Four Color #1270
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFour Color #1270 marks the debut of the 'Bullwinkle and Rocky' title in comic books and, critically, delivers the first comic book appearance of Dudley Do-Right, the bumbling RCMP officer whose satirical melodrama segments had already won fans on Jay Ward's television series. The issue arrived while the show was still in its original network run, cementing Dell's Four Color anthology — one of the most expansive and culturally varied series in American comics history — as the medium's bridge between the animated satire of Jay Ward Productions and a generation of young readers. By packaging Bullwinkle, Rocky, Boris and Natasha, Mr. Peabody, Sherman, and Dudley all in one 36-page full-color package, it established the multi-segment variety-show format that every subsequent Bullwinkle comic publisher — Gold Key, Charlton, and eventually Marvel's Star Comics imprint — would follow.
In "Masked Moose," Boris’s latest scheme hits a snag when he accidentally drops the formula for a supersonic crabgrass killer into a Chinese fortune cookie factory. With Natasha on his tail and time running out, the duo scrambles to track down the one fortune cookie containing the secret recipe—only for Bullwinkle to stumble upon it in the most unexpected place. Written and illustrated by Al Kilgore, this 1962 Four Color adventure blends classic mischief with a whimsical chase, all brought to life by Kilgore’s distinctive art on both story and cover.
In "Masked Moose," Bullwinkle trades his usual antics for the squared circle, donning a mask to become the masked wrestler known as "The Masked Moose." When Boris the Cat enters the ring as "The Mad Mongolian," the two unlikely allies are paired together for a tag-team match against the imposing duo of Two-Ton and the Crusher.
In the short, sharp satire "On the Bleach," Boris's misadventure takes a turn when he accidentally downs some laundry bleach—only to discover it makes him invisible. Now, with his condition both bizarre and dangerous, Natasha must step in to save him, leading to a frantic, funny, and decidedly unhygienic rescue.
In "Fortune Kooky," Boris and Natasha’s latest scheme takes a wild turn when the stolen formula for a supersonic crabgrass killer vanishes—lost inside a Chinese fortune cookie factory. With the formula hidden among millions of cookies, the duo scrambles to track it down, racing from one Chinese restaurant to the next, only for Bullwinkle to stumble upon the answer in the most unexpected place.
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The issue carries a copyright of 1961 by P.A.T.-Ward Productions, Inc., though its publication date is March–May 1962, placing it squarely during the show's active NBC run as 'The Bullwinkle Show.' Creator credits, as documented in the Grand Comics Database, derive from Keith Scott's authoritative book 'The Moose That Roared'; Al Kilgore — the cartoonist who also produced the Bell-McClure syndicated Bullwinkle newspaper strip beginning July 23, 1962 — is credited with the cover art and scripts, but GCD analysis of the interior pages concludes that the sketchy internal artwork is almost certainly by a different, unidentified artist, possibly because Kilgore's simultaneous daily strip work limited his availability for full comic-book illustration. The issue also exists in two known variants: one with standard interior pages and one in which a final page was restructured to accommodate a Red Ball Jets shoe advertisement, with story panels rewritten to fill the reduced space.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published March–May 1962 by Dell as part of the Four Color anthology series (issue #1270 of 1354); copyright 1961 by P.A.T.-Ward Productions, Inc.
- First comic book appearance of Dudley Do-Right, per a documented Grand Comics Database error report by collector Karl Wilcox — the character's name appears in this issue as 'DORIGHT,' without a hyphen.
- First issue published under the title 'Bullwinkle and Rocky' in comics; Bullwinkle and Rocky themselves had debuted in comics earlier in Four Color #1128 ('Rocky and His Friends,' August–October 1960), making this their third overall comic appearance.
- Based on Jay Ward's animated television series, which aired from November 19, 1959 to June 27, 1964, originally as 'Rocky and His Friends' on ABC and later as 'The Bullwinkle Show' on NBC.
- Al Kilgore — the leading comic artist for Dell and Gold Key's Bullwinkle-related titles and the creator of the syndicated Bullwinkle newspaper strip — provided the cover art and scripts; interior story art is attributed by GCD analysis to an unidentified second artist.
- 36 pages, full color; stories include Bullwinkle wrestling as 'The Masked Moose,' a Rapunzel fairy-tale parody, a fortune-cookie spy caper, and two Dudley Do-Right segments alongside Mr. Peabody appearances.
- Two variants of the issue exist: a standard version and an ad variant in which the final interior page was restructured around a Red Ball Jets shoe advertisement, with panels reduced and dialogue rewritten accordingly.
- Rocky and Bullwinkle comic books were subsequently published across multiple publishers: Gold Key, Charlton Comics (7 issues, 1970–1971), and Marvel's Star Comics imprint (1987–1988), with the Dell Four Color one-shot serving as the origin point for the 'Bullwinkle and Rocky' title.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Mister Magoo #8
Key issues in Four Color
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