otherwise entertaining stories. Regardless of the accompanying prose elements conformity to historical fact, at least they attempt to maintain an internal consistency. This strip is simply bad.

Six Gun Fandango!, the other Billy the Kid strip, is similarly set out, and I would hazard a guess that all three of his strips here originate from the same source, all three suffering from a lack of finesse and confidence. There were enough great strips to fill three such annuals, and falling back on these poor relations is a sign that something has gone wrong in the editing of the annual.

The Durango Kid has had a few strips which stretch credulity, and isn't a character whose adventures immediately promise much in the way of tantalising historical accuracy, but the title of his first strip in this annual - Whole Town Gone Loco - holds up the possibility that there may be reference to tainted rye bread causing hallucinations and odd behaviour. What we actually get is, sadly, more along the lines of the Avengers episode The Town of No Return, with the prospect that this strip might have played some small part in the inspiration for that script.

Black Bart's Big Plot! sees Billy the Kid going up against "Black Bart," though it isn't clear if this is, indeed, Charles Earl Boles or not. I'm tempted to chart their respective locations throughout their careers, to determine if they might have encountered each other someplace, though I fear that the results would confirm the unlikelihood of such a meeting. An extremely brief piece on which to conclude the annual, and altogether too simple a tale to hold much appeal beyond the obvious.

A real disappointment as far as the strips go, yet with its prose stories are improving year-on-year, this Billy the Kid Annual is difficult to recommend due to the unfortunate elements within certain strips.

[1956]

Billy the Kid
Western Annual

[1958]