A Home for Retired Outlaws

Western Round-Up was published by Dell Comics from 1952 to 1959, featuring stories about Western B-Movie stars (some of whom, such as Roy and Gene, had moved to TV by then) and eventually also including stories based on TV Westerns such as Wagon Train and Tales of Wells Fargo. Many of these guys had books of their own as well, but in the 1950s, people could not get enough Westerns. Printing a western-themed comic book with good quality stories and recognizable stars was essentially the same as printing money.

The first issue (cover-dated June 1952) starts out with a nifty Roy Rogers story titled "Gunfighter's Retreat." The writer is unknown, but the solid artwork is by Pete Alvarado.

Roy has been asked for help by Ma Stebbins, who has bought an old, abandoned fort and opened a sort of retirement home. The old coots living there are all aging gunfighters--many of them former outlaws. But all have done their jail time and now they have a good, clean home, allowing them to swap tall tales and re-live old battles using blanks. (No one is allowed to have live ammo.)

Ma Stebbins has done this out of the goodness of her heart and now has the cash to pay off the last of the loan she had taken to buy and set-up the home. But the man to whom she owes the money--Toothpick Tolin--would rather foreclose than collect the money. He plans to use the fort as a base for an outlaw gang.



Roy is asked to deliver the money. This proves to be no easy task, but with the help of Trigger (who twice alerts Roy to ambush) and Pa Stebbins (a former quick-draw who now has an artificial arm), they fight their way past some thugs, deliver the money and force Tolin to give them a receipt. All this includes a wonderful scene in which Pa Stebbins, despite now being short a right arm, forcing a frightened Tolin to back down rather than draw on him.

Tolin isn't giving up, though, sending a small army of outlaws to stop kill Roy and get back the receipt. This forces Roy to stage a last stand, holding off the outlaws while Pa and Trigger make it back to the fort. Pa then forms the ageing gunmen living there into a kick-butt posse that saves Roy and sends the outlaws packing.

This is a fun story--a great example of just why Westerns were so popular. Clear storytelling, interesting characters and solid action scenes all combine to give us a very entertaining tale. I love the idea of the old gunmen bringing a gang of young whippersnappers a well-deserved comeuppance. Our culture has lost touch with the idea that our elders have wisdom and experience to share with us. This story--and especially Pa's confrontation with Tolin--reminds us of how important it is to recognize that wisdom does indeed come with age.

You can read this one online HERE.

Next week, we return once more to the Micronauts.

Cover Cavalcade

Yet another great Joe Kubert cover.

Update about Friday's Favorite OTRs

Over the years, I've used several different hosting services to share old-time radio shows on Fridays. All proved unreliable or difficult to access for at least some readers. Awhile back, it finally occurred to me that in most cases, I could simply link episodes directly to the Internet Archive. That's become my standard procedure and seems to work fine for most if not all my readers.

I have finished going back through my past Friday's Favorite OTR posts and updating the links for easier access. In a few cases, I could not find a particular episode on the Internet Archive, so I linked to a nifty site called "Old Time Radio Downloads." In either case, clicking on the link provided in any OTR post should take you directly to where you can listen or download to the specific episode I'm highlighting in each post.

There were a few very rare instances in which I could not find an episode on either of those sites, so I kept the link to my Box.net account. But for nearly all of the OTR episodes I highlight on Fridays, there should now be very easy access for you all. Click on the "Friday's Favorite OTR" link on the right side of the blog--or the label for a specific show--and have fun exploring.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Suspense: "The Wreck of the Old 97" 3/17/52

The tale of a deadly 1903 train wreck told in both story and song. This episode is from Elliot Lewis' tenure as producer of Suspense. Lewis often used experimental or unusual formats for telling stories on radio and the results were nearly always great.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Thieves, Protoplasmic Monsters and Hounds from Before Time

Last week, we looked at H.P. Lovecraft's novella "The Whisperer in Darkness" and mentioned that Lovecraft included a couple of shout-outs to the horror stories of other writers, effectively making those stories a part of the Cthulhu mythos.

