Beaver Traps and Renegades

 

cover artist unknown

The second Ben Bowie story in Dell's Four Color #513 (November 1953) has Ben and his crew working for a living--they are trapping beaver.

Like the first story, this one was written the the super-prolific Paul S. Newman and drawn by Bill Overgard. Also like the first story, it's a well-constructed, tightly-written adventure story with lively art.

A fun mini-lesson on how to trap beaver gives the tale historical verisimilitude before Ben and his men realize someone is stealing the beavers from their traps. This leads to young Jim hiding out for a night at the entrance of a beaver dam, on the lookout for the thieves.

He spots them--a white renegade and a band of Algonquian Indians. Jim is spotted by the bad guys and captured. But he feeds them a story about a cache of beaver pelts nearby. This divides up the bad guys, so when Ben, Zeke and Nakah find Jim, half the bad guys are away looking for those pelts.

Jim is rescued and the rest of the bad guys are pursued. A battle ensues, with Ben winning a final victory when he knocks out the renegade.

Typical of Newman's scripts, this one moves at a fast pace from Point A to Point B and so on in a logical manner, telling a exciting story in an efficient and entertaining manner.

Read it yourself online HERE. 

Next week, we'll learn what happens when Santa gets lost at sea.

Defending the Fort

 

cover artist unknown

Four Color #513 (November 1953) is the second of Ben Bowie's half-dozen appearances in that magazine appearances in that magazine prior to the 18th-Century trapper getting his own series.

The first story in this issue was written by Paul S. Newman, which accounts for its fast pace and expert story construction. The art is by Bill Overgard.

The story--"The Hostiles"--is centered around a remote fort threatened by the Hurons. It's constructed as a series of sort of mini-adventures all keyed on the siege of the fort. Each incident adds to the overall tension before the last adventure brings the story to a conclusion.

Mini-adventure #1: The Hurons steal the fort's horses. Ben and his apprentice Jim follow and steal the horses back. This is followed by Ben and Jim leaving the fort to find the men originally sent after the horses, leading them back to the fort before they get jumped by the Hurons.

Mini-adventure #2: Two ladies unwisely take a canoe ride. Zeke and Nakah, coming to the fort to join Ben, save them from a Huron war party.

Soon, the fort is besieged by the Hurons. This leads to the next two mini-adventures--dealing with an Indian sharpshooter in a tall tree who can see into the fort, then saving a building set aflame with fire arrows. 

Finally, Ben tunnels out of the fort at night to scout the Huron position, then leads a group of men out through the tunnel to attack. The Hurons are captured and the fort is saved.

It's just a standard frontier adventure, not breaking any new ground. But Newman's great writing and Overgard's lively art make it very entertaining and reinforce my idea that Ben Bowie is one of the most consistently entertaining comic books of all time. 

Read it yourself online HERE. 

Next week, we'll take a look at the second story from this issue. 

Stolen Furs

 

cover artist unknown

Pick any issue of Ben Bowie and His Mountain Men at random and you'll find stories worth reading. It was simply a great comic book. Ben Bowie #11 (May-July 1957), for instance, gives us a story titled "The Treacherous Trapper." Sadly, neither the writer or artist are known. 

The story opens with Ben and his crew hauling furs back to civilization to sell. They meet up with other trappers--there's a Crow war party looking to take the furs away from them and there is safety in numbers. Already, Ben and Zeke have traded shots with the Crow and have hidden out from them behind a waterfall.

They do band together with a score of other trappers, including a Frenchman who has been hunting up in Canada--something that becomes important later on.  They travel home, though one of them makes the unwise decision to backtrack on his own when he loses his tobacco pouch. He's later found dead.

The Crow stay on their trail and one night manage to steal the trappers' horses. The trappers are now forced to haul their furs on foot. Eventually, they decide to cache the furs in a cave, agreeing that they will come back for the furs together.

That doesn't work out well. A trapper named Grimes sneaks off and tells the Crow where they can find the furs, claiming a third of them for himself.

