The following chapter is from the spring of 1958, and most its scans were provided by my friend Arnaud. The first several episodes introduce new characters, and while Kevin is mentioned at the end of the second, he doesn’t make an appearance until the fourth one.
With a name like Bruce Black, he is clearly the villain—yet the loutish thug certainly has a comely, yet conniving, lady friend.
I have a soft spot for comics from the Indianapolis Times—it is the newspaper from which the first six months of my MITZI McCOY collection originated. I also appreciate the paper’s solid reproductions.
The remaining two episodes are represented by third-page versions, which is a shame—for me the only bonus are the identifying labels. Initially thinking it was the handwriting of Kreigh’s wife Theresa, I was mistaken—it was written by Kreigh’s mother, Nora. Because Nora and Stephen Collins lived in a small cabin on Kreigh and Teddy’s property, all the mail was co-mingled, and since the cabin was closer to the mailbox than the house, Nora took charge of the mail. No doubt she felt enormous pride in her son’s career, and many of the saved copies of his comic strips include Nora’s handwritten labels. I have no memories of my great-grandmother—she died when I only two or three.
At any rate, today is the birthday of Nora’s daughter-in-law, Teddy—sweet 116. (She lived to be 101).
At her 99th birthday party with some of her sons and grandsons (L–R, Brian, Josh, Glen, Kevin, David, and Brett (absent are oldest son Erik, youngest grandson Wes, and granddaughters Karen and Lauren).
Meanwhile, Pedro is still in custody, and Carmine has an audience with the King.
As Carmine charms King Henry, the chapter quickly draws to a close…
…with the suddenly freed Pedro gaining both a job and a fiancée.
This chapter, from late 1958, starts with an episode in which Kevin himself is absent. Such a setup allows new characters to be introduced as the scene is set. And one new character that surely caught the readers’ eye was Carmine.
Slender, lovely women such as Carmine frequently appeared in Kreigh Collins’ comics, and for me, an especially charming aspect that these ladies’ poses were often modeled by Kreigh’s wife, Therese—Gramma Collins to me.
By the midpoint of KEVIN’s run, Kreigh Collins no longer wrote all of his feature’s stories, but this one has certain hallmarks of his style.
During a trip to Italy this summer, I met with an old friend from Trieste—Fabrizia had been an exchange student that stayed with my family when I was a senior in high school. What made the reunion sweeter was that she gave me a package containing 14 issues of the Italian comics publication Il Nerbiniano. Anotherfriend had generously purchased them for me and mailed them to Fabrizia in order to avoid expensive international shipping. Talk about overstimulation—being in Venice, and having a bella regazza hand over such a wonderful trove of my grandfather’s artwork!
Il Nerbiniano was published for at least ten years; the issues I received came from years IV through VIII (I’ll use Roman numerals per the publication’s style because “when in Rome…”) The number of issues per year varied from four to six. At some point, an Italian translation of KEVIN THE BOLD began running, but without a complete collection, it’s hard to say when—the comic strip’s storylines do not appear in their original sequence. The oldest copy I have seen (Anno III, n. 1) has a sequence from mid-1951, whereas KEVIN’s introductory chapter ran in Il Nerbiniano a few years later (starting in Anno 6, n. 1). This issue was published in the last quarter of 1980.
First up was a profile on Roberto Diso, an artist who illustrated MISTER NO.
This was followed by some material I didn’t have any luck in translating/researching, I’m sorry to say.
For me, things got exciting at the mid-point of the book. The orientation of the artwork on the pages changes, with half of a KEVIN THE BOLD tabloid episode appearing before and after a four-page section geared toward subscriptions. Because the action picks up with the third and fourth tiers of the episode (January 28, 1951), there isn’t a KEVIN logo identifying the strip. Following the four subscription pages, another half-episode appears—the first and second tiers of the February 4, 1951 episode. It’s a shame they are arranged like this, otherwise each spread would feature a single tabloid version. It would have been an impressive layout due to Il Nerbiniano’s ample trim size—these reproductions are larger than the original tabloid versions.
Issues of Il Nerbiniano generally included two to four KEVIN episodes, but on this occasion, it ran the equivalent of eight episodes—meaning KEVIN occupied more than half of the issue’s pages. As the issue’s featured comic strip, it ran in two colors.
Halfway through the pages featuring Collins’ artwork, The “Count de Falcon” chapter ends and the action transitions to the next sequence,“The Search for Sadea.”
The conclusion of the “Sadea” chapter would appear in Il Nerbiniano’s future issues (assuming there were any). As the final issue of 1980, the back cover was dedicated to a New Year’s greeting (“Best wishes to all readers”).
By splitting the tabloid comics in half and running them on two separate pages, they are printed about 12-3/4″ wide, larger than the original Sunday versions. ’ve heard of half-page comics turned into tabloids, but vice-versa? Interesting. By running landscape-oriented versions, they appear twice as large as they would otherwise, but only half as many comics fit in the six pages allotted to Kevin. Either way, there wouldn’t be enough room for the entire sequence, so it’s nice to see them enlarged like this, it must be a sign that Il Nerbiniano’s editors appreciated the quality and detail of Kreigh Collins’ comics. Perhaps this sequence continued in the next issue of Il Nebiniano?
For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.
During his run in the funny papers, Kevin has been challenged numerous times and with different weapons, but this is the first time I recall pistols being employed. Is he as proficient with firearms as he is with a lance or rapier?
We will have to wait to find out the answer to that question! While Kevin is out of danger, the same cannot be said for Pierre.
I just noticed that whomever was responsible for the color plates neglected to fill in the “D” in “BOLD” with red in Kevin’s logo.
As is his way, Kevin takes this opportunity to save Pierre, and thus reuniting lovely Marie with Pierre.
Kreigh’s Comics 