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Post by Icctrombone on May 29, 2020 15:43:30 GMT -5
Good to know, but Hex was an outlier among the western genre. If you look at the 50's- 70's there were a lot of western comics. I wonder if their cancelation was a sales dip or the bean counters just spectulating that they would vanish eventually.
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Post by Prince Hal on May 29, 2020 16:23:19 GMT -5
Good to know, but Hex was an outlier among the western genre. If you look at the 50's- 70's there were a lot of western comics. I wonder if their cancelation was a sales dip or the bean counters just spectulating that they would vanish eventually. There were more than a few Western comics, but the bulk of them were in the 50s and very early 60s. After that they were not as much a staple of comic book lines as they were a niche genre for Marvel and Charlton. Not sure why DC just bagged up on theirs while Marvel continued with Rawhide Kid, etc. for years after that. The TV Westerns were a real phenomenon. An Emmy was given for Best Western starting in 1958. On the three networks in the late 50s and into about 1961, you had about three and a a half hours each night of prime time, about 70 hours give or take of network programming. About 30 Westerns were on the air at their height, some an hour long, some a half-hour. That's a serious chunk of time for one genre. In the '58-'59 season, seven of the top ten shows were Westerns. The top four were Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Have Gun, Will Travel, and The Rifleman. That bubble was bound to burst, and it did. Several Westerns survived, like Gunsmoke and Bonanza. The Virginian came along at the tail end of the craze. But by about 1962 it was clear that the genre had been wrung out.
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Post by rberman on May 29, 2020 16:30:21 GMT -5
The TV Westerns were a real phenomenon. An Emmy was given for Best Western starting in 1958. On the three networks in the late 50s and into about 1961, you had about three and a a half hours each night of prime time, about 70 hours give or take of network programming. About 30 Westerns were on the air at their height, some an hour long, some a half-hour. That's a serious chunk of time for one genre. In the '58-'59 season, seven of the top ten shows were Westerns. The top four were Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Have Gun, Will Travel, and The Rifleman. That bubble was bound to burst, and it did. Several Westerns survived, like Gunsmoke and Bonanza. The Virginian came along at the tail end of the craze. But by about 1962 it was clear that the genre had been wrung out. Kind of like police procedurals today. I look at all the variations on NCIS and Law and Order and JAG and the rest and think, "How can people want to watch the same basic thing not just once a week but twenty times a week?"
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Post by brutalis on May 29, 2020 16:37:43 GMT -5
Western comics follow the interests and patterns of the US consumers for the most part just like anything else has. There was the Kung Fu, Biker, Blaxploitation, Psychedelic, Spy and other such crazes in the 70's which came and went just like westerns. Every few years there is something which excites and captures our attention. Westerns became popular after WWII when there was very few super hero comics left being printed. Westerns in books and television were catching on so no doubt publishers all jumped on that money maker concept. Like anything, once there is a glut and interest dies off so will the comics follow suit. When kids stopped wanting to be cowboys and instead want to be astronauts the west gives way to space. Then along comes another trend and everyone changes their minds again. Western comic books and western movies occasionally revive and capture some attention, but never seems to last for very long.
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Post by Prince Hal on May 29, 2020 16:42:19 GMT -5
The TV Westerns were a real phenomenon. An Emmy was given for Best Western starting in 1958. On the three networks in the late 50s and into about 1961, you had about three and a a half hours each night of prime time, about 70 hours give or take of network programming. About 30 Westerns were on the air at their height, some an hour long, some a half-hour. That's a serious chunk of time for one genre. In the '58-'59 season, seven of the top ten shows were Westerns. The top four were Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Have Gun, Will Travel, and The Rifleman. That bubble was bound to burst, and it did. Several Westerns survived, like Gunsmoke and Bonanza. The Virginian came along at the tail end of the craze. But by about 1962 it was clear that the genre had been wrung out. Kind of like police procedurals today. I look at all the variations on NCIS and Law and Order and JAG and the rest and think, "How can people want to watch the same basic thing not just once a week but twenty times a week?" Exactly. And the Westerns got increasingly gimmicky in order to distinguish themselves. The topper was probably Hotel de Paree with Earl Holliman as Sundance, a gunfighter who wears silver dollars in his hatband to blind his enemies by using them to reflect sunlight into their eyes. I kid you not. (I guess he refused any duels after sundown.)