This led me to read both those stories, because it would have been literally impossible for me not to read them.

Frank Belknap Long's short story "The Hounds of Tandalos" appeared in the March 1929 issue of Weird Tales and is impressive in how effectively it generates an atmosphere of horror in such a relatively short story.

The first-person narrator is asked by a guy named Chalmers (who has "the soul of a medieval ascetic") to participate in an experiment. The narrator is reluctant to do so, because he thinks the idea is insane--Chalmers wants to take a mind-expanding drug while concentrating on complex Einsteinian mathematics. This, he thinks, will allow his mind to travel back through time. He wants the narrator to write down whatever Chalmers observers.

Well, the experiment works--or perhaps Chalmers is just vividly hallucinating: "All the billions of lives that preceded me on this planet are before me at this moment. I see men of all ages, all races and colors. They are fighting, killing, building, dancing, singing. they are sitting about rude fires on lonely gray deserts, and flying through the air on monoplanes." Real or not, Chalmers provides us with some awesome imagery.

But then he goes back before life existed--only to discover that some sort of perverse life is there at the beginning of time: "All the evil in the universe was concentrated in their lean, hungry bodies. Or had they bodies? I saw them only for a moment; I cannot be certain. But I heard them breathe. Indescribably for a moment I felt their breath on my face. They turned towards me and I fled screaming."

These were the Hounds of Tandalos--the source of all that is evil in our universe. Chalmers is terrified that they might follow him into the present and enter our world. The narrator at this point, deciding that Chalmers is now completely off the deep end, leaves in disgust. But later events may just prove that Chalmers had reason to be scared...

You can read the story HERE.

Clark Ahston Smith's creation--the evil god Tsathoggua--also gets a mention in Lovecraft's story. "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" was published after "The Whisperer in Darkness," appearing in the November 1931 issue of Weird Tales. But Lovecraft and Smith were regular correspondents. Lovecraft got to read the story before it was published and loved it.

There's a lot to love. Despite being a very effective and creepy horror story, Clark's story has a lot of humor in it. The story is set in Smith's Hyperborean cycle--a time before recorded history similar to the Hyborian Age that Robert E. Howard would create for Conan.

The title character is also the narrator, who claims that he and his partner are the best thieves in the world. One of the fun things about the story is that you can debate just how good these guys actually are at their chosen profession. Zeiros recounts some details of several amazing jobs they pulled off in the past, but at the moment they are broke. They spend their last few pennies on wine instead of bread because getting drunk will supposedly give them inspiration for their next job. So are they great thieves temporarily down on their luck, or are they mediocre thieves with delusions of grandeur?

In either case, they decide their next job will be to loot a city that was abandoned centuries ago and reputed to be a place of evil. Since the city was abandoned in a hurry after a prophesy warned the population to flee, the thieves figure there's likely to be a lot of valuables left behind.  They don't stop to wonder why no one had ever looted the supposedly empty city in the past.

The monster they inevitably meet is a protoplasmic creature that grows out of a basin full of thick liquid and pursues them relentless through the jungle surrounding the city and then back into the city once again. There is simply no escaping this thing and getting away with one's life will not be an easy task.

Like Lovecraft, Clark had a infallible skill at choosing just the right words and sentence structures to make his stories beg to be read aloud. The drawback to this, of course, is that you pretty much have no idea how to pronounce any of the names. And, no matter how smart and well-read you are, you will have to stop to look up word meanings at least a half-dozen times. None of this distracts from the fun of reading his stories, though. In fact, it enhances that fun.

"The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" is, like Long's story, very short but still very effective in generating the proper atmosphere. Where Long went for pure horror, Clark accomplished even more in that he inserted humor without lessening the horror. I have read a lot of Clark's stuff over the years, but this is one of my favorites.

You can read this story HERE.

