By Charles Chilton, Jack Daniel & Frank Humphris (Hawk Books -1990)
ISBN: 0-948248-07-0
In the 1950s Cowboys and Indians ruled the hearts and minds of the public. Westerns were the most popular subject of books, films and comics. The new medium of television screened both recycled cowboy B-movies and eventually serials and series especially created for the stay-at-home aficionado. Some examples were pretty good and became acknowledged as art – as is always the way with popular culture – whilst most others faded from memory, cherished only by the hopelessly nostalgic and the driven.
One medium I didn’t list was radio, an entertainment medium ideal for creating spectacular scenarios and dreamscapes on a low budget. But the BBC (the only legal British radio broadcaster) even managed a halfway decent Western/music show called Riders of the Range. It was written by producer/director Charles Chilton and ran from 1949 until 1953, six series in total.
At the height of its popularity it was adapted as a comic strip in Eagle, which already featured the strip exploits of the immensely successful radio star P.C. 49. The hugely successful comic had already tried a cowboy strip Seth and Shorty, but promptly dropped it. Riders of the Range began as a full colour page in the first Christmas edition (December 22nd 1950, volume 1, No. 37) and ran until 1962, outlasting its own radio show and becoming the longest running western strip in British comics history. In all that time it only ever had three artists.
The first was Jack Daniel, an almost abstract stylist in his designs who worked in bold almost primitive lines, but whose colour palette was years ahead of his time. Crude and scratchy-seeming, his western scenarios were subversive and subliminal in impact. He had previously worked on the newspaper strip Kit Conquest.
Author Chilton had a deep and abiding fascination with the West and often wrote adventures that interwove with actual historical events, such as ‘The Cochise Affair’ reprinted here. This was the second adventure and had heroic Jeff Arnold and sidekick Luke branding cattle for their “6T6†ranch near the Arizona border when they find a raided homestead. A distraught, wounded mother begs for help and reveals that Indians have stolen her little boy. Taking her to Fort Buchanan, Arnold becomes embroiled in a bitter battle of wills between Chief Cochise and Acting Cavalry Commander Lieutenant George N. Bascom. The lean sparse scripts are subtly engaging and Daniel’s unique design and colour sense – although perhaps at odds with the more naturalistic realism of the rest of Eagle‘s drama strips – make this a hugely enjoyable lost gem.
Angus Scott took over from Daniel with ‘Border Bandits’ (September 7th 1951), but was not a popular or comfortable fit and departed after less than a year. With only a single page of his art reprinted here, it’s perhaps fairest to move on to the artist most closely associated with the strip.
Frank Humphris was a godsend. His artwork was lush, vibrant and full-bodied. He was also as fascinated with the West as Chilton himself and brought every inch of that passion to the tales. From July 1952 and for the next decade Chilton and Humphris crafted a thrilling and even educational western saga that is fondly remembered to this day. His tenure is represented here by ‘The War with the Sioux’.
In 1875 gold was discovered in the Black Hills of Dakota and the resultant rush of prospectors resulted in the Cavalry being dispatched to protect them from the incensed Indians. Jeff and Luke are hired as intermediaries and scouts, but are helpless as the situation worsens, resulting in the massacre at Little Big Horn. There have many tales woven into this epochal event, but the patriotically dispassionate creativity of two Britons have united here to craft one of the most beautiful and memorable.
The day of the cowboys’ dominance has faded now but the power of great stories well told has not. This is a series and a book worthy of a more extensive revival. Let’s hope someone with the power to do something about it agrees with me. We’d all be winners then…
Riders of the Range © 1990 Fleetway Publications. Compilation © 1990 Hawk Books.
