Tex: The Lonesome Rider - Claudio Nizzi and Joe Kubert

Joe Kubert was one of the first comic book artists whose style I could recognize immediately, based on my reading of his Sgt. Rock stories in OUR ARMY AT WAR and then a little later the Enemy Ace stories in various DC war comics. I loved his work in those comics and then later when DC began publishing TARZAN and Kubert both wrote and drew the stories.

A recent discussion on the WesternPulps email group about Western comics published in Europe reminded me that about twenty years ago, Kubert illustrated a long graphic novel about Tex Willer, a Western hero who’s been appearing in Italian comics for more than fifty years. TEX: THE LONESOME RIDER is one of the few Tex Willer stories that’s available in English, and I’d been meaning to read it, so I found an affordable copy on-line and ordered it.

Tex is both a Texas Ranger and an honorary chief of the Navajo tribe, but that’s really all I know about him. In this book, he’s out of his usual bailiwick since he’s going to visit some old friends of his, a married couple with a beautiful daughter. But when Tex arrives at their ranch, he discovers that the whole family has been murdered by four hardcase drifters. He sets off on their trail after burying his friends and vowing to avenge them.

The script by veteran TEX writer Claudio Nizzi plays very much like a Spaghetti Western movie (well, duh) or a Piccadilly Cowboys paperback from the Seventies. Tex trails one of the killers to a town run by the outlaw’s brother and a corrupt sheriff. Another section of the book takes Tex to a showdown in a ghost town, and then he ventures into an Apache village where he winds up fighting for his life against another of his quarry. There’s nothing in this story that Western readers haven’t seen many, many times before, but of course, how well it’s executed means everything.

And this is where Kubert comes in. His art is extraordinary and lifts a competent script into an excellent Western graphic novel. TEX: THE LONESOME RIDER is printed in black and white, which allows Kubert to make very effective use of light and shadow and contrast. His storytelling is fantastic, which you’d expect from someone with many decades of experience in the comics business. With some comics artists, I have to look at a page multiple times and ask myself what’s happening there, but not with Kubert. The action flows clearly and effortlessly from panel to panel. His close-ups, especially in scenes where Tex steps out of the shadows to confront his enemies, are very effective. I expected to like the art in this book, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed.

I suspect that as an introduction to Tex Willer, THE LONESOME RIDER isn’t very typical of the character, but I enjoyed it very much and think it’s well worth reading for Western comics fans. I already have several more English-language collections from the Italian comics and I’m looking forward to reading them so that I can get a sample of Tex’s regular adventures.