Happiness Is A Punched Cow

Sorry - all out of Warm Puppies. (I think Blogger strangled them during the "upgrade" - but i finally was allowed to upload all the images for this post) 

Once upon a time, 73 years ago, Cow Puncher Comics appeared on the range...

Cow Puncher Comics featured a wide variety of material, from edutainment features like Trail Tales...
 

...to cartoon comedy like Dead-Eye Dude...
 

...and deranged satire like Wild West Ro-di-dos... 

And, of course, there was Western Adventure, as seen on the covers. And the "Star" of the book - the only person to have their name on the cover - Twice - was Kit West. We'll come back to her since she deserves a solo post. Today, let's dig out a hidden gem - Alabam. 

Alabam only appeared twice, so we'll do both while we're in the neighbourhood. Here's his first tale...

So - did you spot what makes Alabam so special from a modern perspective? If not, this beautiful splash features Joe Kubert's signature quite prominently for you -
 

As you might have sorted from the cover gallery above, there were only seven issues of Cow Puncher Comics. But we'll be back soon to visit Kit and the others.

page art by Jack Warren, Joe Kubert and ??? from Cow Puncher Comics #s 1-4 (1947, 1948)

Three Minute Matinee

I'm still having trouble surfacing from the depths of The Third Colony. While i'm enjoying the progress there, that's not very entertaining for you. And not getting to sleep until the sun interrupts the work doesn't help get posts up early in the day, that's a certain. So, rather than ramble today, let's just sit back and enjoy a triple-feature from my favourite acting troupe of the 1940s - Ed Wheelan's Minute Movies players.

Okay, maybe no rambles, but one quick comment. The opening panel on this first one makes me think that some of the European comic artists i encountered back in the '70s and '80s were fans, too...

I don't know about every month in Flash Comics, but we'll surely see some more here eventually.

But, now i'm off to work on Big Sys...

page art by Ed Wheelan from Flash Comics #s 36, 40, & 41 (1942, 1943)

One Last Bit Of June, Echoing Still...

Oops. Apparently today is July 1st in these parts. With all that time slipping i've been doing lately, i ran out of June without getting to one topic i wanted to be sure of posting. It was originally planned for Juneteenth, but got bumped by the post i did use, and then my peripatetic brain wandered away, thinking it had already been there. So i'm pushing July back by a day, and we're hopping back 56 years to June of 1964 and a comic that was legendarily rare but should have been widely distributed...

It may have been over half a century ago, but it still resonates today with our current struggles. Don't go looking for #s 1-4, this was the first comic book published as part of HARYOU's outreach programs.

The comic was years ahead of its time, illustrating a thick & wordy report - Youth In The Ghetto: A Study Of The Consequences Of Powerlessness - the way we'd see done later for things like the Iran/Contra Affair and the 9/11 Attack, making the information readily accessible to the general public.

I'm very curious about Sam Huger, the artist on this book. It appears to be the only comic he ever drew, at least under that name. I say 'at least under that name' because it's surprising well done for someone with no experience in the field. I'd very much like to know what else he did, comics or otherwise.

Without further comment from the old white dude, let's head on inside the covers...

(For all you Neil deGrasse Tyson fans, that's his Dad being named in the first panel.)

Hmm...
I was going to put the full report here, but i don't see a way to link it or store the file here on Blogger.
However, i did find a .pdf copy over at the Internet Archive. Here's the link, and hopefully it's still good by the time you got here.

page art by Sam Huger from Harlem Youth Report #5 (1964)