Best of the West #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeBest of the West #1 (1951) marks Magazine Enterprises' decision to consolidate its stable of secret-identity Western heroes — Straight Arrow, the Durango Kid, Tim Holt (as Red Mask), Ghost Rider, and Bobby Benson's B-Bar-B Riders — into a single anthology showcase at a moment when the Western genre was the dominant force in American comics. As the opening chapter of a series that ran through 1954, it captures the peak of ME's output and demonstrates the publisher's unusual strategy of cross-pollinating characters from separate ongoing titles within the rotating A-1 Comics numbering system. The series as a whole is one of the cleaner windows into how a small independent publisher like ME competed with larger outfits by concentrating its strongest genre talent in one package, rather than expanding its line indefinitely. Collector and historian consensus identifies Magazine Enterprises' Western titles — of which Best of the West is the clearest anthology distillation — as among the most artistically consistent of the Golden Age Western boom.
An anthology featuring four Western stories: "Straight Arrow," about an Indian hero on radio protecting his territory from rustlers and thieves; "The Durango Kid," starring Charles Starrett as a colorful Western lawman; "Bobby Benson's B-Bar-B Riders," depicting young Bobby Benson managing his ranch and dealing with threats; and "The Ghost Rider," in which a mysterious masked rider on horseback defends a fort against raiders attempting to steal weapons and supplies. The issue also includes advertisements for hobby books and activity guides aimed at children.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Best of the West was published under the umbrella of Magazine Enterprises' long-running A-1 Comics rotating anthology, a system founder Vin Sullivan used to test and showcase different features under alternating cover titles and shared indicia numbering. Issue #1 slots into the A-1 sequence as A-1 Comics #42 and was edited by Raymond C. Krank, the same editor-writer who created the original Ghost Rider with artist Dick Ayers in 1949. The series drew on ME's existing stable of Western titles — Straight Arrow, Charles Starrett as the Durango Kid, Tim Holt, Ghost Rider, and Bobby Benson — all of which had their own concurrent solo books, making Best of the West a deliberate 'greatest hits' package rather than an original launch. Because ME's copyrights were never renewed, the material entered the public domain, and AC Comics began reprinting ME content — including stories that had appeared in Best of the West — from the 1980s onward.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published in 1951 by Magazine Enterprises; also catalogued as A-1 Comics #42 under the publisher's rotating anthology numbering system.
- Edited throughout the series run by Raymond C. Krank, who also co-created ME's original Ghost Rider character with Dick Ayers in 1949.
- The issue gathers ME's core roster of secret-identity Western heroes: Straight Arrow, the Durango Kid (Charles Starrett), Tim Holt/Red Mask, the original Ghost Rider, and Bobby Benson's B-Bar-B Riders.
- Interior and cover art across the series was supplied by Fred Meagher, Joe Certa, Bob Powell, Frank Bolle, Dick Ayers, and Fred Guardineer — the core stable of ME's Western art team.
- The series ran from 1951 to 1954, comprising at least 12 confirmed issues, all 32 pages in full color with a 10-cent cover price.
- Part of ME's A-1 Comics rotating anthology framework, in which individual issues carried specific feature titles on the cover while continuing a shared internal numbering — a distinctive publishing structure unique to ME.
- Because Magazine Enterprises' copyrights were apparently never renewed, the content entered the public domain; AC Comics began reprinting ME material including Best of the West stories in the 1980s.
- Frank Frazetta contributed cover and interior work to the broader A-1/ME Western line during this period (including Ghost Rider covers and the 'White Indian' series in Durango Kid), though his specific involvement on Best of the West #1's cover is attributed by MyComicShop to Meagher, Certa, Powell, and Frazetta jointly.
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