Number 1967: My heart’s in the saddle, but my steering wheel is on the right

Years ago an art teacher of mine told our class that an artist has to make decisions. Reed Crandall, artist of today’s story from Quality Comics’ Hollywood Secrets #2 (1950), was faced with such a decision. The scripter committed a comic book faux pas with the dialogue of characters in a car, the driver speaking first, the passenger second. Crandall’s decision on how to stage this clumsy situation was to make the car a right-hand drive, something uncommon in America. He made a decision not to show the make of car, just that it is a convertible, more common in Southern California than England or other countries where right-hand drive is the norm.

The story itself is typical of love comics: girl yearns for something she can’t have. In this case it is stardom, but she pulls some dirty tricks to get to her goal, leaving her original love broken-hearted. We find out Walter Prine, who lures star-seeking Joan Lee away from her love, Dick Ashley, is a bounder who may drive on the right, but drives her wrong.

In retrospect, Joan was in one way correct...cowboy movies like Dick Ashley starred in were on their way out. Some cowboy stars adapted well to the new medium of television, but many B-Western movie cowboys suddenly found their stardom diminished or gone by the mid-'50s. I wonder what happened to Joan? Maybe she got parts in the science fiction movie boom of the 1950s...but that would be another story.

“My Heart’s in the Saddle” ends in an act of bravery by Dick, showing up Walter. Walter acts the coward,  stampeding others to get out of a burning building. The cad! A children’s hospital, no less!

We also get some cheesecake, some lingerie panels. In my opinion, Crandall made good decisions on how to handle the art in those scenes.

Posted in: Pappy Comics