Kevin’s tournament skills paid off in the first round of the joust, but by taking the high moral ground he is setting himself up for possible failure.
Kevin’s virtue is matched by Basa’s treachery, but while Kevin is saved by Hugo’s unexpected confession, Basa meets his end at the hands of the angry mob.
As the story of the Field of the Cloth of Gold ends, another adventure begins.
For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
At the summit arranged by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, King Francis I of France and King Henry VIII of England tried to outshine the other, with dazzling tents and clothes, huge feasts, music, jousting and games. The days were taken up with tournaments, in which both kings took part.
After the joust, Kevin was gracious in victory over his friend De Cagnes — but not everyone was so pleased, as the sourpuss Sir Basa is introduced.
“The Field of the Cloth of Gold” was the first sequence written by Kreigh Collins after a 13-month stretch of episodes written by Jay Heavilin. In fact, the episode above contains a line (paraphrased) that originally appeared in “Kevin the Bold” a decade earlier.
Returning to our current sequence, Kevin has the misfortune of staying at the same inn as his detractor, and he also meets a mute stableboy.
For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
Once I started collecting my grandfather’s comics, I came up with two goals: publish a book and collect them all. In 2018, “The Complete Mitzi McCoy” was published, so—halfway there!
Kreighs’ comics appeared in newspapers every Sunday from November 7, 1948 until February 27, 1972, about two and a half decades. Adding it all up—the 23 complete years, the two partial years, and the four times leap years resulted in a year having 53 Sundays (1950, 1956, 1961, 1967)—amounts to 1,217 individual episodes. WIth so many of them, it’s easy to see why I chose to publish a book first.
Admittedly, I had a great head start with so many of the episodes having been given to me by my uncle. But while my grandfather saved a lot of stuff, I do not have examples of all of the individual episodes. With all 99 MITZI McCOY episodes and less than half of the UP ANCHOR! comics, what I had focused on primarily was the missing KEVIN THE BOLD episodes, but I’ve recently been making progress on my collection of UP ANCHOR! episodes too.
At some point, I was clued into the existence of comic sections found online at newspapers.com, so there aren’t any episodes I haven’t seen—but these online versions are of varying quality and are in black and white.
As for the different formats available, my preference for obtaining digital images goes as follows: color half pages, color half tabloids, color tabloids, original artwork, black and white velox proofs, black and white tabloids, color thirds, black and white thirds, etc. Obviously, I prefer to have original hard copies of the episodes, but scans are just as good as far as I’m concerned. Perhaps someone could help me fill some holes in my collection with their scans—I’d be happy to trade.
The first hole in my collection, appears about a decade into KEVIN’s run: April 24, 1960.
A few months later, the October 2, 1960 episode draws a blank.Through 1958, I have full-sized (half-page or tabloid) versions of just about every comic, but by 1960, many of my comics are one-third page versions (sigh).
A previously published version of this post resulted in a reader sending me a bunch of scans to trade (Thanks, Arnaud!), but I’m still looking for a color version of the September 17, 1961 episode—and the one for June 23, 1963.
Here are the dates of the comics listed above:
April 24, 1960
October 2, 1960
September 17, 1961
June 23, 1963
Not bad for the first 18 years of my grandfather’s cartooning career—only 18 missing episodes left!
For the last three years of “Kevin the Bold,” I used to need quite a few, but a connection with a collector in New Jersey (Thank you, Dave!) has helped fill in a lot of the blanks. However, these still elude me:
January 2 , 1966
June 26, 1966
July 17, 1966
July 24, 1966
January 8, 1967
March 5, 1967
March 26, 1967
April 9, 1967
March 10, 1968
March 17, 1968
April 7, 1968
April 21, 1968
May 5, 1968
September 15, 1968
Dave has also helped me complete my collection of UP ANCHOR! strips, but there are quite a few still missing…
January 26, 1969
June 8, 1969
June 15, 1969
June 20, 1969
November 9, 1969
December 7, 1969
December 28, 1969
August 30, 1970
September 27, 1970
October 25, 1970
…especially from 1971 and 1972:
January 3–March 21, 1971 (12 episodes)
April 4–May 30, 1971 (9 episodes)
June 13–September 12, 1971 (14 episodes)
September 26, 1971
October 31–November 7, 1971 (2 episodes)
December 5–December 19, 1971 (3 episodes)
January 2–February 27, 1972 (all 9 episodes)
It looks like I’m missing about 32 episodes of KEVIN THE BOLD and 36 from UP ANCHOR! Do you have any of these in your collection? I’m more than willing to trade scans (or hard copies). If you’re willing to help, please leave a message here on my blog or contact me directly at brianedwardcollins1(at)gmail.com
Thank you! See you in the funny papers!
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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
It looks grim for Sir Duncan and Louise, landing on the beach with Blackie and his gang…
…yet it gets worse as a rockslide leaves no escape.
Kevin quickly describes his plan to Louise; Blackie has other ideas.
A daring plunge hoists Louise out of danger and Kevin rejoins the fray.
