Saturday, December 16, 2017

Kid Calling

Saturday Leftover Day.

I have been showing some of the comedian strips from the British late fifties/early sixties magazine Film Fun. In later issues, they added realisticly drawn adventures series to their line-up. Most of them were in an stodgy, old-fashioned style but here is one that will appeal to the Cisco Kid lovers out there. Ringo was drawn by the Chilian/Argentnian artist Arturo del Castillo. Acoording the Lambieks comic guide it was created for the magazine Top Shot, which was published form 1958 to 1960 and merged with Film Fun in 1960. Personally I recognize it from the later sixties, when it was also used in the Dutch weekly Sjors. Lambiek mentioned he made new stories between 1968 and 1974 with Hector Oesterheld, the famous south American comics writer. I downloaded a couple of issues of Top Shot but could not find Ringo in them, so I have added another stylisticly similar western strip and a rather flashy adaptation of a Sabatini novel.



6 comments:

Diego Cordoba said...

In fact, Ger, the Ringo series is nothing but the series "Randall the Killer" that del Castillo had done prior in the fifties with Oesterheld in Argentina. It was sold later in Britain and renamed Ringo. According to Oesterheld, future Beatle Richard Starkey liked the series so much, he took on the name "Ringo" and added Starr to it.

This series also got the British inetrested in Del Castillo's work, who would also adapt the Three Musketeers which appeared in Lion, and Horatius, Hero of Rome which appeared in Look and Learn. All the other western series he did for the British, actually appeared in Argentina first.

Diego Cordoba said...

Actually the 3 Musketters appeared first in Film Fun, and the rest of the series "The King's Musketeers" and "The Man in the Iron Mask" were continued in Lion.

comicstripfan said...

Ger: Interesting your comment regarding the "Cisco Kid." The line work very much reminds me of Frank Godwin's "Rusty Riley."

Ger Apeldoorn said...

Yes,, Godwin is in the same school. In fact, I was just looking at my old Godwin posts for Charles pelto, who is doing a Godwin book at Classic Comic Press. And Diego, thanks! I know far too little about South American comics.

pedro jose sanna said...

Hola. Excelente articulo. Pero Arturo del Castillo era chileno y vivio y trabajo en Argentina. Ademas de Randall, tambien dibujo a Garret, El Cobra y Los Vikingos. Saludos desde Argentina: Pedro Sanna

Anonymous said...

The western 'Larrigan" was made by Arturo del Castillo directly and exclusively for Fleetway Publication between 1961 and 1962.
In Argentina appeared in the 70's only one chapter of 'Mark of Gunman' (Larrigan #4 - Cowboy Picture Library #463) called 'owlhoot drive'

https://bookpalace.com/acatalog/info_LARRIGAN.html#SID=1484

https://bookpalace.com/bpb/Larriganpeek/index.html

Greetings from Argentina!