Extracts: LARRIGAN Fleetway Picture Library Classics © 2019 Book Palace Books (272 PAGES in Full edition)

FLEETWAY PICTURE LIBRARY ™ CLA SS IC S 4 years for further, glorious episodes to appear, with the King’s Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask running in Lion for a further five months from 1963-64. In between came Del Castillo’s only original western series for the UK, the wandering trail driver Larrigan. Larrigan was chosen to lead off Lone Rider, a new western Picture Library, in 1961 from Fleetway and appeared in issues 1, 4, and 9 and then in a final story which finally saw print later in 1962 in Cowboy Picture Library 463 after Lone Rider was cancelled. Del Castillo’s Larrigan strips were dark and atmospheric, seemingly set in an eternal twilight which appeared to prefigure the Spaghetti Western genre by several years. A final Larrigan story appeared in the 1963 Tiger Annual though this was apparently a rewritten Randall strip, and it’s worth pointing out that for all his astonishing gifts, Del Castillo’s numerous western stars did look remarkably like each other. In 1964 Del Castillo again teamed up with Hector Oesterheldon for yet another Western; Kendall, printed in Argentina in Billiken magazine, and which was designed to be syndicated around the world, appearing across Europe, usually under the name Ringo, and in the UK as Dan Dakota. Dan Dakota ran first in Ranger and then in Look and Learn from 1966 to 1969 and this was followed by further reprints of his work, usually westerns or historical strips in the 1970 Jag Annual , the 1973 and ’74 Eagle Annuals and the stunning Horatious of Rome in Look and Learn in 1972. So despite having apparently drawn his final British commission in 1964, his distinctive style was ever present in the country for many more years. After Kendall came to an end he teamed up with Ray Collins for El Cobra (in effect an updated version of Garrett) which appeared in the Italian comic LancioStory from 1975 to ’81, as did yet another western Joe Barron. Throughout the 70’s and ‘80s he alternated between westerns such as Loco Sexton and Bannister and more fantastical material like the Mummy and Viking strips, all of which appeared in Lancio or Skorpio in Italy and South American titles from Editorial Columba such as El Tony or Fantasia . Del Castillo retired in 1989 by which point his artwork had slightly simplified but was still distinctively very much his own unique approach, and by his death three years later he was widely regarded as one of greatest artists ever to work in the comic medium. We in Britain were privileged to see him at his very best. David A Roach February 2019