Be Polite to the Ladies

 

cover art tentatively credited to Ray Dirgo

Quick Draw McGraw debuted as a cartoon in 1959. It wasn't long before he popped up in comic books, with an appearance in Dell's Four Color #1040 in 1959. He jumped off into his own series for seven more issues in 1960 (which were reprinted in Britain in the 1970s.) When Charlton got the license for Hanna Barbara characters, he had an eight issue run with that company. The first issue was cover dated November 1970.

The first story in that first issue was probably written by Joe Gill and has fun art by George Wildman. It starts off with bang--the bank is being robbed by a couple of ladies. 

This is a problem for Quick Draw, who is the town's sheriff. He's supposed to arrest bank robbers, of course, but the Code of the West obligates him to be unfailingly polite to ladies. What's an anthropomorphic horse to do?

The ladies don't even bother leaving town, but simply stop by the saloon for a drink. Quick Draw tries to politely arrest them, but this just gets him kicked in the butt when he bows to them.

This leads to Quick Draw slamming into one of the crooked ladies, who turns out not to be a lady after all. They were men in disguise taking advantage of the Code of the West--the cads!

That's it. The story runs just four pages. And that's its weakness. The premise is a good one and presents plenty of opportunities for good slapstick. But the short length of the story limits those opportunites. Even the gag of Quick Draw getting kicked when he bows is awkward, because there clearly needed to be another panel showing him bowing to effectively set up the actual kick. 

The issue is full of 4- and 5-page stories, so clearly there was an editorial decision to go that route. It was a mistake. With slapstick, you don't want to over-stay your welcome. But you also want to take full advantage of your story's premise to properly set up gags and keep those gags coming for a time. The Charlton Quick Draw comic book was a missed opportunity to be really funny.

I'd love to compare this one to the earlier Dell comic, but sadly I don't own a Dell issue, nor are they available online that I can find.

Next week, we'll look at slapstick done right with a 1961 comic book appearance by the Three Stooges.