Number 2215: Ghost Rider whacks a dog

Aw, cool off there, dog lovers. The dog that Ghost Rider whacks is a comic book dog. (As Robert Crumb once said, "It’s just lines on paper, folks.”)

Ghost Rider fights a sinister force that has turned a Western town into Hate Town. People invaded by devils, big snakes...yikes! I’d hate to live there!

Anyway, the writer has concocted a denouement that is, well, hard to swallow. But, that was the world of the Ghost Rider, where things are usually not as they appear to be. Grand Comics Database doesn’t credit the script to anyone, but Gardner Fox was the usual writer of Ghost Rider. Dick Ayers and Ernie Bache are listed as artists.

From Ghost Rider #9 (1952).

Number 1953: Ghost Rider's treasure chest

The Ghost Rider succumbed to the Comics Code. This story is from the last issue (#14, 1954) of Ghost Rider’s own title. He lasted for about another year in ME’s Western series, Red Mask, but much tamed from the spooky (and popular) character.

As we know from Don Markstein’s Toonopedia website, in the sixties Marvel took the name and essentially the same character, gave him a new origin, but had his original artist, Dick Ayers, draw him. (Don has individual listings for the four characters who use the name.) I was disappointed when I saw the '60s revival, and didn’t buy any of the half-dozen issues that were published. I somehow ended up with this 1970 issue of Western Gunfighters #2, but it is the only Marvel Ghost Rider I own.

I also own none of the later comics featuring the motorcycle guys with blazing skulls who have usurped the name Ghost Rider.

No, for me, no matter how silly the dialogue can be, no matter the implausible plots, I love Dick Ayers’ art on the pre-Code, one-and-only, original Ghost Rider.

Number 1523: No animals were harmed in the making of this comic book

Two stories from ME’s Ghost Rider #8 (1952). The longer story, featuring the Ghost Rider, has a panel where a dog gets killed. This is not to rile up any animal lovers who read this blog, but the dog is not real. Nor is his hunchback owner, nor the villain of the piece, nor the Ghost Rider. And while we’re at it, how can you be sure I’m real?

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For real, more Ghost Rider. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 1423: “A thirst for blood!”

On the occasions I’ve shown an original Ghost Rider — not the Marvel Comics motorcycle guy with the flaming skull, but the original Western character with reversible cloak, riding a horse — there has been a bit of grousing because the Ghost Rider stories usually turn out to be tricks that look like supernatural. So here you are, supernatural fans. A “Tales of the Ghost Rider” seven-pager from Ghost Rider #8 (1952) that features a “real” supernatural being, a vampire.

Art by Dick Ayers.

Number 1130: The Talking Head

It’s an election year in America, and television is full of talking heads. Those are people who sit around a table and endlessly talk politics, political strategy, polls, statistics...blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH! I’m a voter, and I know for whom I’m voting. I suspect many other citizens are the same, but we put up with these damn talking heads...I wish I had a job where I got paid a huge amount of money to be a gasbag. As it is, I'm doing my gasbagging right here for free.

On to today’s post, which, beyond the title, has nothing to do with my rant on television. “The Talking Head” is a Ghost Rider tale, drawn by Dick Ayers for Best Of the West #4. That title used the four Western stars of the ME Comics line: Durango Kid, Straight Arrow, Ghost Rider and Tim Holt. Best Of the West was a very nice comic book which had a run of twelve quarterly issues between 1951 and 1954.

The Indian babe, Fawn Woman, reminds me of what Harvey Kurtzman once said in Mad: “. . . if they'd had girls like this, the Wild West would have been a lot wilder!”

Number 1108


Frankenstein and the original Ghost Rider


Realizing that I've never before shown "The Devil Tiger" from Ghost Rider #10 gave me the opportunity to not only scan it for presentation, but also to re-scan the cover story from that issue.

The cover is a classic:

As a comic book fan, for me there are several highlights in Dick Ayers' extraordinary career. I first noticed his inks on Jack Kirby's pencils when they collaborated in the late '50s and early '60s at Marvel, but realized what a good artist he was in his own right when I saw his pre-Code work on Ghost Rider.