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| Jim Bowie (with his famous knife) is greeted by Davy Crockett at the Alamo |
For a limited edition comic strip,
In the Days of Davy Crockett does a nice job of condensing the stories of Jim Bowie, Sam Houston, William Barret "Buck" Travis and Andrew Jackson to make them easy to understand for young readers. The stories are generally accurate and portray each man as an American hero. The artwork is excellent, with appealing composition and masterful use of shadows. Writer William Ritt and artist Alfred J. Buescher did a great job.
While I was unable to collect the entire set of strips (some were missing in the available papers), there are enough presented here to give you a good idea of what the youngsters were reading. The story of Jim Bowie and his famous knife kicked off the four-week long series. I like how the narrator gives the young reader credit for knowing "all about Davy Crockett," and notes that "Now I'd like to tell you about some of Davy's friends, like Jim Bowie."
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| June 6 |
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| June 7 |
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| June 8 |
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| June 9 |
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| June 10 |
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| June 11 |
I thought the imminent death of Jim Bowie in the strip was depicted pretty tastefully.
Next up: Sam Houston. The first strip apparently ran on a Sunday, so the Journal (which didn't publish on Sunday back then) didn't carry it. The June 14th strip handles the fall of the Alamo and the death of all its defenders very quietly.
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| June 20 |
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| June 23 |
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| June 24 |
On June 27, the
Journal printed two strips, one atop the other (below). The top comic includes Travis' famous drawing of a line on the ground for volunteers to cross, as well as his death at the Alamo.
The bottom panel kicks off the story of President Andrew Jackson. Jackson was somewhat of an odd choice to be part of this series. Jackson was hardly a 'friend' of Crockett, since during the time the frontiersman was serving in Congress, he vehemently opposed many of President Jackson's policies.
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| July 2 |
But the Lorain Journal was not quite done with Crockett that summer. A brand new series, this time focused directly on the man, not his friends, began on July 25, 1955. Here's the short promo that appeared on the front page on July 22nd.
And here is a small selection of the
Davy Crockett strips, beginning with the first. Unlike the brisk pace of the other comic strip series, unfortunately this one plodded along like a turtle.
Maybe it was just a case of frontier fatigue.
