brown) Mexican, decorated charro costume. He had high black boots (mostly outside the trousers) and a decorated sombrero, a black shirt – neither blue nor red – although most drawings show a white shirt (on the Scandinavian covers blue), with a black (sometimes shown as red or blue) silk scarf or a red tie. He also had a broad black silk belt (sometimes illustrated as a red silk one – although mostly as an American brown belt), plus two holstered revolvers hanging low on a "double" ammunition belt. Some illustrations show only one revolver with ammunition belt and holster – others two revolvers on one holster. He also had a knife – and a rifle, a lasso and a Mexican sarape on his horse – and he wore gloves. The mask covered more of his upper face than shown on most of the fine drawings by Francisco Batet (and especially by several others). The Scandinavian covers presented a relatively large mask (illustrated by Harald Damsleth). In at least one of the early pulps Mallorquí wrote he wore "Mexican peasant clothes" (black – shown brown on some of the very early illustrations by Batet). The Spanish (and Aztec) word "coyote" was also used describing a racial category. El Coyote had two "marks" – one was shooting at an ear lobe of his villains, one was a drawing of a wolf's head on messages. The original Spanish novels The novel series mostly comprised the years from December 1851 (and with Cliper number 6 from early 1865) to around 1875. Published in Spain, they originally consisted of 120 volumes 1944–1951 – the last titled Alias el Coyote in March 1951. The novels were not always strictly chronological. One example was the 1851/1853 (extended, 6 pesetas) story El diablo, Murrieta y el Coyote (where César and Guadalupe in 1972 take us back to fascinating events happening in the two years of Coyote "quasi-retirement", with César marrying Leonor and César's father still alive), Cliper novel number 100 and its sequel. In these novels Joaquin Murrieta, who was a "real life" Sonora, Mexico – and later California – famous bandit, is presented in the Mallorqui way. The California Rangers killed him in 1853 in Fresno County, but in the novels here he marries César's cousin Maria Elena (and is not killed). The original novel number 115, El hogar de los valientes, and its sequel, takes us