Review: Tex: Cinnamon Wells - Chuck Dixon and Mario Alberti

This is the second volume I’ve read from the set of six Tex Willer graphic novels I backed on Kickstarter. Chuck Dixon is one of my all-time favorite comic book authors, and ever since I found out he wrote some Tex stories, I’ve been curious about them.

CINNAMON WELLS, which has artwork by Mario Alberti, opens with a violent bank robbery in the town of the title. The local lawman is organizing a posse to go after the outlaws when Tex, who is a Texas Ranger, rides in. He joins the posse, of course, and off they go after the bank robbers.

Posse stories are one of my favorite Western sub-genres, and Dixon does some unexpected and enjoyable things in this one, rather than sticking with the standard plot. Eventually it’s just Tex and one prisoner on the trail of the gang. That prisoner becomes a reluctant ally when they encounter an unrelated threat. That leads up to a classic showdown and an epilogue that’s also unexpected but quite satisfying.

This volume has some interesting angles besides the story and art. As I was reading it, some of the dialogue seemed, well, unDixon-like. Curious about that, I went to the source, and Chuck confirmed that his script was written in English, translated into Italian for this story’s original appearance, and then translated back into English for this volume by someone else. So it’s Dixon’s plot all the way, but the words are only sort of his. Despite the occasional awkwardness, the script moves along briskly, and Alberti’s art works well for me, too. CINNAMON WELLS is a fast, entertaining read.

Chuck also told me this story was inspired by the many hardboiled Western movies starring Randolph Scott, a mutual favorite of yours, and the outlaw who’s both ally and enemy to Tex is modeled on actor Henry Silva, who played one of the villains in the Scott film THE TALL T. I love finding out this kind of background info, and my thanks to Chuck for answering my questions and allowing me to pass it along here.

A Rough Edges Rerun Review: Team Zero - Chuck Dixon

Some of the first comic books I remember reading are an issue of OUR ARMY AT WAR that I read at a cousin’s house and an issue of G.I. COMBAT I bought at Tompkins’ Drug Store when it was on Main Street in an old wooden building that’s now well over a hundred years old and still there. [It's now a very good burger joint.] The drug store is long gone, though, along with its soda fountain and spinner rack of funny books. However, I digress. My point is that I’ve been a fan of war comics for almost fifty years [more than sixty years now, good grief], so it’s not surprising that I enjoyed a recent trade paperback from DC/Wildstorm reprinting their Team Zero mini-series from a couple of years ago.

When Image Comics first came on the scene in the mid-Nineties, I read quite a few of the titles in their Wildstorm imprint, which is now part of DC, of course. My favorite was DEATHBLOW, and I also liked a character called Grifter who appeared in their WILDC.A.T.S. title. Both Deathblow and Grifter appear in the World War II yarn TEAM ZERO . . . but not the same Deathblow and Grifter. No superheroics here. This is a straight-out war story following a specially-assembled team of commandos dropped far behind enemy lines in the waning days of the war to snatch up the German rocket scientists at Peenemunde before the Soviet army can get its hands on them. It’s exactly the sort of assignment that in another comics era would have been given to Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos (and what a great comic book that was for a lot of years). The soldiers recruited for this mission are given code-names that would later figure prominently in the Wildstorm Universe – Deathblow, Grifter, Backlash, Claymore, etc. – but with one exception, they’re not the same characters. That tenuous connection to what comes later chronologically isn’t really important to the reader’s enjoyment of this story; TEAM ZERO can be read as a complete stand-alone.

It’s written by Chuck Dixon, who was one of my favorite comics authors during the Nineties with his work on AIRBOY and THE PUNISHER. There’s plenty of action in the story, a few plot twists, and plenty of blood ’n’ guts, as you’d expect from a war comic. I enjoyed it a lot and highly recommend it to any comics fans out there.

(This post, which appeared originally on June 10, 2008, is a good example of how the world is an odd place, and the Internet has made it even more so. When I wrote this review, I was just a long-time fan of Chuck Dixon's work. These days, I consider him a good friend, and I've even been privileged to edit a few novels in his very popular Levon Cade series. The trade paperback edition of TEAM ZERO that I read back in 2008 is out of print, but e-book editions of the six comic book stories it collects are available on Amazon and I still highly recommend them if you're a fan of gritty, well-written war yarns.)

Review: Guns of Mars - Chuck Dixon

If you don’t count all the Tarzan movies I watched on TV as a kid, my introduction to the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs was the novel A FIGHTING MAN OF MARS. My sister’s boyfriend loaned me the Ace shorty edition of that book sometime in the early Sixties. I loved it and became a lifelong Burroughs fan, especially the Mars series. Or Barsoom, to use the proper Martian name.

