New Western Comics

Some of the first comics I ever remember reading were Westerns: THE LONE RANGER, ROY ROGERS, and GENE AUTRY. Not too long after that, an early favorite of mine was KID COLT, OUTLAW. (I wouldn't mind reading some of those again, to see how they hold up.) Over the years the popularity of Western comics has certainly come and gone, but they've never really gone away completely. In recent weeks two new Western series have debuted, both from DC.

Actually, only one is completely new: LOVELESS, written by Brian Azzarello, author of the excellent, mythic crime series 100 BULLETS. LOVELESS shows a strong Spaghetti Western influence, and the plot -- former Confederate soldier comes home after the war to find his land taken over by Union soldiers and brutal carpetbaggers -- is very similar to the backstory of the long-running Slocum paperback series, as well as numerous other Western novels. It's hard to tell where the story will go from that setup, though, because things barely get underway in the first issue. As usual, Azzarello writes good dialogue, but like the TV series DEADWOOD, it's heavily laced with profanity.

The other new series is actually a relaunch of an old series (and another favorite of mine), JONAH HEX. Bounty hunter Jonah Hex is also a former Confederate, a brutal man who carries as many emotional scars as he does physical ones. He starred in a long-running series of his own during the Seventies and early Eighties, and I liked most of the stories quite a bit. This new series treds pretty much the same ground, following Hex's life as a bounty hunter and gun-for-hire. Unlike LOVELESS, which is intended to be an on-going storyline, the scripts for the new JONAH HEX are self-contained and well-written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti.

I've read the first issues of these new series and liked them both. In addition to the rough language in LOVELESS, both books are pretty bloody and violent, so they're not for the squeamish. The art on both series is excellent, by Marcelo Frusin on LOVELESS and Luke Ross on JONAH HEX. I plan to continue reading these comics, and I'd like to see them be successful because, well, they're Westerns, and there ought to always be Western comics in the world. In my world, anyway.

Now, if anybody at Marvel wants me to write a relaunch of KID COLT, OUTLAW, I'd be more than happy to talk to them . . .