Where the Buffalo (and the Dinosaur) Roam

cover art by George Wilson

It was a rare Turok cover that didn't have a dinosaur on it. Turok, Son of Stone #69 (1970), though, prominently features a buffalo. But what does this modern animal doing in a story set in a lost valley full of prehistoric creatures?

That's what Turok and Andar want to find out. A fight between a pair of carnosaurs drives them into a cave, where they notice a cave painting of a buffalo. That means one of the cave tribes that live in the valley must have actually seen a buffalo once. That means the buffalo somehow found its way into the valley, which might mean there's a way out.


Tracking down the tribe that painted the image, though, proves to be a bit tricky. The Indians save some local cavemen from a big meat-eater and ask about the painting, only to be told that the tribe that painted it migrated away months ago. Also, that particular tribe always kills strangers--though that's hardly a unique attitude in the Lost Valley.

They find a tribe that does indeed try to kill them. Turok and Andar avoid vine-swinging warriors and stumble across a stone alter with a buffalo horn mounted on top of it. They finally discover that yet another tribe, living a little farther on, is responsible for creating the alter and (presumably) the cave painting that started all this.

So the two friends march on to meet yet another tribe that immediately decides to kill them. I don't know what to think sometimes. Turok always had this mentor/teacher vibe to him that makes him one of the most likable characters in comic book history, but nearly everyone he meets in person wants to impale him with a spear.  Maybe its a body odor problem?


More shenanigans follow and Turok eventually gets the drop on the chief--who is wearing a buffalo robe and carrying another horn attached to the end of a spear. From him, they eventually get the story behind all this.









An earthquake had briefly opened a break in the cliff wall, through which the buffalo had entered the valley. The tribe credited this strange beast with bringing rain that ended a long drought. Later, the buffalo drove off a carnosaur, but was mortally wounded in the fight.

After this story is told, the cave men manage to capture Turok and Andar, forcing Turok to improvise a plan proving his "medicine" is stronger than the buffalo horn.

Created by the usual team of Paul S. Newman (writer) and Alberto Giolitti (artist), this story is yet another example of why Gold Key's original version of Turok still stands head and shoulders above all the ultra-violent reboots of the character.  Turok thinks his way through each situation they encounter as they try to track down the story of the buffalo. He fights when he has to and doesn't stint on the use of poisoned arrows against dinosaurs. But in the end, his natural intelligence and ability to think on his feet is his best weapon.

The plot unfolds logically (Newman was a master at plot construction) and Giolitti's art is typically strong. With Turok's strong characterization giving it all backbone, "The Phantom Mystery" is yet another example of why Turok Son of Stone is one of the best comic book series ever.

Next week, Roy Rogers and some really old guys shoot it out with a gang of thieves.

Cover Cavalcade

The rise in popularity of Bruce Lee and Asian martial arts movies were a big influence on comic books and resulted in a number of great characters, of which Iron Fist and Shang-Chi are two of my favorites.

Have you bookmarked or subscribed to this blog to ensure you don't miss anything?

Friday's Favorite OTR

The Great Gildersleeve: "Rain Maker" 9/10/44

During a drought, Gildy risks his job by spending $500 of city money to hire a supposed scientist who claims he can make it rain.

Click HERE to listen or download.

This is the first episode in a story arc in which Gildy deals with being unemployed. The rest of the episodes in this arc can be found HERE.

The Real Name of the planet Pluto!

The August 1931 issue of Weird Tales gave us one of H.P. Lovecraft's best stories. It also tells us what the actual purpose the planet Pluto serves. (And yes, I know Pluto isn't considered a planet anymore. Tough toenails--on my blog, Pluto still gets to be a planet!)

"The Whisperer in Darkness" was written right after Pluto was discovered. That plus Lovecraft's admiration of Arthur Machen's 1895 book The Novel of the Black Seal, from which Lovecraft drew plot ideas and themes, resulted in a truly creepy tale.

