The Spaghetti Wild Bill Begets The BBB Wild Bill

October 17, 2017
   The Top Secret Writer gifted me a rare Italian comic book on Wild Bill Hickok by the artist Rino Albertarelli. Published in 1994, it features virtually all the episodes in Hickok's life with some accuracy (although the buscadero holster rig, below, is unfortunate. )

Rino's Italian Version of The Prince of Pistoleers

   Back in the nineties, Rino contacted Paul Hutton when the latter was a professor in Utah and Mister Albertarelli quizzed Hutton about various aspects of the real Hickok. Here is an example of an episode I am kind of amazed he covered:

Rino's version of the lance wound story.

   As a scout for the U.S. Army, Wild Bill was carrying dispatches when he was jumped by a Cheyenne war party and lanced in the leg. After a 14-year-absence, Wild Bill returned home to visit his ailing mother. While there it became obvious his lance wound needed to be, ahem, lanced, and so, Doctor Edward Thomas was called on and he came to the house to see what he could do. Lydia Hickok, James's sister, later claimed he would not take chloroform. She also reported that "the doctor made four cuts outward from the wound, making a cross with the lance. The he drew the flesh back and began to scrape the bone. I was holding the lamp and began to feel myself growing feint." Her brother said, "Here, give it to me," and he held the lamp for the duration of the operation, never flinching once.

BBB version: "Bad to The Bone"

   Hard to believe that an Italian would get American history more correct than any American cartoonist, until, well, my next book, which is due out in December.

Pre-orders are being taken now.

"Some things are over, some things go on, part of me you carry, part of me is gone."

—Tom Petty