Western cartoonist dies at age 81 - Stan Lynde lived in the Flathead Valley for many years

Western cartoonist and author Stan Lynde, creator of the nationally syndicated “Rick O’Shay” comic strip, died of cancer Tuesday in Helena. He was 81.

His “Rick O’Shay” comic strip began in 1958 and ran for 20 years with an average daily readership of about 15 million people. In 1979, he launched another comic strip, “Latigo,” which ran through 1983.

Lynde and his wife, Lynda, lived in the Flathead Valley for many years. This was where he launched a new career as a novelist in the mid-1990s. “The Bodacious Kid,” the comic adventures of a young cowboy, debuted his writing career.

Myron Stanford “Stan” Lynde was born in Billings in 1931 and was raised on a cattle and sheep ranch on Montana’s Crow Indian Reservation. His mother gave him crayons and paper and taught him to draw to keep her young son occupied, said Lynde’s sister, Lorretta.

Lynde spent a lifetime learning the lore of the West and incorporating it into his work. He always had a love of storytelling that dated back to his childhood in Southeastern Montana.

“I spent a lot of time out on the range with my mom and dad, and I met a lot of the old-timers out there and loved to listen to their stories,” Lynde said in a 1995 interview with the Daily Inter Lake.

“Cowboys were my heroes,” Lynde told the Helena Independent Record in December 2012. “I followed them around and they played with me.”

His parents read him the cartoons in the Sunday newspaper, and he said it was an “epiphany” when he learned that people were paid to write and draw cartoons.

“I wanted to be a cartoonist all my life — from age 5 or 6, that’s what I wanted to do,” Lynde said in December.

He drew daily comics in high school and created the comic strip “Ty Foon” for the Navy newspaper while he served during the Korean conflict.

In the 1950s, he moved to New York, where he drew on his ranch background and his affinity for Western humor to create the “Rick O’Shay” strip that included characters such as gunslinger Hipshot Percussion, banker Mort Gage and a kid named Quyat Burp who lived in the western town of Conniption.

The characters in the comic strip were composites “of the old time cowboys and the people I knew growing up,” Lynde said.

He moved back to Montana in 1962 after his “Rick O’Shay” cartoon was established and appearing in about 100 papers including the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Lynde got into a contract dispute with the Chicago Tribune-New York News Service in 1977 and lost the right to draw the “Rick O’Shay” strip he’d created so many years before.

Instead of surrendering to the syndicate’s threats or giving up, he created his second comic strip, “Latigo,” and quickly was back up to a circulation of 20 million readers. That encounter taught Lynde to keep a tighter control on the rights to his work, he told the Inter Lake.

Another hurdle for Lynde was the 1990 fire that destroyed his home and studio in Billings.

“We lost all the proofs from comic strips over the years, all the original art, and all our personal belongings. We came up to the Flathead in a U-Haul truck and started over,” he told the Inter Lake in 1995.

Fans sent many of the originals to Lynde when they heard about his misfortune, and from those contributions and other sources, he managed to recompile the collected set of “Rick O’Shay” strips, which have a timeless quality.

When Lynde retired from cartooning, he wrote eight Western novels featuring the character Merlin Fanshaw. He also wrote a historical novel, “Vigilante Moon.”

Late last year, Lynde donated some of his original art, memorabilia and possessions to the Montana Historical Society in Helena, including his trademark hat.

“Stan was an incredibly creative and soft-spoken man,” said Bruce Whittenberg, director of the Montana Historical Society. “You couldn’t help but respect him. He was such a class act.”

Helena artist Bob Morgan called Lynde a “real gentleman” who loved cartooning and “was a great contributor to Montana.”

“I feel very blessed,” Lynde told the Independent Record in December. “I’ve been able to do the work I love for an appreciative audience. I love this state and people of this state. If my tombstone said something about Montana, I’d be really happy. I’ve never met any state with people who have such character.”

Lynde and his wife, Lynda, moved to Ecuador in January but returned to Helena this spring when he became ill.

Lynde is survived by his wife and eight children.