Kid Colt: The Rest of the Stories

In his 1947 tome Secrets Behind the Comics Stan Lee shows the script layout in use at Timely--panel descriptions down the left-hand side of the page, captions/dialogue down the right hand. It seems like extra work for the writer--figuring out the spacing needed to match up the panels in the two columns--but certainly it would make it easier for the artist and letterer to focus on only what each needs.

It would also make it easier for the editor if he wants to keep the panel descriptions from the original writer but for whatever reason get a second writer to replace the text. According to his records, Paul S. Newman sold "His Brother's Keeper" in Wild Western #8 to Timely. But from the style, Ernie Hart wrote it. I would figure Newman's left-hand side of the script was used and then Hart did a replacement right-hand side. (Occasionally Timely bought scripts for ongoing strips that weren't even "salvaged" like this--a good ten Captain Americas from William Woolfolk, per his records, were paid for but then never published.)

Here's what makes me assign the final script of "His Brother's Keeper" to Hart: "We pick up the trail again" in that story and then in the Ant-Man story "Music to Scream By" in Tales to Astonish 47 (Sep/63), credited as H. E. Huntley. I'd be a touch less than 100% certain only if I ever ran across Newman using the authorial "we" anywhere.

UPDATE: Robin Snyder tells me he's deleting "His Brother's Keeper" from the Newman bibliography, as Paul S. Newman's earliest credits were reconstructed based on having the books in his files (for most of Newman's career, commencing soon after, his records contain much more corroborating material). "He advised me to delete any credit if there was the slightest doubt that it was his. He was aware that some writers also kept records and he preferred to give up any credit if he or I thought it possible he was mistaken."

Kid Colt writers in All Western Winners

Win/48-Apr/49

2-4

Kid Colt stories

E. H. Hart

in Western Winners

June/-Aug/49

5-6

Kid Colt stories

Hart

in Best Western

June/-Aug/49

58-59

Kid Colt stories

Hart

in Wild Western

Nov/48-Jan/49	4-5	Kid Colt stories	Hart
May/	7	The Curse of the Chinese Idol	Hart (credited in sneak)
July/	8	His Brother's Keeper	plot: Paul S. Newman
			dialogue: Hart
Oct/	9	The End of the Trail	Hart
Feb/-Aug/52	20-23	Kid Colt stories	Leon Lazarus
Oct/	24	Whip Savage [2 parts]	Hart
Dec/52-Sep/53	25-29	Kid Colt stories [2 each, 25-26]	Lazarus
Oct/	30	Justice in His Holsters	Hart
Dec/53-Sep/57	31-57	Kid Colt stories	Joe Gill

in Two-Gun Kid

Nov/49	10	The Hunter and the Hunted	Hart
June/54	14	[The New Deputy]	Gill
Aug/	15	The New Sheriff	Lazarus
Sep/54-Feb/55	16-21	Kid Colt stories	Gill

in Two Gun Western

Aug/51-June/52

9-14

Kid Colt stories

Lazarus

in Black Rider

Jan/-Mar/55

26-27

Kid Colt stories

Gill

The Pre-Lee K.C. Big Three

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