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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
Because the next chapter starts a bit abruptly, let’s back up one week to see what happened as the previous sequence transitioned. These were the first two chapters to follow Jay Heavilin’s credited writing stint, and the following chapter was clearly written by Collins (To me, the acrobatics in the finale are a dead giveaway). Dank u to my friend Arnaud in Rotterdam for the tabloid examples shown here.
Ah yes—Kevin was sailing from France to England with a load of precious cargo when a storm whipped up. And what a storm it was—instead of a relatively straight shot across the English Channel from Balinghem, France to London, the storm has driven the ship far to the north, toward the Scottish Highlands. There, a more genteel scene is set, and a host of new characters are introduced.
Reading between the lines, one can surmise that Blackie has an axe to grind with Sir Duncan McDonald.
With arson on his mind, the storm plaguing Kevin’s ship reaches Blackie and his band of hoodlums.
After bumbling upon the nefarious trio, McDonald and Louise bolt away blindly and tumble off a ledge. In hot pursuit, Blackie and his gang meet the same fate.
As this drama has been set, one notable absence from the past three weeks’ action has been Kevin. As it happens from time to time, others take the lead while the strip’s titular character sits out a few episodes. Sir Duncan and Louise could certainly use his help now!
To be contiued…
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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
In addition to the unusual tone of the story, the episodes themselves have a slightly different appearance—most have only six panels. And while the story is a bit silly, it does have a nice graphic impression.
Kevin is fortunate to be able to persuade his antagonist to help display the “jewels” more discreetly, and as he reaches the king’s palace, he is relieved that his job is over.
King Henry’s abrupt dismissal and useless advice, to merely dispose of the Shah’s gift leaves Kevin at a loss.
After a serendipitous meeting, Kevin seizes an opportunity to find a taker for the Shah’s gift.
Thanks again to Arnaud for the tabloid scans.
Here is a half-page version of this episode, which serves as a finale to both the story arc and Jay Heavilin‘s stint as writer for “Kevin the Bold.”
To follow the action as it returns to Kreigh Collins’ stewardship, click here for “The Field of the Cloth of Gold” sequence.
For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
Kevin certainly knows how to keep his cool, and his new acquaintance is impressed.
What’s less impressive is the laziness of the name given to the Shah, an anagram of Iran. But a quick look online shows that the time period of the action does correspond to the beginning of the Safavid Empire, when rulers referred to as Shah first arose. Beyond that historical note, this sequence is as near to fantasy as Kevin ever strayed. It’s a good thing, because it all seems a bit cliched to me.
They seem to have made quick work of rebuilding the stone bridge, but danger lies ahead. Religious fanatics are introduced, and they’re not the visiting Muslims!
To be continued…
For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
The scans for the following story arc were a gift from my friend Arnaud.
This sequence marks the end of Jay Heavilin’s run as the writer for “Kevin the Bold.” Like much of the action he scripted, it is comes across as more cartoonish than Collins’ work. An argument could be made that this isn’t a bad thing, that Collins’ stories were too traditional, and were more like illustration than cartooning. I’m biased, obviously, but what do you think? (There is a little-used comments feature at the very tail end of this post—hint, hint).
The characters are largely stereotypes, but they do have some redeeming visual qualities. Both Ahmed and his female friends have visible navels, so maybe that ban was no longer in effect.
Pedro enters, and as was. in the case of the story “The Powder Expert” (which I haven’t yet run), there is some confusion about the meaning of a certain phrase.
To be continued…
For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
Two rivals vie for Lady Goodly’s affections, yet she only has eyes for another.
Kevin is trapped, and has only a risky escape plan.
The Duke takes the bait, Kevin plays possum, and Percival?
Percival came through in the clutch. Here are the sequence’s final two episodes in color, as third-pages; I don’t have a color example from June 25, 1961.
For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
Like other cartoonists, Kreigh Collins looked to his family and friends when it came to naming characters, but sometimes the comic strip characters’ names came first. “Kevin the Bold” debuted several months before Collins’ son Kevin was born, and Kevin’s ward Brett appeared about nine years before my brother made the scene.
I’ve always wondered what my uncle Glen (Kevin’s twin) thought of the title of his father’s best-known strip—at least two characters named Glen eventually appeared, but they didn’t have large rolls. And while Brett played a major part, I always thought it would be nice if there was a character named Brian.
In a case of “be careful what you wish for,” eventually a Brian appeared—he was a misogynistic cad. Appearing a few years before I was born, It’s not like I was named for him, but couldn’t his name have been spelled with a “Y”? This guy is especially onerous.
A black-hearted rogue, indeed! (What is especially galling to me was that the Duke’s bad behavior was in the name of procuring a birthday gift, and this episode ran on my birthday).
I guess I’m not the only one being overly sensitive, the Duke also seems a bit prickly.
Perhaps curious only to me, but in the two panels after the throwaway, the movement Kevin is making can only be described as “sidling.” Not commonly represented in comics—or anywhere, really—the only place I ever remember hearing the word is in this 1965 Johnny Cash A-side. A shame—it’s a great word!
Here are the first two episodes in color, as third-pages; I don’t have a color example from June 18, 1961.
For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
Kreigh’s Comics 