Gene Autry Comics #3
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeGene Autry Comics #3 (Fawcett, 1942) sits near the very foundation of the Western comics genre during the Golden Age, when licensed celebrity titles were just proving they could sustain ongoing series rather than one-shot novelty books. As one of only the third entries in what would become a sprawling multi-decade publishing franchise, it demonstrates how early comics publishers translated a multimedia star's screen and radio persona into sequential-art storytelling — a template that would define licensed Western comics for the next two decades. The series as a whole, beginning with Fawcett and continuing under Dell's stewardship across 121 issues, established Gene Autry as one of the most durably published real-person comic subjects of the Golden Age, helping legitimize the Western as a major comics genre alongside superheroes.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 22 grades ▾
Find on ebay
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
Gene Autry Comics launched in December 1941 under Fawcett Publications, with the third issue appearing in 1942 under the creative team of writer Gerald Geraghty and artist Till Goodan, with additional art by Betty Goodan — a husband-and-wife team who gave the early Fawcett issues their distinctive visual identity. Fawcett ran the title for approximately ten issues before Dell acquired it and relaunched the series in 1946, eventually extending the run to 121 issues and later spinning off a companion title, Gene Autry's Champion. The 'n.d., Dell' designation attached to #3 in some databases likely reflects the transitional Fawcett-to-Dell publishing handoff, during which some issues carried no precise cover date, as well as the fact that certain catalog systems group the full run under Dell as the longer-lived publisher.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Gene Autry Comics was launched by Fawcett Publications in December 1941, making issue #3 a very early entry — published in 1942 — in what would become one of the longest-running Western comic franchises of the Golden Age.
- Issue #3 (Fawcett, 1942) was scripted by Gerald Geraghty with art by Till Goodan and Betty Goodan, the creative team that anchored the Fawcett portion of the run.
- The issue ran 64 full-color pages and contained multiple Western adventure stories, including a lead story featuring Gene's sidekick Frosty in a cattle-rustling plotline set in a ghost town, and another involving a sheepmen-versus-cattlemen range feud.
- A backup feature, 'Gene Autry's Western Scrapbook,' scripted by Geraghty and illustrated by Till Goodan, provided readers with factual information on rodeo skills such as calf roping, bronc riding, and steer wrestling — blending entertainment with educational Western lore.
- The back cover featured an illustration of Gene Autry alongside his horse Champion, reinforcing Champion's role as a recurring co-star in the comic's visual branding from the very early issues.
- After approximately ten Fawcett issues, Dell took over the Gene Autry Comics title and ran it for 121 issues (1946–1959), later spinning it off into Gene Autry and Champion, making the Fawcett run — including #3 — the rarer foundational chapter of a massive publishing legacy.
- Gene Autry's comic-book presence was part of a broader multimedia empire spanning radio, film, and television throughout the 1930s–1950s, and the comics series was one of the earliest sustained attempts to translate a living entertainment celebrity's persona into an ongoing comic-book narrative.
- The 'n.d.' (no date) designation found in some catalog entries for early issues of this series reflects the undated or ambiguously dated covers that characterized several Fawcett issues during the transitional publishing period.
Reprints
↩ Reprints Gene Autry Comics #71 (1953)
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.