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Friday, November 16, 2012

Number 1263: Basil's BingBang Buster busts bad boys!

It's been too long since I showed anything by Basil Wolverton. His feature, “BingBang Buster and his Horse, Hedy,” appeared in Lev Gleason's Black Diamond Western in three-page increments from issue #16 (1949) through #28 (1951). Basil was freelance, working out of his home in Washington State, a continent’s width away from New York City.He was a triple talent, writing, drawing and even lettering his own material. His work showed up in various comics for different publishers, and he may be the main reason for collecting those issues of this particular Western/crime comic edited by Charles Biro.

These are the four stories that appeared in Black Diamond Western issues #16-#19.

















Basil got national attention when he was featured in Life magazine after winning the Lena the Hyena contest in “Li'l Abner.” You can see Lena the Hyena and the article in Pappy's #1186.


2 comments:

Kirk said...

Funny and inventive.

I also know in the 1950s Wolverton did several one page portrayals on typical Mad comic book readers, all of whom were drawn along the same lines as Lena the Hyena. Also, in the 1970s, there was a short-lived comic book called Plop that had Wolverton covers.

Odyzeus! said...

If there is anything on this earth funnier than the way Wolverton draws horses, I'm afraid I can't tell you what it might be!