I haven’t been a fan of Chuck Dixon’s work for quite that long, but he’s still one of my favorite authors. So when I heard that Dixon was writing a novel set on Burroughs’ Mars, I was thrilled and looked forward to reading it.

GUNS OF MARS did not disappoint me. In the least.

This novel is set on Barsoom approximately a thousand years after the era of Burroughs’ hero John Carter. Mars, already a dying planet in Carter’s day, has become even more inhospitable. Water is scarce and the most valuable commodity on the planet. As the novel opens, Kal Keddaq, a fugitive Thark (the four-armed warrior race created by Burroughs), is trying to reach the northern pole where the ice still provides a source of water. But a human bounty hunter is on his trail, and so is a mysterious figure whose identity and motivation Dixon plays close to the vest for a while.

The bounty hunter captures Kal, who escapes but then is captured by the other member of our trio of main characters. In this back and forth, Kal and the bounty hunter discover a clue to the location of a hidden source of the best water on the planet, and that becomes the prize that everybody is after, including a number of other enemies and untrustworthy allies they encounter along the way.

If this is starting to sound familiar, it should, because GUNS OF MARS is very much a Spaghetti Western set on Burroughs’ Barsoom in its latter days. And it’s hugely entertaining, told in vivid, fast-paced prose that takes advantage of Burroughs’ creation while at the same time cleverly adding to it. The characters are all interesting, the action is plentiful and suitably gritty, and I just had a great time reading it. This is a Front Porch Book for sure, like so many of those other great adventure yarns I read back in those days.

GUNS OF MARS is available on Amazon in an e-book edition at the moment. I believe a print edition is in the works. I started my reading this year with Max Allan Collins’ RETURN OF THE MALTESE FALCON, a superb variation on another old favorite of mine, and now I’ve followed that up with Chuck Dixon’s visit to Barsoom. I don’t expect the rest of the year to live up to that, but it’s a spectacular beginning, for sure, with both books strong contenders to be on my Top Ten list at the end of the year.

Neither Beg Nor Yield - Jason M. Waltz, ed. (Part 2)

Last week, I reviewed the first four stories in NEITHER BEG NOR YIELD, the massive new sword and sorcery anthology from Rogue Blades Entertainment. This week I’m moving on to the next four stories.

I’ve read and enjoyed Steve Dilks’ Gunthar stories. His novella in this volume features one of his series characters I hadn’t encountered before, Bohun, a giant black warrior from a world that seems to be very loosely based on our own. “Harvest for the Blood-King” is set in an alternate version of Britain, which is ruled by a Rome-like empire called Valentia. Bohun and a Valentian soldier named Tibeirus are dispatched to rescue the son of a Valentian politician who has been kidnapped by barbarians that bear a resemblance to the Scots. Dilks doesn’t belabor the background or the world-building, though, a quality I’ve noticed in his work that I really like. He’s more about character and action, and he does a great job with both in this yarn. He’s written other stories about Bohun and I have to seek them out, because this one is excellent.

I’ve been a fan of Chuck Dixon’s work going all the way back to his great runs on THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN, THE PUNISHER, BATMAN, NIGHTWING, and AIRBOY. In recent years he’s become a bestselling novelist with his Levon Cade series (Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture, as they say). His story in this volume, “The Stone From the Stars”, features a new pair of heroes, Hagen and Pilsner, a couple of mercenaries who find themselves on the wrong side of a war and have to strike out on their own. They wind up trying to save a wizard and his beautiful redheaded daughter from a monster summoned up by an evil necromancer. This story has some great action scenes and really races along, and Hagen and Pilsner wind up being very likable protagonists. I thought at first they might be a bit of an homage to Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, but they’re actually very different from those characters and stand just fine on their own. This is a thoroughly enjoyable yarn.

John R. Fultz’s “Evil World” features a series character I hadn’t encountered before, an indomitable warrior named Gnori. This story begins when Gnori is a child and follows him as he becomes that fierce battler, giving the reader just the right amount of world-building as the story moves along but never sacrificing the pace and scope that give it an epic feel. This is the darkest story in the anthology so far, but it works very well considering the story that Fultz is telling. Another excellent tale.

