European Western Comic Books ~ Kendall

Kendall was a realistically drawn Western comic book. John Kendall, a sheriff, lives in a small western town, maintaining law and order, eliminating those who do not respect and follow it. He is also a lone character, who also travels across the West taking various sides in disputes and upholding Law & Order.

The series, created by the Chilean artist Arturo del Castillo, was created for the European market in 1964 and brought to Italy (as Ralph Kendall), France (Le Shériff  Kendall) and Spain (El Sheriff Kendal). In Germany the first several episodes appeared in the series "Sheriff Classics" of the publishing house, as John Kendall. The sheriff from 1968 enjoyed adventures in Lasso No. 57-81 of Bastei. At Kauka he was present in Primo from 1972 onwards and answered to the name of Robert Martin; for the episodes published in 1973/74, Peter Wiechmann added speech blitzes. Comic books (the Austrian counterpart of the Comic Forum-Verlag) published three albums under the title John Kendall between 1982 and 1986. In all 40 episodes of a classic Western series were produced in the years 1966 to 1974. They are largely composed of the original series RANDALL, RINGO and DAN DAKOTA, who have made their debut in both Italian and English comic books, and the title KENDALL was given by the copyright owner.

Arturo del Castillo He was born in Concepción, Chile, in 1925. For three years he worked as a lyricist in the advertising field while he hoped to fulfill his dream of drawing cartoons in Argentina, where his brother, Jorge Pérez del Castillo, was already.  He arrived in our country in 1948 and began working as a lyricist in Adventures , a magazine where in 1949 he began to make comic adaptations of works such as "Miserables", "Anywhere in Europe" and "Green Passion", all of them performed in a simile style very different to the one that would characterize it later.  At that time and until 1954 signed as Arturo Castillo.  In 1950 he began working for Editorial Columba - where his brother Jorge was already doing - and since then he has been a regular collaborator of Interval and Extra Interval .  In 1957, Héctor Oesterheld summoned him to perform "Randall the killer", in Hora Cero Semanal , which surely marks the beginning of a new stage in the career of del Castillo and an international projection unlikely to have penetrated the western genre.  It should be remembered that the character then moves on to Hora Zero Extra where, after the first six or seven episodes, the creators leave aside the usual grid of the comic page to combine blocks of text with illustrations that, due to their size, allow better appreciation of the quality of this master of the pen.

From the late fifties, del Castillo began collaborating with English publications adapting works by Alejandro Dumas, including "The King's Musketeers" and "The Man with the Iron Mask", but his production immediately focuses on the western genre with characters for England and Italy starting in 1960 with "Ringo" (who was renamed Randall), "Dan Dakota" and the unitary "Ghost Town".  For the local market he continues to collaborate with Columba, he created "Garret" in 1962 for the second period of Misterix and for England and Italy he gives life to a new series of characters from the West among which stand out "Larrigan", "Madigan the vagabond" and "The Three Musketeers in the West" and continues "Dan Dakota".  In 1968 his works appear in the Exhibition "Comics and narrative figuration" realized in the Museum of the Louvre.  For the magazine Billiken draws in 1969 "The adventures of Sheriff Kendall", title that in the seventy abbreviated to "Kendall" also appeared in the Tony .

In early 1974, the recording business "El Cobra" (Skorpio), "The Vikings" ( Tit-Bits, 1976), "Loco Sexton" ( Skorpio Gran Color , 1979) and "Garret" Ray Collins, also published in Lanciostory , Italy.  Its trajectory and the exceptional quality of its production motivated that in 1980 in the 14th ta.  edition of the Lucca Exhibition was awarded the "Yellow Kid" award for a life dedicated to the comic strip.  Of that same decade are "Bannister" for Columba and works on Skorpio Plus such as "The Tuscarora", "Ides of Kadesh" and "Comanchero" (Fénix ), "The date in the stone" Legend "and" The South Saga "(both in Skorpio ), in which his style has been simplified leaving aside the laborious work of manual plots that had always distinguished him.  Several of these works appeared in the magazines of Record in the early nineties although del Castillo would have retired already in 1989, passing away three years later in 1992.