DELL PUBLISHING
(C) WYATT EARP ENTERPRISES
This comic features a photographic cover of actor, Hugh O'brian as TV's Wyatt Earp. The thing about the old west is how mythologies were created out of real people so that they became characters in fictional works. Billy the Kid, Buffalo Bill, Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, General Custer - all real people who have become fictions.
This comic is devoted to Mr Wyatt Earp, arguably the West's most famous lawman. It's in good condition too, considering it's four years older than I am. I think I've got more creases than this comic.
The interesting thing about this comic is that although it is Hugh O'brian on the cover the artist depicting Earp seems to have based him visiually on the James Garner version from the excellent movie, Hour of the Gun. Or are these stories reprints from an earlier Earp comic book? Maybe someone out there wil
l know.It's all good clean retro fun - no dark, brooding heroes with complex personalities here. In these books the good guys wear the white hats and the baddies, the black ones.
I'm not sure of this and am not going to check the details - instead I hope someone will know the answer and leave it on the comments section of this post. BUt I think Earp may have been the most filmed and written about real western character. If he's not then it's only possibly Billy the Kid or Davy Crockett who tops him. It's an interesting question - anyone have any idea?
In the meantime enjoy this strip from the Wyatt Earp comic book from Dell Publishing.
4 comments:
And I think you're right, Gary. I have on file a printout, taken from the computer system of an NZ newspaper I was working at in 1994. It's of a syndicated article written by Jane Sumner of the Dallas Morning News, in which she looks at "a dozen big and small-screen Wyatts through the years" beginning with Walter Huston (Law and Order, 1931) and winding up with Kurt Russell (Tombstone, 1993). Hugh O'Brian and James Garner are listed along the way.
Sumner says: "Western heroes come and go, but no figure from the Old West has been resurrected as often as Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp, named for his father's commanding officer in the Mexican War."
Keith
Keith - thanks if you have a scan of that article I'd love to see it.
ALSO - Tombstone is often cited as containing the definitive Wyatt but I thought Costner's Wyatt Earp was better merely because it showed more of the story. And Dennis Quaid really looked ill as Doc. Val Kilmer was great in Tomstone but Wyatt Earp's Doc was much more successful to my mind.
Hour of the Gun was made in 1967 so presumably the artist didn't use it as the inspiration for his illustrations. However, both Hugh O'Brien & James Garner are both square jawed which may account for the resemblance.
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