The narrator is Albert Wilmarth, a professor at Miskatonic University--the school where you are as likely to die horribly or be driven insane as get a graduate degree. Wilmarth is interested in certain aspects of New England folklore. He begins a correspondence with Henry Akeley, who lives in a secluded area of Vermont and believes he has found proof that alien beings have set up a small mining colony nearby and have been visiting Earth for centuries.

Like most aliens who inhabit Lovecraft's perpetually horrific universe, these creatures do not share any human concept of right and wrong with us. As Wilmarth, who eventually comes to believe Akeley, describes them:

I got this image from the Lovecraft wiki--
I couldn't find an artist's credit.

The things come from another planet, being able to live in interstellar space and fly through it on clumsy, powerful wings which have a way of resisting the ether but which are too poor at steering to be of much use in helping them about on earth. I will tell you about this later if you do not dismiss me at once as a madman. They come here to get metals from mines that go deep under the hills, and I think I know where they come from. They will not hurt us if we let them alone, but no one can say what will happen if we get too curious about them. Of course a good army of men could wipe out their mining colony. That is what they are afraid of. But if that happened, more would come from outside—any number of them. They could easily conquer the earth, but have not tried so far because they have not needed to. They would rather leave things as they are to save bother.

I really admire Lovecraft's story construction here. The first part of the story consists of Wilmarth and Akeley exchanging letters without ever actually meeting. At first,they calmly trade ideas and information. But Akeley gradually becomes more and more concerned that the Mi-Go (as the aliens are called) are stalking him with help of human agents. Eventually, Akeley is essentially besieged in his home, exchanging rifle fire with those human agents. His dogs manage to hold off the Mi-Go themselves.



Lovecraft employs his usual skill with sentence construction and perfect word choices to gradually build up the tension. Akeley is reluctant to leave his family home, but his situation is becoming untenable. Then Wilmarth gets a long letter (typewritten rather than handwritten) in which Akeley says he's been misinterpreting the Mi-Go's intentions and has actually made friends with them. Why doesn't Wilmarth come to Vermont and meet them?

It's actually fair to consider this a weak point in the story. That Wilmarth is being drawn into a trap is mind-numbingly obvious, but Wilmarth goes to great lengths to explain his absurd reasons for thinking its not really a trap. Gee whiz, Wilmarth. You were doing so well up to now and suddenly you are too dumb to live.

But he actually does manage to live. That's not a spoiler--he's narrating the story, so we know he lives. The second major part of the story comes when he does visits Akeley's home and learns, among other things, that he's not very safe there; that there's a planet located beyond Neptune called Yuggoth, which is a sort of base for the Mi-Go; that travel between planets, stars and dimensions often requires having your brain temporarily moved into a jar; and that Akeley is no longer--well, let's just say that he's not quite himself any more. In fact, Wilmarth learns a lot of things so bizarre and frightening that it puts his sanity at risk.

The story ends with a wonderfully horrific twist, but not before Wilmarth has time to wonder about the discovery of Pluto, which he knows must be Yuggoth. What reason do the Mi-Go have for allowing us to discover the planet they've always kept hidden from us? One horrible day, we'll probably find out.

I suspect the Mi-Go will be mad at us for reducing Pluto from planet to dwarf planet. And who can blame them?

Lovecraft mentioned the Mi-Go in one future story--In the Mountains of Madness--in which we learn they once fought a war with yet another race of ancient aliens. Cthulhu is also mentioned, so this is a part of what would become one of the first shared universes in literature. Other writers would contribute stories to this mythos, while Lovecraft would often mention elements from their stories in his own prose.

For instance, "The Whisperer in Darkness" mentions a being from Clark Ashton Smith's story "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros," which hadn't itself been published yet, but which Smith had allowed Lovecraft to read. There's also a shout-out to "The Hounds of Tindalos" a 1929 story by Frank Belknap Long. Looking up those references also led me to read those two stories, so I think we'll examine both of them in another post sometime soon.

You can read "The Whisperer in Darkness" HERE.