Number 2440: Tom Mix and a hearty breakfast

Ralston-Purina made animal food, and also made breakfast cereal. Both the animal food division and the breakfast cereal division have been sold a few times, and I’m not really interested in all that. I am interested in Ralston-Purina’s affiliation with Western movie star Tom Mix. A radio show based on Mix was sponsored by Ralston-Purina, and in 1940 they produced a comic book version of Mix. For two box tops from Ralston Purina cereal a fan could get the comic book in the mail! That’s worth buying a couple of boxes of cereal, I guess. The first issue came out in 1940, and I have the whole issue here.

It looks like some thought (and hard work) went into it. It is a top-notch comic book for 1940. The artwork, by Fred Meagher (pronounced “Mar”) for the Tom Mix stories is excellent. It looks like the issue may have been produced with help from Charles Biro (Daredevil, Boy Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, et al.) Biro signed one of the stories. There are also a couple of racial caricatures of a type sadly common 80 years ago, so be aware.

Tom Mix Comics had nine issues, then three more as Tom Mix Commandos Comics, switching to a wartime theme. The partnership with Tom Mix ended there, although Tom Mix had nothing to do with it, as he was deceased. He died in 1940 on an Arizona road when he crashed his 1937 Cord. The Tom Mix business continued without Tom Mix. Other actors had been portraying Mix on the radio show. The posthumous heroics of Tom Mix continued with a series of stories in a couple of Fawcett’s anthology comics, Master Comics and Western Heroes, as well as his own title for 61 issues, from 1948 until Fawcett ended its comic book line in 1953.

Number 2312: Tom Mix, “Mixacan”

“Bondage in the West” as a title sounds a lot more perverted than it really is. It has to do with a rancher ripping off (and murdering) Mexican laborers working on his ranch.

Tom Mix shows up in disguise...he puts on a sombrero and a fake mustache, and fools the crooked rancher! (The villain must have that peculiar face blindness that shows up often in comic books where characters wear a disguise.)

We hear a lot about illegal aliens nowadays, but this story is from 1949, and people coming into the U.S. from south of the border has been going on since America sliced off pieces of Mexico and made them United States territories, then states. American bad guys, yeah, we see a lot of them, also. Good thing our hero Tom is willing to get into the “Mix” to help fellow human beings!

Art by Carl Pfeufer and John Jordan. Writer unknown. From Master Comics #105 (1949):

Number 2275: Mix-ing reality with fantasy

Tom Mix was a Western star of silent movies. He made dozens of movies, but only nine after the silent era was over and sound came in. He made a lot of money and spent it. He died in a car wreck in 1940, age 60. Interestingly, he lived on after death in radio programs, performed by other actors, and in comic books. One comic book was a premium from the cereal company Ralston-Purina, and then a 10¢ series from Fawcett Publications which lasted until 1953.

He looked great in a cowboy hat. Not every man can wear a hat like Tom Mix.

I mention it because in the 9-page story Mix is shown in his trademark 10-gallon hat in only two panels.

Fawcett had a bunch of B-movie Western stars under contract for their line of B-movie Western comic books. William “Hopalong Cassidy” Boyd got two comics, one as Hopalong, the other as Bill Boyd. Unlike Tom Mix, I don’t believe any of the other comic book cowboys from Fawcett comics at that time were deceased. I probably need not say they are now.

“The Deal of Death” is from Tom Mix Western #17 (1949). The cover was painted by illustrator Norm Saunders. Artwork for the story is by Carl Pfeufer.