Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Annie Oakley Wears the Pants in This Comic!

Annie Oakley, being an historical personage, is in the public domain.

Dell Comics paid a licensing fee to the company that produced the TV show starring Gail Davis. Clearly, Dell felt that Davis' likeness was a bankable asset and added Annie Oakley to their stable of licensed Western properties.

Charlton comics, on the other hand were notoriously thrifty. Charlton simply created a Western comic with a female lead, named her Annie Oakley and presto! They were in the Annie Oakley business. Charlton's Annie sports a pony tail and blue jeans.

From Gunfighters #56- October, 1979.











The historical Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey) was a very petite woman from the Cincinnati area. None of the pictures I've seen of her show her in trousers.

5 comments:

  1. According to GCD, this story originally appeared in Cowboy Western #62 (Feb 1957) and was drawn by Dick Giordano. Good selection! Thanks.

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  2. Anonymous: Thanks for the heads up! GCD didn't have that info under Gunfighters #56 and I guess I forgot to do a story search. Much obliged!

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  3. Dell would pay a licensing fee and get to use photo covers from the TV shows. DC, Marvel/Atlas/whatever, and Charlton would use only the name, but were obviously trying to exploit the characters' popularity from TV. Since Earp, Hickok, Masterson, Annie Oakley, and Davy Crockett were real people, the imitators could claim they were in public domain.

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  4. Feminazi dogma marches onward ! Everything masculine has been subject to repeated anti-male assaults from the leftist , Marxist ; hence, put Annie into mens' masculine garment pants ,especially macho, the blue jean and put masculine riding boots on her. Men can not uniquely posses anything under this gender bigotry bias !

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