When the trappers return to the cave enmasse, they find the cave empty. They don't suspect a traitor, but in any case, their months of hard work now come to nothing.

Back in the colonies, Ben's young apprentice Jim notices a Crow at the trading post, selling a wolverine pelt. That makes him suspicious, since the Crow don't normally hunt far enough north to bag wolverines. And, by golly, didn't the Frenchman have some wolverine pelts in his haul?

Concerned with Jim's suspicions, Grimes decides to back-shoot the boy. Jim manages to outsmart him and call Nakah for help. Not surprisingly, Nakah easily subdues the villain.

The Crows are confronted, the furs are recovered and Grimes learns that he's now despised by both the Crows and the white men. "No one is lonelier than a traitor!"

It's a great story, moving along briskly and telling the story effectively. Which is typical of Ben Bowie and one of the reasons (aside from the fun setting and historical accuracy) I consider it one of the best comics ever.

You can read this issue online HERE.

Next week, we rejoin Green Lantern.

Running out of Gun Powder!

 

cover artist unknown

In "Rage of the North Wind"  (Ben Bowie #13--Nov. 57-Jan. 58), Ben and his young apprentice Jim are out hunting when they spot a war band of Algonquins heading for the nearby fort. The two hurry back with a warning and, by the time they arrive, the wind is really starting to blow hard. A big storm is coming.

This is a problem, because the fort is low on powder and the storm will prevent any more from being delivered upriver from another fort. 

So the mountain man do what they can, waiting until the attacking Indians are close before opening fire. This is followed by some hand-to-hand combat when a few of the Algonquins make it to the top of the fort's wall, but the fort holds out.

But this leaves the mountain men enough powder for only one more volley. At this point, Ben realizes that the storm is a blessing as well as a curse. It might be preventing the delivery of gun powder, but it is now blowing hard enough to prevent the Indians from accurately firing their arrows. So maybe--just maybe--there's time for a small party to make it to the other fort and bring back more powder.

Naturally, Ben and his crew make the attempt. They sneak out of the fort, but Jim's hat blows away and is found by the Indians, who then realize what's up. Ben's crew dodges the Algonquins, while Nakah saves Jim from a tumble off a cliff. Finally, they make it to the other fort and load powder kegs onto a raft for the trip back to their besieged friends, sailing through rough waters.

They make it just as the storm finishes dying down and the Algonquins renew their attack. Four kegs of powder are taken into the fort. The fifth is used as an improvised bomb to effectively discourage future attacks.

The writer is unknown and the artist is Albert Micale. "Rage of the North Wind" is a very simple and straightforward tale, but it shows the strengths of the Ben Bowie series. The men deal with the dangers of the frontier in a steadfast manner, using their brains as well as their fighting skills to plan their way out of desperate situations. 

You can read this issue online HERE. "Rage of the North Wind" is the final story in the issue. 

Next week, we'll finish our look at the career of Travelin' Toughy. 

Go Jump Off a Cliff!

 

cover artist unknown

One of the many cool things about Ben Bowie and His Mountain Men was that it did maintain a degree of historical continuity with its stories. For instance, by the time we get to the last few issues of this superb comic book, the French and Indian War had broken out.

"Thundering Waters," drawn by Albert Micale (writer unknown) was published in the 15th issue (May-July 1958) and involves Ben and his crew--along with some redcoats--escorting some supplies to a beleaguered fort. They are ambushed by Ottawas (who allied with their French trading partners during the war) and the brightly-clad British troops are soon picked off.

Ben and his three friends are backed up against a cliff. With no other options, they opt to actually jump off the cliff, landing in the trees below. They play dead until the Ottawas give up on them.

So they survive, but the Ottawas have captured the badly needed supplies. Ben tracks them to their camp, where the Mountain Men set fire to a few tents to cause a distraction and steal back the supplies. But there are too few of them to transport the stuff to the fort, so they hide them and make a break for it. 

