I have long admired the cover of Two-Gun Kid #89 featuring Marvels three principle western heroes. The only issue was that Dick Ayers the man who drew a majority of the Two-Gun Kid’s adventures did not do the cover nor sadly the interior from that time on,despite Ayers having drawn all three characters several times.
A tale featuring the Two-Gun Kid, the Rawhide Kid and Kid Colt in one epic adventure certainly warranted the talents of Marvel’s premier 60s western artists.
I have long suspected that Dick was moved over to the Captain Savage book and hence his reason for not doing any additional Two-Gun Kid stories. Ayers was a powerful producer of art in the mid-sixties second only do Kirby in terms of producing monthly or bi-monthly books doing Two Gun Kid, Sgt Fury, Ghost Rider and Captain Savage along with at least one Captain Marvel story.
Why suddenly western “novel length” tales were abandoned in both Two -Gun and Kid Colt as the books went went to two stories per issue remains a mystery. As does the sudden departure of Jack Keller from the Kid Colt stories, Werner Roth was the replacement artist in that book and he did a nice job, but Jack Keller’s Kid Colt was the artist I grew up with.
Anyhow for five decades this has been a what if for me. What if Dick had actually done the cover? Early in my commissioning years I was able to get a commission from Dick but by the time I got around to seriously commissioning and thinking about a redo, Dick had gone to his final reward.
So throughout almost two decades of commissioning sequential art from various artists this has been one of those elusive what if commissions.
Enter Bruce McCorkindale, who not only does remarkable recreations but also my Amazing Blue Beetle Theme, the concept is simple what if Ditko had created his Blue Beetle for Marvel instead of Spidey? Hence the substitution of Ted Kord for Peter Parker in Spider-Man covers. Bruce has done numerous commissions for me all based on Ditko covers or splashes. This year we are moving further in time and doing some Amazing Blue Beetles based on the works of Gil Kane and Ross Andru.
Back to Two-Gun Kid #89, I asked Bruce if he would be willing to take a crack at this project and he said yes, perhaps not knowing what he was getting himself into. Bruce did a magnificent job of adapting Odgen Whitney’s style while making the Rawhide Kid’s hat a bit more Larry Lieberish. The differences between Whitney‘s Kid Colt and Jack Kellers were negligible on the cover so I did not ask for any revisions for that character. Hats were the conundrum though, because try and try again the Ayers style hat was just a bit off. Dick had a unique way of drawing cowboy hats and Bruce bless him went through three revisions before depicting a hat that would make me happy.
The end result is an interesting mesh of Ayers and Whitney, so please feel free to…
Enjoy!
02-06-21
