Story art from this wonderful issue of Four Color (#491 - August 1953) is by one of America's greatest portrait painters, Everett Raymond Kinstler. Although Mr. Kinstler has painted the portraits of American presidents (seven of them) and movie stars, he cut his teeth in the 1940s and 50s on comic books. For Dell (Four Color), he worked on many Western titles (Western Marshall, Zorro, Outlaw Trail, and Max Brand's Silvertip), often producing several issues in a series. Im a big, fat fan! The following story is a prime example of Kinstler's remarkable vision of the American West.
Boy, gorgeous art on this one, Myk!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful!
ReplyDeleteKarwell and Pap: Thanks, gentlemen. I agree: both gorgeous and beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI am lucky enough to own that issue.
ReplyDeleteI became interested in Dell's westerns in recent years and they had some great artists work on all those novels (Max Brandt, Luke Short, Zane Grey, Ernest Haycox, etc.), TV series (Laramie, Have Gun Will Travel, Gunsmoke, Maverick, etc.), and movies (Rio Bravo, Searchers, etc.)
Sure, there are a lot of "adequate and unexciting" arists like Tom Gill or Mike Arens in Dell westerns. But more often then you might think at first you will find some gorgeous Russ Manning on DALE EVANS, Alex Toth on SUGARFOOT, the surprising and awesome team-up of Gil Kane and Russ Heath on Laramie, some early John Buscema on ROY ROGERS, and an artist's artist like Kinstler on Max Brandt's SLVERTIP. The joy is in the hunt of all those four color gems.
Thanks for sharing those treasures Mykal,and very happy to see you post more often.
Kid: You are so right about the Dell westerns! I have a nice batch myself, which will be posted over time. Posting them is my pleasure.
ReplyDeleteAbout time you pulled the plug on that Frazetta book (even as good as it was) and this western issue proved worth the wait!
ReplyDeleteChuck: There's been a couple of posts after the Frazetta book - I'm going fast and furious now! Yeah, I agree - this issue is a dinger.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah... Own it. Love it. Really DIG seein' it on-line.
ReplyDeleteDell Westerns rock anyway.... but Kinstler's are a whole different bowl of Amazing! Keep up the great work, friend. And welcome back!
Abie: Thanks, pal!
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