Sunday, September 7, 2014

Old Timer Tales of KIT CARSON, 1952

(Continued from Kit Carson, 1951)

This BOYS' LIFE series ran from March 1951-May 1953.  With the popularity of western series all through the 1950s, I find it very odd that the series ended only 8 months after the color comics section made its debut.  I would have thought a western series would have fit easily side-by-side with the science-fiction of Space Conquerors! and the historical mythology of Stories From The Bible.

I'm not usually a prude when it comes to violence, but somehow I find this series rather shocking in the amount of killing it depicts.  I found a comment from someone online who said that by all accounts, Kit Carson was a "genocidal maniac".  I'm beginning to think that may have had something to do with this series being replaced before too long with something less filled with endless depictions of mass killings.

Old Timer Tales Of KIT CARSON
January 1952  /  Episode 10  /  "Battle In The Lava Beds"
story by Stanley Pashko  /  art by LEE AMES
Page 2
February 1952  /  Episode 11  /  "Averts An Icy Death"
March 1952  /  Episode 12  /  "Gets The Message Through"
April 1952  /  Episode 13  /  "Caught In A Buffalo Stampede"
May 1952  /  Episode 14  /  "Avenges An Apache Victim"
Page 2
June 1952  /  Episode 15  /  "He Recaptures A Cannon"
Page 2


There was no episode in the July 1952 issue.

August 1952  /  Episode 16  /  "Wagon Train Ambush" 


The Johnstone & Cushing color comics section debuted in the September 1952 issue. "Boys' Life Color Section -- 8 PAGES of Fun - Adventure - Excitement", it said. The features included "Pee Wee Harris", "Stories From The Bible", "Mog-An-Ah, The Mound Builder", "Old Timer Tales Of Kit Carson", "Space Conquerors!", "How To Make It", "Emanon Dreemz", and "Scouts In Action". Only the latter and "Kit Carson" predated the color section, the latter getting a nice new logo design.

It seems odd that they kept the same series name, considering the last appearance of the scouts was in the June episode, and the last appearance of the "Old Timer" was in the August episode.

September 1952  /  Episode 17  /  ["The Two-Man Army"]
October 1952  /  Episode 18  /  ["Prevents A Murder"]
November 1952  /  Episode 19  /  ["Renegade Whites"]
There was no "Kit Carson" in the December 1952 issue...
     but the series would return the following month.

(Continued in Kit Carson, 1953)

Copyright (C) 1952 by Boys' Life magazine

Raw scans from the Boys' Life / Wayback Machine website
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa

For more:
Read about Kit Carson at the Wikipedia site!
Read about Lee Ames at the Wikipedia site!
See the covers of Avon's KIT CARSON series at the GCD site
Read Avon's KIT CARSON series at the Comic Book Plus site!
Read more KIT CARSON in Avon's BLAZING SIXGUNS
     at the Western Comics Adventures blog!
Read about the CLASSIC ILLUSTRATED version at the Comixology site
Read about the KIT CARSON tv series at the Google.com site!

Read SPACE CONQUERORS! at this blog!
Read STORIES FROM THE BIBLE at this blog!
Read Old Timer Tales of KIT CARSON at this blog!

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