Calamity Kate is the masked identity of Miss Patricia Layne, the daughter of a deceased sheriff. She fakes being a stage robber, but in conjunction with Wild Bill Pecos goes in pursuit of the real bad guys. Something I noticed: Wild Bill knows who Miss Layne is, behind her disguise. In that way he is different than the hundreds of other comic book characters who don’t recognize the face under a domino mask.
Another thing about Wild Bill: his clothing style is...well, wild. He is color coordinated in purple pants with a matching neckerchief (which looks more like a shorty necktie), green shirt, cowboy hat and boots. No one else would look to see who Calamity Kate is, because their eyeballs would be too busy bouncing off Bill’s colorful outfit.
The story is drawn by Mort Lawrence.
Hi Pappy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for following up on https://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2017/03/number-2024-nuggets-aint-chicken.html It's strange that the bookends of this series both involve Patricia going undercover to capture the insider robbing the stage coach! At least I hope that's not what every episode portrayed...
Darci, thanks for being a longtime reader of this blog. I'm wondering if you ever watch old Western movies, because being undercover to bust a robber gang is one of the plots used over and over. There really weren't a lot of original ideas when it came to Westerns, because there is only so much a writer can do with a such a setting. Going back to that posting you link to in your comment, Brian Barnes does a good job with his own comment of listing the clichés of the genre.
ReplyDeleteBeyond that, I appreciate you pointing out that Calamity Kate was a regular in The Westerner. Despite the similarities in the plots of both stories I've shown, the artwork was topnotch for its day.