Warren Tufts (Dec. 12, 1925-July 6, 1982) was a terrific artist specializing in Western comics. His Casey Ruggles newspaper strip began in 1949 with a storyline involving the 1849 Gold Rush, but Tufts left the strip in 1954 in a dispute over ownership of the feature. To conclude his contract, he briefly drew a comedic science-fiction strip, Lone Spaceman, which he demonstrated was capable of syndication but that the syndicate turned down, ending its contract with Tufts. Following that, he began his Lance Western strip as a Sunday full-pager in 1957 and added a daily in 1957.

Tufts experimented with what was possible for the newspaper format. On at least some Sunday strips, he dropped the line art from the illustration. In this sequence of the dailies in 1957, he went from line art to an experimentation with toning.

The science-fiction strip ran in England's Daily Express from Feb. 15, 1955, to April 18, 1974. In August, Titan Books released the collection Jeff Hawke: Overlord (ISBN 1845765982). George Hagenauer has commented on how to solve dating problems with British strips, so I'll note that in this specific era, strip #H-1723 was in the paper dated Oct. 9, 1959. Those with calendar programs can work out when these specific strips were published. (At this point, Jordan's friend William Patterson was scripting the feature and possibly helping to plot the tales, as well.)

In his comment regarding my Sept. 18 post about Sir Bagby, George Hagenauer wrote, "Is this the strip with the miniature dragon?" I don't know whether it's the strip with the miniature dragon, but it was certainly a strip with a miniature dragon. In fact, in the following 1964 sequence, there are even two dragons, as the cast of Sir Bagby meets a group of Asian characters.

Today, such strips as the online Sword & Sarcasm and Nodwick provide comedy entertainment for fans of medieval fantasy. From 1959 to 1965, artist Rick and writer Bill Hackney produced such entertainment for newspapers via the Bell-McClure syndicate. More samples appear here. Isn't it time for someone to reprint these in more permanent form? (The strips below appeared in 1964.)

In case you've been frustrated by seeing a bunch of strips that are part of a larger whole that you'll probably never see, here's a taste of a treat you can own yourself.

Fantagraphics will release Sam's Strip by Jerry Dumas (1930-) as a $19.99 208-page compendium (ISBN 1560979720) in mid-December. While there was one previous collection, Sam's Strip Lives! provided only a sampling from the complete 20-month run, so, even if you have that, you'll want to reserve a copy of this with your kindly comics shop now.

Dumas' concept was that his characters were aware they were appearing in a comic strip, and he took the device to the extent that at times the strips took on gentle political commentaries -- since among the other characters were the cartoon devices used by editorial cartoonists. It ran from October 1961 to June 1963 but was never what syndicates would term a "success." The two primary characters, Sam and his assistant, appeared in a revamped version titled Sam and Silo in 1977, but they didn't seem to be aware any longer that they were only two-dimensional occupants of a two-dimensional world.

This is one of my favorite sequences; it appeared in 1962:

OK, I've been showing you samples of funny strips. Here's an action-adventure British strip -- and what's strange about it is that, though it's titled Gun Law, it is clearly new stories set in the mythos of the TV series Gunsmoke. It just may be the best Western comic strip I've ever seen, and that must be thanks to writer-artist Harry Bishop (born March 3, 1922). Bishop also produced a strip adaptation of Bonanza, but, according to one reference, he gave up drawing altogether in the mid-1980s because of an eye infection.

Gun Law ran in The Daily Mirror from 1956 to the late 1970s. As is the case with most of the British comic strips, I can't find more detailed information on strip dates; since the strips ran in one newspaper, nobody thought it was necessary to date the strips. They were, instead, numbered. In the case of Gun Law, Bishop produced a complete story arc for each adventure, making the strip an obvious candidate for reprinting -- but I can't find any instance of reprints. It'd be a logical license for someone in America, but it'd have to go through double licensing: one for the strip itself and one for the Gunsmoke mythos. But, man, I'd like to see it. Bishop involved Matt Dillon, Chester, Kitty, and the rest with actual people active in the American West of the era.

Here's the start of a story. Sorry for the difficulty in reading it because of the reduction required for online posting -- but just look at the art!: