Tim Holt #10
Tim Holt #10 occupies a pivotal position in Golden Age comics history as the final issue featuring Rex Fury in his identity as the Calico Kid before his transformation into the Ghost Rider in the very next issue. As the penultimate chapter in a deliberate creative reinvention, it represents Magazine Enterprises' last attempt to make the Calico Kid back-up strip work in its original form — a strip that editor Ray Krank and artist Dick Ayers recognized was not distinguishing itself from generic western fare. The issue also documents the supporting cast assembled around Rex Fury just before that cast migrated into the Ghost Rider's world, making it a direct prequel to one of the most original horror-western hybrids of the pre-Code era.
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The Tim Holt series launched in 1948 under Magazine Enterprises, built around real-life B-Western film actor Charles 'Tim' Holt III, with editor Raymond C. Krank overseeing the book throughout its run. The Calico Kid back-up feature had debuted in Tim Holt #6 (May 1949) as an attempt to add a costumed-hero dimension to the title, with artist Dick Ayers handling the strip alongside Frank Bolle. By the time #10 reached stands in October 1949, publisher Vincent Sullivan had already tasked Krank and Ayers with developing a more dramatic replacement concept, drawing creative inspiration from Vaughn Monroe's hit song 'Riders in the Sky' and the 1949 Disney animated treatment of 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' — the character that would become the Ghost Rider debuted the following month.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published October 1949 by Magazine Enterprises as part of the ongoing Tim Holt western series, which ran from 1948 to 1954 across 41 issues.
- Features the Calico Kid (Rex Fury) back-up story titled 'Double Death!' — one of the final appearances of Rex Fury in the Calico Kid identity before his transformation into the Ghost Rider in Tim Holt #11.
- The Calico Kid character (Rex Fury) first appeared in Tim Holt #6 (May 1949), making #10 his fifth or sixth back-up appearance and the end of his run under that identity.
- Sing-Song, indexed as a character in this issue, is also listed as a supporting character in Tim Holt #11's Ghost Rider origin story, suggesting continuity of supporting cast across the identity change.
- Art duties on the Calico Kid strip were handled by Dick Ayers, who would go on to co-create the Ghost Rider in #11 with writer Ray Krank and publisher Vincent Sullivan.
- The lead Tim Holt stories in this period were drawn by Frank Bolle, with Krank serving as editor across the entire series run.
- The series was directly tied to the Hollywood career of the real Tim Holt, with photo covers and inside photo pages drawing on his film work — including appearances in John Huston's 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' (1948).
- The Tim Holt series and its Ghost Rider character later fell into public domain after Magazine Enterprises ceased publishing in 1958; AC Comics subsequently reprinted original Ghost Rider stories under the title 'Haunted Horseman.'
Cast · 4 characters
Full credits
Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
3 short items about the Old West
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).