Dig These 13 Gorgeous Painted DELL LONE RANGER COVERS

Posted By Dan Greenfield on Sep 14, 2026 | 0 comments

In honor of the late Clayton Moore’s birthday…

Late actor Clayton Moore, synonymous with the Lone Ranger, was born 112 years ago, on Sept. 14, 1914. We’ve run 13 COVERS tributes in the past, most notably by Peter Bosch and Jim Beard, but this year I wanted to color outside the lines a little bit.

Dell’s regular The Lone Ranger comic-book series ran a healthy 145 issues, from late 1947 to early 1962. Issues #112 to #145 were photo covers featuring Moore. The first 36 issues were illustrations and paintings of a more generic Masked Man, in his classic red shirt.

1957’s Issue #112, the first photo cover

But 1951’s Issue #37 marked a shift: The covers were paintings but the Ranger’s crisp shirt was changed to a light blue to match Moore’s TV depiction. (The show at the time was in black and white, so how anyone knew it was blue, I leave to much greater Lone Ranger experts than me. I’m a piker, at best.)

In that middle period, Dell turned out one beautiful painted Lone Ranger cover after another. They weren’t officially paintings of Moore, as I understand it — please correct me — but they’re durn close, pardner.

So, dig these 13 LONE RANGER COVERS that may not exactly be Clayton Moore, but sure are close enough and certainly capture his rugged, heroic presence.

Hi-yo, Silver!