This leads to a chase down a river, in which they barely avoid being swept over a waterfall. They then lower their canoes down the cliff beside the waterfall, finally managing to get away from the Ottawas.

The artwork throughout this story has been superb and the script is excellent, showing Ben using intelligent tactics and taking necessary risks in order to get himself and his friends out of danger.

And Ben's intelligence continues to play a part in the story's conclusion, where he uses reinforcements from the fort to lure the Ottawas onto the river and drive them off that waterfall.

As was typical with the Ben Bowie series, "Thundering Waters" includes historical accuracy, great art, sound plot construction and a hero who uses his brains as well as his musket to give us a strong frontier-era adventure.

Next week, we'll visit again with Napoleon Solo.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

cover artist unknown

When Ben Bowie got his own title in 1956 (starting with issue #7 because of a half-dozen appearances in Four Color), he and his partners were traveling West, well away from the colonies that had been their stomping grounds. Their intent was to establish a trading post and way station that could open up further exploration and settlement of the West.

So stories often featured encountering and hopefully befriending Indian tribes mixed in with a clash with Spaniards and a search for a source of salt. By Ben Bowie #8 (Feb-April 1957), they had hunkered down in their cabin to wait out the winter.

The writer of "The Wolfpack Trail" is unknown, but he knows his stuff. What makes the following story work is the facts that the dangers of traveling through a winter wilderness are presented realistically, without exaggeration, and that the protagonists deal with these dangers in an intelligent, knowledgable fashion.

The interior art, by the way, is by Albert Micale.

The tale begins when an exhausted and nearly frozen man arrives at the cabin. He is the leader of a band of sixteen settlers who were trapped in the snowstorm. Leaving the man in the cabin (with heat and food--so he'll be all right), Ben and his team set out to find the settlers.

But winter in the wilderness is a dangerous time. An avalanche nearly takes them out and young Jim falls into a crevasse that had been hidden by the snow. They press on, though, and eventually find the settlers by trailing a pack of hungry wolves.

In a battle between muskets and wolves, wolves never win. Ben wants to immediately lead the settlers to safety, but the problem now isn't so much the weather, but a guy named Gropper. He was left in charge when the leader went for help and, boy, does he take his responsibilities seriously!

That would be fine by itself, but Gropper is a self-assured jerk who is convinced he's right about everything, but is inevitably wrong. Even his name sounds obnoxious. Perhaps with a name like Gropper, he couldn't help but be a jerk.

Ben tries to respect Gropper's authority and work with him, but Gropper is always wrong and eventually tries to enforce his bad ideas at the point of a gun.

One can argue that Gropper as a character is too one-dimensional, existing purely for the purpose of being an impediment to the heroes. But I'm not bothered by it--Gropper's presence in the story makes sense in context and self-assured jerks to exist in real life.

Despite Gropper, Ben manages to contact a friendly tribe of Indians and eventually get everyone to safety.

You can read the story online HERE.

Next week, an M.P. in World War II is given the boring job of patrolling a bombed out town. What could possibly go wrong?

A Whaling We Will Go.

18th Century hunter/trapper Ben Bowie and his crew had six appearances in Dell's Four Color anthology book before getting 11 issues of his own series (with the numbering starting at #7).

Stories that continued from one issue to the next were relatively rare in the 1950s, when comic book distribution was such that a young reader couldn't always depend on finding the next issue of a specific title on the spinner rack. But the unidentified writers and artists telling Ben's tales managed to sneak in a brief story arc. Though individual stories were still self-contained, Ben and his crew spent five issues traveling to the far West, exploring and setting up a trading post in what was for them is brand-new territory.

In Ben Bowie #8 (Aug-Oct. 1956), they make it to the Pacific Ocean, encountering a tribe of Chinook Indians. They manage to make friends and discover that salmon is mighty tasty.

By the way, I did a little tiny bit of research into the Chinooks and the Nootkas--who appear later in the story. The portrayals of both tribes (Chinooks as fishermen & Nootkas as whalers) seem to be reasonably accurate. There may be many details wrong that an expert might notice (and keep in mind that my research was minimal), but it does seem that the creative staff behind Ben Bowie made a real effort towards historical accuracy.

