THE DAKOTAS U.K. ANNUAL
The Dakotas was a twenty episode western TV series produced
by Warner Bros. in 1963 for ABC Set in the Dakota Territory, episodes revolved
around the efforts of Federal Marshal Frank Regan and his deputies to maintain
law and order in the vast area. Larry Ward starred as Federal Marshal Frank
Ragan, with Jack Elam as Deputy JD Smith, Chad Everett as Deputy Del Stark, and
Mike Greene as Deputy Vance Porter.
The Dakotas was exactly comfort television. What set the
show apart from the glut of other westerns on TV at the time was its edgy, dark
tone and its willingness to be morally ambiguous. This was also what cut the
run of the show short. In the episode Sanctuary at Crystal Springs, two
of the deputies, JD and Del, gundown two murderous outlaws inside a church. Outraged
viewers besieged the network with complaints and The Dakotas was abruptly
cancelled.
Surprisingly, even though it had a relatively short TV
lifespan, there were no Dell tie-in comics for the show. Dell made an
effort to publish comics for even minor TV Western series as soon as they began
to air, but somehow The Dakotas missed being called up. The only printed tie-in
to the show was the single U.K. annual pictured above.
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