''Bronc Peeler'' was a Western adventure

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the ''vaquero'' ...

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

created by Fred Harman in 1933, and ran until July 2, 1938. Harman is best known as the artist for the ''

Red Ryder ''Red Ryder'' is a Western comic strip created by Stephen Slesinger and artist Fred Harman which served as the basis for a wide array of character merchandising. Syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association, the strip ran from Sunday, Novem ...

'' comic strip, which he created with

Stephen Slesinger Stephen Slesinger (December 25, 1901 – December 17, 1953) was an American radio, television and film producer, and creator of comic strip characters. From 1923 to 1953, he created, produced, published, developed, licensed or represented severa ...

. Harman was on a Colorado ranch when he decided to do a comic strip. He headed for Hollywood in the early 1930s, borrowed some money and began ''Bronc Peeler'', which he syndicated himself. The ''Bronc Peeler''

Sunday strip The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the comic strip section carried in some Western newspapers. Compared to weekday comics, Sunday comics tend to be full pages and are in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, t ...

began October 7, 1934. "Peeler" is traditional cowboy slang for a specialist in breaking horses—training them to tolerate riders. "Bronc" or "bronco" is a wild or untrained horse.

Characters and story

The comics are set in the present time (the 1930s when this series was first published). Redheaded Bronc Peeler is a tough cowboy who fights bandits and rustlers with the help of his pal, Coyote Pete. ''Bronc Peeler'' introduced the Navaho youth, Little Beaver, who continued as an important supporting character in ''Red Ryder''. Comics historian

Don Markstein Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...

described the characters: :Bronc was a redheaded young man who was good in a fight, with either fists or a six-gun, and equally good on a horse. He put his skills to use against Injuns, cattle rustlers, rapacious city slickers, bandits and other villain types of the Western adventure pulps. He had a rugged Westerner's drawl, and a rugged Westerner's attraction to the ladies, to whom he was unfailingly polite. His first sidekick was an old desert rat named Coyote Pete, but Harman decided (at his wife's suggestion) to reach out to young readers by dropping Pete in favor of a kid. Bronc adopted a Navajo boy named Little Beaver following the death of the tyke's father, Chief Beaver. Little Beaver was destined to outlast Bronc. A large, unrelated Western action scene appeared in the middle of Harman's Sunday page, with the final tier of story panels positioned beneath the large center panel. Harman also drew Western lore into an extra panel, ''On the Range''. The strip came to an end in 1938 when Harman dropped it to do ''Red Ryder''.

Reprints

In 1937, Whitman published a Big Little Book, ''Bronc Peeler, the LOne Cowboy'', and the strip was reprinted in ''Popular Comics'' until the early 1940s. In 2012, publisher Russ Cochran reprinted ''Bronc Peeler'' pages at a large size in the first issue of ''

The Sunday Funnies ''The Sunday Funnies'' is a publication reprinting vintage Sunday strips, Sunday comic strips at a large size (16"x22") in color. The format is similar to that traditionally used by newspapers to publish color comics, yet instead of newsprint, it ...

'', a publication devoted to reprints of vintage Sunday comic strips.

References

External links

Fred Harman Western Art Museum

Video of Museum and Harman's studio

''Bronc Peeler The Lone Cowboy'' (page but subsequent links do not work)
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