Keith J. Taylor has been writing sword and sorcery tales even longer than Chuck Dixon. His series character Nasach the Firbolg, a reiver and mercenary in and around medieval Ireland, has been the protagonist of stories since the 1970s. In “Reckoning”, Nasach and some companions of his find themselves throwing in with a motley crew of pirates. The captain is married to a woman who may or may not be a mermaid, and he's convinced she can find a sunken treasure for them. Unfortunately for him, even though he doesn’t recognize Nasach, the Firbolg has an old grudge against him, and when the time is right, Nasach intends to settle that score. This is a wonderful story full of action and humor and color, and it’s very well-written. I haven’t read any of Taylor’s Nasach stories until now. I hope at some point there’ll be a complete collection of them.

Four more stories into the book now, and NEITHER BEG NOR YIELD hasn’t taken its foot off the gas. It’s picking up speed and getting even better. So far, this is a terrific anthology and I give it a very high recommendation. You can find the e-book edition on Amazon while the print editions are still in the works.

Conan: Caravan of the Damned

CARAVAN OF THE DAMNED is the second Conan novel by veteran author Chuck Dixon, based solely on the stories by Robert E. Howard that appeared in the pulp WEIRD TALES. I’m not going to get into the convoluted legal and copyright issues surrounding the character. Those are for somebody else to figure it out. My interest is in whether or not this is a good Conan yarn, and the answer (with a minor reservation or two) is a resounding yes.

This tale takes place during the time of Conan’s life when he’s leading a band of desert bandits and raiders. They attack a caravan and discover that its camels are carrying not only a small fortune in gold and gems but also a beautiful young woman, one of the daughters of Turan’s King Yildiz, who is promised in marriage to the son of a neighboring king. The girl and her escort were supposed to rendezvous with a party sent out by her future father-in-law.

Of course, Conan realizes he now has a hostage who may be worth a considerable amount of ransom, but only if he can get away from the rest of the girl’s escort, which was trailing behind the caravan. And so the chase is on through the desert. Not surprisingly, it will wind up in some strange and dangerous places.

Dixon does a lot of things right in this novel. It’s relatively short, which means the prose is stripped down and fast-paced, as it would have been if the story had been done as a three-part serial for WEIRD TALES. The characterization is good throughout, from Conan’s allies and enemies to the young hostage everybody is after. The desert setting is superb. There’s plenty of action, and it’s handled well for the most part. I like the cover and the interior illustrations, too. (More books, especially adventure novels, need interior illustrations.)

That brings us to those minor reservations mentioned above. The opening chapter of his novel is extremely violent, more Piccadilly Cowboys than WEIRD TALES, and some of Conan’s actions, even though they’re not out of character, are presented in a pretty brutal fashion. This isn’t a major complaint, just something I noticed, and at least Conan doesn’t come across as mean and petty, as he did in one of the other pastiches I read recently.

My other quibble is that I would have liked to know more about the supernatural menace that crops up late in the book. A lot of back-story would have bogged down the flow of this yarn, and I don’t want that, but a few more lines about the danger facing Conan and his companions might have worked well.

Overall, though, I had a really good time reading CARAVAN OF THE DAMNED. Clearly, Dixon has a very good grasp of the character and can write Howardian action scenes with the best of them. Both of his Conan novels so far have been great fun and get a high recommendation from me as long as you’re not opposed to the idea of pastiches. You can get a trade paperback/e-book combo directly from the publisher.

It’s funny, I went for a long time without reading any Robert E. Howard pastiches, and now suddenly it seems like I’m reading a bunch of them, both comics and prose. I’m enjoying them, too, and I look forward to seeing what turns up next.

Conan the Barbarian #1 - Jim Zub and Roberto de la Torre

I was a regular reader of the comics CONAN THE BARBARIAN and THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN back in the Seventies and Eighties. I still remember how excited I was when I spotted a copy of CONAN THE BARBARIAN #1 on the comics rack in a little convenience store in my hometown. In those days we didn’t know months in advance what comics were coming out. I didn’t even know Marvel had a Conan series in the works. But being a huge fan of Robert E. Howard’s work, I grabbed that issue and thoroughly enjoyed the story by Roy Thomas and the art by Barry Windsor-Smith, although he may have still been billed as Barry Smith at that point. (As an aside, I don’t recall ever purchasing another comic book at that particular store. I didn’t stop in there very often.) When SSOC came out, I bought most of the issues at Lester’s Pharmacy, my main comics source. Great stuff all around, including the articles about Howard and his work by a guy named Fred Blosser, who I’m honored to call my friend all these years later.

When Dark Horse started publishing Conan comics 18 years ago (That long? Really?) with scripts by Kurt Busiek and art by Cary Nord, I read and enjoyed the trade paperback collecting the first several issues. My review of it is here. But I didn’t continue reading that version and haven’t even sampled any of the issues from other publishers since then. I was out of the loop, as they say, when it comes to Conan and comics.

