page_title: Bat Masterson
section_title: Novels and comic books
hierarchical_section_title: Bat Masterson / In popular culture / Novels and comic books
caption_attribution_description: English: Front cover of Bat Masterson number 3 (Dell Publishing, June, 1960), featuring a publicity still of Gene Barry. In common with many of Dell's titles of the time, Bat Masterson was licensed from a popular TV program of the same name, running for a total of eight issues.
context_page_description: Bartholemew William Barclay "Bat" Masterson was a U.S. Army scout, lawman, professional gambler, and journalist known for his exploits in the 19th and early 20th-century American Old West. He was born to a working-class Irish family in Quebec, but he moved to the Western frontier as a young man and quickly distinguished himself as a buffalo hunter, civilian scout, and Indian fighter on the Great Plains. He later earned fame as a gunfighter and sheriff in Dodge City, Kansas, during which time he was involved in several notable shootouts.
  By the mid-1880s, Masterson moved to Denver, Colorado, and established himself as a "sporting man" or gambler. He took an interest in prizefighting and became a leading authority on the sport, attending almost every important match and title fight in the United States from the 1880s until his death in 1921. He moved to New York City in 1902 and spent the rest of his life there as a reporter and columnist for the New York Morning Telegraph. His column covered boxing and other sports, and it frequently gave his opinions on crime, war, politics, and other topics, as well.
context_section_description: Eleven years after Masterson's death, a collection of Damon Runyon's short stories was published under the title Guys and Dolls. These stories later formed the basis for the classic 1950 musical comedy of the same name. The central character in Runyon's Guys and Dolls was a high-rolling gambler from Colorado whom Runyon barely disguised under the name of Sky Masterson.
  Bat Masterson, along with many other historical figures of the time, is a character in the novel The Buntline Special (2010) by Mike Resnick.
  Dell Comics published a short-lived comic book based on the television series. The first issue was published as Four Color Comics #1013, followed by Bat Masterson #2–9 (1960–1962). All the issues had photographic covers. The stories were scripted by Gaylord DuBois.
  The 1986 novel The Ham Reporter by Robert J. Randisi features Bat Masterson as an investigating newspaperman.
  The comic series The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa portrayed Masterson alongside Wyatt Earp, Soapy Smith, and hanging Judge Roy Bean.
  The 2011 novel The Gunsmith #351 (The Trial of Bat Masterson) by Robert J. Randisi describes a time in which fictional character Clint Adams comes to the aid of his friend Bat Masterson, who has been wrongly accused of murder and is being pursued by the "victim's" brother. Many references are made to Masterson as one of Adams' closest friends throughout the series.
  The 2015 novel And The Wind Whispered by Dan Jorgensen features Bat Masterson as one of the key characters in a book set in 1894 Hot Springs, South Dakota. In it, he joins forces with famed reporter Nellie Bly and Sheriff Seth Bullock to help thwart an outlaw gang's incursion on the city and attempts to rob visiting (and vacationing) dignitaries in the southern Black Hills community.
caption: Front cover of Bat Masterson number 3 (Dell Comics, June, 1960), featuring a publicity still of Gene Barry.
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