Gaylord DuBois | |
---|---|
Born | Gaylord McIlvaine Du Bois August 24, 1899 Winthrop, Massachusetts |
Died | October 20, 1993 Orange City, Florida |
(aged 94)
Nationality | American |
Area(s) | Writer |
Notable works
|
Western comics Tarzan comics |
Gaylord McIlvaine Du Bois (sometimes written DuBois) (August 24, 1899 – October 20, 1993) was an American writer of comic book stories and comic strips, as well as Big Little Books and juvenile adventure novels. Du Bois wrote Tarzan for Dell Comics and Gold Key Comics from 1946 until 1971, and wrote over 3,000 comics stories over his career.
An avid outdoorsman, Du Bois had a true affinity for writing stories with natural settings. His forte was in Westerns, as well as jungle comics and animal reality comics. He created many original second features for Western Publishing (e.g., "Captain Venture: Beneath the Sea", "Leopard Girl", "Two Against the Jungle", etc.), but most of his work for the company was in writing stories with licensed characters.
Among the various genres for which he wrote comic book scripts, most were of the outdoor adventure variety, particularly Westerns, including Red Ryder Comics (for which he wrote "Little Beaver" text pages, The Fighting Yanks WWII feature, and, particularly, the "Kyotee Kids" Western series, 31 scripts, the first being sent to his editor 12/23/1946, the last being sent 3/19/1949, that ran from about issue #43 ending with #72; Du Bois had previously been one of the ghostwriters for the Red Ryder newspaper comic strip drawn by Fred Harman. Before its format change to all-new Red Ryder material, Red Ryder Comics featured Red Ryder newspaper strip reprints.
He also wrote stories for Gene Autry Comics, Roy Rogers Comics (1944-1956, 1959-1960, all of the first run in the Four Color Comics series, and, under its own numbering, Roy Rogers Comics #1 through about #108, and approximately #134 through #143), Zane Grey's King of the Royal Mounted (Du Bois had previously been one of the ghost-writers for the King of the Royal Mounted newspaper comic strip drawn by illustrator Jim Gary), Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, Bat Masterson (adapting Bat Masterson (TV series)), Tales of Wells Fargo / Man from Wells Fargo, Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Rebel, Bonanza and Hotel de Paree Sundance. Gaylord Du Bois also wrote comic book script adaptations of Zane Grey's western novels for the Dell Four Color Series' "Zane Grey's" issues, which achieved its own numbering with #27 as "Zane Grey's Stories of the West." Du Bois wrote the first issue. In total, he wrote 31 of the series' 39 issues.