A month or so ago darkmark asked if I could put a name to the Kid Colt writer who used "I'll cut ya ta doll-rags" in a handful of stories--it's in the Kid's first appearance, in KC 1, as seen here. I couldn't then, but as I've pored over the early Kid Colt, I found that writer--he has a sneak along with artist Russ Heath in a newspaper in the story in Wild Western 7 (May/49). (WW and a number of other titles contain enough Kid Colt stories for yet another post after this one devoted to his own title.)
Ernie Hart (he signed himself E.H. Hart in the Forties) doesn't use the doll-rags expression in that particular story, but it matches up with the style I'd found for many of the early ones. There are a few stories in Kid Colt Outlaw that I can't convince myself yet are Hart's--for instance, "The Giant of the Badlands" in #4 is the only one to use "Sufferin' coyotes"; "Death Waits in the Shadows" in #8 is the only one to use past-tense captions throughout.
The next major writer on the character, Leon Lazarus, is easy to spot when he uses expressions like "By Judas" and "'Sta la vista" but when he doesn't, his style and Joe Gill's are rather similar. However, Lazarus tends to call Kid Colt "the outlaw" in captions whereas Gill generally calls him "the Kid."
As in Gunsmoke Western, when KCO returned after the Atlas Implosion there were enough Joe Gill stories on hand to fill two more issues (75 and 76) before Stan Lee had to take over writing the strip.
Carl Wessler is credited in the Who's Who with stories in 1957 for Kid Colt as well as The Kid from Dodge City, The Kid from Texas, Kid Slade, and the Outlaw Kid, but I believe his stories will turn out to be non-series Western backups in those characters' titles. UPDATE: Robin Snyder tells me that per Wessler's records, he had one story in this title: "This Man Is Wanted," the backup in #76 (Jan/58).
Kid Colt Outlaw writers
| Aug/-Dec/48 | 1-3 | all Kid Colt stories | E. H. Hart |
| Feb/49 | 4 | Six-Gun Deadline | Hart |
| Fight or Crawl, Outlaw | Hart | ||
| Bushwhacker's Boomerang | Hart | ||
| May/-Nov/ | 5-7 | all Kid Colt stories except text | Hart |
| Feb/50 | 8 | Ambush in Lone Valley | Hart |
| May/ | 9 | The Man from Nowhere | Leon Lazarus |
| The Meanest Man in the World | Hart | ||
| A Matter of Pride | Lazarus | ||
| Secret of the Hidden Mine | Lazarus | ||
| The Gun-Shy Sheriff | Lazarus | ||
| July/ | 10 | all Kid Colt stories | Lazarus |
| Oct/ | 11 | Captured by Comanches | Lazarus |
| Jan/51-Aug/53 | 12-29 | all Kid Colt stories | Lazarus |
| Sep/ | 30 | [The Young Outlaw] | Joe Gill |
| [Mission of Vengeance] | Lazarus | ||
| [The Sword of Vengeance] | Lazarus | ||
| Oct/ | 31 | all Kid Colt stories | Lazarus |
| Dec/ | 32 | [A Dangerous Woman] | Gill |
| [Peaceful Valley] | Gill | ||
| Death Rides the Stage | Lazarus | ||
| Jan/54–Jan/58 | 33-76 | all Kid Colt stories | Gill |
Superb!!!
ReplyDeleteI found another "Cut you to doll-rags" bit in a later WILD WESTERN in the middle of Lazarus's run. Think it's Hart?
ReplyDeleteIt was issue #30.
ReplyDeleteSteel is called a steeldust stallion in it too, which was mostly Hart's way of describing him, so although this would be Hart's only KC story in past tense (I think), that "doll-rags" does look definitive.
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