Back to the story: A Nootka raiding party attacks the Chinook village. Ben and his crew help fight them off, but not before several prisoners are taken. The Mountain Men grab a canoe and follow, hoping to rescue their new friends. In a plot twist I really enjoy, their small canoe begins to swamp in the heavy seas, forcing them to call out to the Nootkas they've been chasing for help.





The Nootkas haven't seen white men before, so for a few days after the Mountain Men are brought to their village, they are novelties--kept around as sort of combination guests/prisoners. Then the local medicine man decides that if a whale is caught during the next hunt, then that's an omen meaning the Mountain Men are to be thrown into the ocean. With their hands tied.

Well, omens can be both good and bad. When the Nootka hunt leader misses a harpoon cast, he decides Ben should get a try. I really like the art work in the next few pages--there's an effective use of long panels to highlight just how darn big the whale is.

Despite a dunking, Ben puts a couple of harpoons into the whale and the hunting party as a whole finishes it off. The Mountain Men are given their freedom and Ben even manages to talk the Nootka medicine man into freeing the Chinook prisoners.

I really enjoy the Ben Bowie series and this story is an example of why. It's a well-constructed tale with an interesting setting and a great action set-piece built around the whale hunt. The art is effective and engaging--the artist is unidentified, but the style looks maddeningly familiar to me. I have a feeling it's an artist whose work I know.

This issue is in the public domain and can be read online HERE.

Next week, we'll see how Sgt. Rock combines fighting Germans with pre-natal care.

Ben Bowie and His Mountain Men

I made this video yesterday for the Ringling College of Art library's YouTube channel.

Trading Goods and Mountain Lions

Arguably, the 1950s were the true Golden Age for comic books. First, there was some really magnificent storytelling in the medium at that time. Second, there was probably more variety in terms of different genres during the 1950s than any other time in the history of the medium.

The superhero craze of the 1940s had died away and would not reemerge until the late '50s. DC still published Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman comics, but superheroes were otherwise a small drop in the bucket. Instead, we had science fiction and war stories and westerns and.... well, pretty much a zillion
other things.

My personal favorite characters from the decade were Scrooge McDuck and Turok (now that'd be a bizarre team-up, wouldn't it?). But there were many, many characters who left their mark.

Ben Bowie and His Mountain Men, for instance. He first appeared a half-dozen issues of Dell Comics' Four Color, then got his own title. His book took the six Four Color appearances into account and began with #7 and ran through #17.

Ben was active in the 18th Century American wilderness, around the time of the French and Indian War. He and his band (young protege Jim, old-timer Zeke and Indian guide Nakah) would travel about to trade goods to Indian tribes for skins. They'd get involved in various adventures along the way.

Ben Bowie #16 (Aug-Oct 1958) includes the story "The Forgotten Tribe." Ben and his men are canoeing along a river when they are attacked by a tribe of Indians they hadn't seen before. They eventually learn that this tribe had a rather unpleasant experience with early French settlers some years ago, then moved into the deep woods to avoid further contact with white men.

Ben tries to make friends, but that doesn't go well. He's about to pull up stakes and leave when he has an opportunity to save one of the locals from a mountain lion. This earns enough good will to open up trade with the tribe.

This is undeniably a cliche and a weaker story might have used this as its conclusion. But "The Forgotten Tribe" isn't done yet. When Ben's initial stash of trade goods is gone, a chief orders that Ben and Zeke be held hostage until more goods are brought. This leaves Nakah and Jim with the job of retrieving a cache of goods they had hidden earlier in the story--but to also get back with those goods without being robbed by some pursuers. It's a plot twist that effectively and economically takes the story in an unexpected direction.


The early American frontier is a great setting for an adventure series and the storytelling in Ben Bowie is consistently solid and entertaining. Ben's adventures are available to read online here.