Daily Archives: November 21, 2004

Rawhide Kid Special #1 [1971]

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This double sized comic from 1971 reprints seven Kirby/Ayers stories from RAWHIDE KID issues of the early 1960s, for a total of 47 pages (with a non-Rawhide solo Ayers 5-pager thrown in as well).

This much Rawhide Kid in one go kind of gets old fast, with the constant theme of just how good a gunman the Kid is, and how revered/feared an outlaw he is. But there is still some interesting variety within the genre.

“Gun Duel In Trigger Gap” (RK #19) features the Kid actually falling in love and wishing he could settle down, but of course his outlaw status gets in the way, and he acts heroically in the end to beat some bad guys and leave his potential sweetheart behind.

“Fight Or Crawl, Kid” (RK #19) has the Kid confronted by someone who thinks he can outgun him, demonstrating some impressive shooting, which of course the Kid out-does with no effort.

“The Little Man Laughs Last” (RK #29) has a great splash of the Kid jumping from his horse to a stage-coach. In this one, he demonstrates his bravery compared to some bigger men, but apparent fear of women.

“The Fallen Hero” (RK #29) is the Shane-variation, where the a young boy admires the Kid above his own father. I think anyone who’s read/watched enough westerns knows where that leads.

“The Trail Of Apache Joe” (RK #29) has the Kid given one of his periodic chances to clear his name, if he helps bring in the outlaw of the title. If you don’t guess that he manages to do the bringing in, but not the name-clearing, you really need to read more westerns…

“The Guns Of Jasker Jelko” (RK #28) the Kid goes up against a travelling carnival’s trick shooter this time, a fine enough story made memorable by the joke ending about Annie Oakley.

Rawhide Kid Special #1 [1971]

“When A Gunslinger Gets Mad” (RK #28) is the last story, which features the Kid walking into a bar and ordering a milk. As it almost invariably did in the old west, this led to a good old fashioned barroom brawl, as cowboys tended to take lactose intolerance to ridiculous extremes.

Dead Of Night #10 [1975] – I Dream of Doom

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This 1970s reprint anthology contains the 7-page Kirby/Rule story from STRANGE TALES #96, “I Dream of Doom”. In this story, a man goes to a doctor with a story about being haunted by a giant Kirby monster in his dreams, always escaping just in time. In a stunning breach of professional ethics, the doctor says he’ll give the man something to stay awake, but slips him a sedative instead. This leaves the man to become a victim of the monster, and reveals a twist ending that calls into question the nature of reality.

Dead Of Night #10 [1975]

Just about all the Kirby monster stories of this era look good, and this one is no exception, with some a nice looking monster, some very good storytelling in and out of the dream sequences and some very nice inking. Pleasantly, this is also one of the better written of the stories, with a fairly clever resolution and several interesting bits. I’d love to see it reprinted in a more permanent edition some day (as I put together a dream MARVEL VISIONARIES JACK KIRBY v2 in my head…).

Published 1975