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Post by Icctrombone on May 29, 2020 17:24:41 GMT -5
Brutalis mentioned the Kung Fu craze. Marvel only had 2 monthly books. And Dc had one. That was among the very short lived genres.
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Post by rberman on May 29, 2020 17:59:19 GMT -5
Brutalis mentioned the Kung Fu craze. Marvel only had 2 monthly books. And Dc had one. That was among the very short lived genres. Plus characters like Karate Kid, who debuted in 1966, which I assume makes him solidly ahead of the curve.
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Post by Prince Hal on May 29, 2020 18:19:21 GMT -5
Brutalis mentioned the Kung Fu craze. Marvel only had 2 monthly books. And Dc had one. That was among the very short lived genres. Plus characters like Karate Kid, who debuted in 1966, which I assume makes him solidly ahead of the curve. And Richard Dragon, who arrived in 1975. Yeah, Karate Kid was ahead of the curve, but his own book, which was clearly an attempt to cash in on the kung fu craze, didn't appear until late 1975.
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Post by Icctrombone on May 29, 2020 18:53:40 GMT -5
Richard Dragon I counted as the one DC book - King Fu fighter. I meant Characters that had their own book.
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Post by Prince Hal on May 29, 2020 19:15:50 GMT -5
Richard Dragon I counted as the one DC book - King Fu fighter. I meant Characters that had their own book. My bad. But with Karate Kid, there were two, as it turns out.
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Post by Icctrombone on May 29, 2020 19:46:06 GMT -5
I might be wrong but the Karate kid was more a spin-off from the Legion than something cashing in on Bruce Lee.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 29, 2020 20:17:29 GMT -5
I might be wrong but the Karate kid was more a spin-off from the Legion than something cashing in on Bruce Lee. It was a spin-off of the Legion; but, the reason he got a solo book, and not, say, Wildfire or Shadow Lass was that he was a martial arts figure during a martial arts craze. he was dumped back into the 20th Century, if memory serves. He is the reason that the Ralph Macchio film has a little copyright notice at the end, that says copyright DC Comics (same with Starman).
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Post by beccabear67 on May 29, 2020 20:19:06 GMT -5
I had a few old All-Star Western and Western Comics DC put out... I was kind of excited to see Alex Toth and early Gil Kane art in them (and there's little chance I would've found an All-Star Comics from before the changeover to the western format). I also had one Rex The Wonder Dog so I somehow group him in with those two titles, but what about Tomahawk? Didn't DC publish Tomahawk from 1950 into the early '70s? I didn't have it, nor Son Of, but it looks sometimes western, sometimes superhero, and sometimes more monsters sci-fi.
