Boys' Ranch
| Boys' Ranch | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Harvey Comics |
| Schedule | Bimonthly |
| Format | Ongoing series |
| Genre | |
| Publication date | October 1950 – August 1951 |
| No. of issues | 6 |
| Main character(s) | Clay Duncan Dandy Wabash Angel Wee Willie Weehawken Happy Face Palomino Sue Geronimo |
| Creative team | |
| Created by | Joe Simon, Jack Kirby |
| Artist(s) |
Mort Meskin Marvin Stein |
| Collected editions | |
| Kid Cowboys of Boys' Ranch | ISBN |
| The Best of Simon and Kirby | ISBN |
Boys' Ranch was a six-issue American comic book series created by the veteran writer-artist team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for Harvey Comics in 1950. A Western in the then-prevalent "kid gang" vein popularized by such film series as "Our Gang" and "The Dead End Kids", the series starred three adolescents—Dandy, Wabash, and Angel—who operate a ranch that was bequeathed to them, under the adult supervision of frontiersman Clay Duncan. Supporting characters included Palomino Sue, Wee Willie Weehawken, citizens of the town Four Massacres, and various Native Americans, including a fictional version of the real-life Geronimo.
Noted for its use of single and double-page illustrations, the series has been lauded as one of Simon and Kirby's most significant creations. It was briefly revived through reprints in 1955, and all six issues were reprinted in a hardcover edition by Marvel Comics in 1991 with an introduction by Jim Simon.
Western-style adventures involving boys in ranch settings were already present in American popular culture with the juvenile fiction of authors such as Frank V. Webster and Dale Wilkins as well as the 1946 MGM film, Boys' Ranch. By the late 1940s, the writer-artist team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby was enjoying the commercial success of the duo's Young Romance and Young Love romance comics titles, and had formed a studio that employed artists such as Mort Meskin, Steve Ditko, John Prentice, Marvin Stein, Bruno Premiani, George Roussos, Bill Draut, and others. In 1950, Simon & Kirby launched two new titles: Black Magic, for the Crestwood Publications imprint Prize Comics, and Boys' Ranch for Harvey Comics (which had previously published two short-lived Simon–Kirby titles, Stuntman and the Boy Explorers, in 1946).
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