Missing Magnus

We will get back to Kit West. 
As is too frequently the case these days, my brain doesn't want to go there just now, and i'm tired of fighting it. 
So, meanwhile...

When asked about my all-time favourite Super Hero Team, it was always an easy answer - The Legion Of Super-Heroes. I just loved the mix of superheroics and science fiction. (And, yes - of course, that means that i was reading Marvel's 'knock-off' - the Guardians Of The Galaxy - from page one)

So, it's not surprising that i was a big fan of Magnus, Robot Fighter. Naturally, Russ Manning's, and later Paul Norris's, artwork certainly didn't hurt to draw me in. (No pun intended, really)

But, despite the high quality and personal preference, the series never did as well as it should have. With issue #29 they switched to reprints to save costs. Even in reprints, the book continued for another eight years of quarterly issues.

But, when they switched to the reprint format, there was already a story in the works which got tossed into the files and forgotten for years.

Fortunately, every now and again, somebody seems to go digging in the files. So here are the pencil pages by Paul Norris, written by Mike Royer, for the issue between #s 28 & 29 with a story called Programmed For Revenge -

page art by Paul Norris from Unpublished Magnus, Robot Fighter (drawn in 1969)

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)