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Post by foxley on May 30, 2020 4:02:04 GMT -5
Tomahawk is set in Colonial times/Revolutionary War, which makes a bit early to be considered a 'true' western, which are generally set around C. 1860-1900 (although anything up until about 1916 can probably pass muster). Also the book is set in the original 13 colonies and so not in the west, which refers to being west of the Mississippi River. Towards the end of the run, it became Hawk, Son of Tomahawk, and became a sort of proto-western, being set in the Midwest in the 1830s, during the first great American push westwards. (For someone who is not American, I have real love of the western genre, something I blame my father for. )
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Post by Prince Hal on May 30, 2020 12:00:45 GMT -5
Tomahawk is set in Colonial times/Revolutionary War, which makes a bit early to be considered a 'true' western, which are generally set around C. 1860-1900 (although anything up until about 1916 can probably pass muster). Also the book is set in the original 13 colonies and so not in the west, which refers to being west of the Mississippi River. Towards the end of the run, it became Hawk, Son of Tomahawk, and became a sort of proto-western, being set in the Midwest in the 1830s, during the first great American push westwards. (For someone who is not American, I have real love of the western genre, something I blame my father for. ) foxley , a fellow aficionado of Tomahawk (I never thought I'd find one!), you have this exactly right. I hope you don't mind if I add a few facts from a post I made about Tomahawk in the Comics Tidbits thread a couple of years ago when the topic was characters whose longevity is/ was surprising: Tomahawk premiered in Star Spangled Comics 69 (on sale in April, 1947). He became the cover and lead feature with #96 and remained there through #121 (on sale in August, 1951). He also was featured through the final issue of SS, #130 (on sale May, 1952). The only issues on which Tomahawk's logo wasn't displayed when he wasn't the cover feature were #69, 70, 81-89 (when most of them featured the logo of a new character, Captain Compass), and that final issue, 130. That was a run of 62 straight issues. He also appeared in three straight issues of World's Finest (33-35) in 1948. Now we're up to 65 stories. Meanwhile, two years before finishing the run in Star Spangled, Tomahawk got his own eponymous magazine, the first issue of which went on sale in July of 1950; it ran through #140, which went on sale in March, 1972, just shy of 22 years. (With #131, the logo, though not the title, changed to Son of Tomahawk.) During that run, he also appeared again in WF, from issues #65 through #101! He also popped up a handful of times in the 80s and maybe even the 90s. I know he was in an issue of Swamp Thing in the late 80's/ early 90s, too. That's nearly 500 appearances (some admittedly reprints used as back-ups as the years went by) and over 200 appearances as a cover feature. Quite an achievement for a non-super-powered character, IYAM. Back to today: Tomahawk, like any other title that lasts as long as it did, evolved, even morphed, to respond to whatever was driving popular culture. The addition of the Rangers in #83 (Sept. 1962) seems like an attempt to tie the book into DC's war line (The group was initially billed as the "GIs of 1775") and perhaps as a response to the success of Sgt. Fury. The military focus almost immediately gave way to the a long stretch as a "monster-of-the-month" book that made its covers look a lot like those on Challengers of the Unknown, another title in editor Murray Boltinoff's stable. Bob Brown usually did both, too, which helped. There were even three "purple gorilla" issues! The back-up stories often stuck to a more combat-oriented style, and often featured one or two Rangers in "detached' service, similar to back-up stories in Blackhawk, Doom Patrol and COTU. Though the title didn't really seem suited to cash in on Batmania, Boltinoff did try what might be seen as a campy attempt to bring super-villains to the book, with the return of old favorite Miss Liberty and her nemesis Lord Shilling, but adding new costumed villains the Hood and the Thunderer. Tomahawk "grew up" in the late 60s. Superheroes were waning in popularity; DC was trying all kinds of new things and Boltinoff brought in Neal Adams to do striking covers, and eventually Frank Thorne to draw Kubertesque lead stories; and Robert Kanigher to do Kanigher-type war stories. Those stories focused on the plight of the native peoples, the morality and immorality of war, and other clear analogies to what was going on in Vietnam. The addition of a former slave, Healer Randoph, as the Rangers' medic brought further relevance to the title. Joe Kubert took over as editor and the title metamorphosed into Son of Tomahawk. Kubert retained the harder edge Kanigher and Thorne had brought and took it up a notch. The stories had a weary, cynical tone to them thanks to the character of the now much older, but still dangerous Tomahawk. This was a solid, entertaining book, particularly over the last few years of its publication. It's a shame it just wasn't able to attract an audience. But as Tracy said admiringly of Hepburn in Pat and Mike, "What's there is cherce." Tomahawk, the character and the title, had a good run.
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