But then, having seen several mentions of it, on a whim I picked up a digital copy of the first issue of a new Conan series from Titan Comics. CONAN THE BARBARIAN #1 is written by Jim Zub, an author I know nothing about, with art by Roberto de la Torre, another unknown to me, and a main cover (there are numerous variants) by Dan Panosian, whom I’ve at least heard of. Now that you’ve waded through all the obligatory nostalgia above, what did I think of this new comic, you ask?

Well, I liked it. Quite a bit, in fact.

Zub’s script finds Conan still a relatively young man but with several years of mercenary experience behind him, heading back to his homeland of Cimmeria for a visit. He’s still in northern Aquilonia, stopping over at a tavern where he gets in a fight with the captain of the mercenary company he belongs to, and then a Pictish warrior woman shows up with the unhappy news that a horde of demon-possessed Picts are about to swarm over the place and kill them all. Much hacking and slashing ensues before the issue ends on a cliffhanger of sorts.

I get the feeling that Zub’s Conan isn’t quite REH’s character, but pretty darned close. Don’t ask me for specifics, it’s more of a gut feeling, but although I’m confident that Zub has read the original stories, his Conan seems filtered through all the previous Conan comics stories by Roy Thomas, Chuck Dixon, and a dozen or more other writers. But as I said, he comes close, close enough that I found the character believable and engaging. De la Torre’s artwork is very influenced by John Buscema, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Buscema’s Conan is the definitive comics version of the character. Honestly, even when I’m reading Howard’s original stories, Buscema’s Conan is who I see in my head. So I’m pleased with de la Torre has done here. The variant covers, many of which are included with the digital edition I read, are very good, too.

Overall, I found the new CONAN THE BARBARIAN to be the equal of any of the previous versions not written by Thomas or Dixon, and I enjoyed it enough that I’ve already pre-ordered the second issue. If you’re a fan of Conan comics, you definitely should check it out.

The Siege of the Black Citadel - Chuck Dixon

I remember reading and enjoying Chuck Dixon’s Conan stories in the black-and-white comic magazine THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN more than 30 years ago. At the time it never occurred to me that one day Dixon and I would be friends and that I’d even have the privilege of editing a few of his books. He remains one of my favorite writers.

THE SIEGE OF THE BLACK CITADEL is the first of what I hope will be numerous Conan novels by Dixon. As the story opens, Conan is part of a mercenary company fighting on the side of the rebels in a civil war in the country of Koth. The rebel forces have laid siege to the fortress known as the Black Citadel, which controls a river that’s vital to both sides in the war. Charged with finding a way to infiltrate the fortress, Conan accidentally discovers the secret of a great fortune hidden inside the citadel. At that point, THE SIEGE OF THE BLACK CITADEL becomes something of a sword-and-sorcery heist novel, as Conan and several of his comrades scheme to use the upcoming battle to cover their theft of the hidden fortune. Unfortunately for them and a number of other people, there’s a sorcerer inside the fortress who is able to breach the wall between worlds and bring over a bloodthirsty beast that may tip the odds in the defenders’ favor.

While I consider myself a Robert E. Howard purist for the most part, I’m not opposed to the idea of pastiches, especially in a work such as this which is based only on the Conan stories that appeared in WEIRD TALES, as is made clear in a note inside the book. Because of that, Dixon gives us a Conan who is true to Howard’s original creation and acts, talks, and thinks in authentic ways for Conan. The writing style also does a good job of approximating Howard’s prose. I’m not sure any writer can sound exactly like another writer, but a talented pro can come close and Dixon does so in this book.

It also helps that THE SIEGE OF THE BLACK CITADEL is a short novel, the kind that could have been serialized in WEIRD TALES in three parts. I think this is the best length for sword-and-sorcery yarns, in general, although I’ve certainly read some longer ones that are quite good. But the shorter length means that the tale has to move and not get bogged down, and I’m happy to report that THE SIEGE OF THE BLACK CITADEL races right along in fine fashion.

I had a great time reading this novel. If you’re a Robert E. Howard fan, maybe you’ll like it, maybe you won’t, depending on how you feel about pastiches. If you’re a fan of Conan in all the various forms, I can’t help but think you’ll enjoy the book a lot. It’s available as a trade paperback on Amazon or from the publisher. As for myself, I’m looking forward to Chuck Dixon’s next novel about the Cimmerian.

Men's Adventure Quarterly, Volume 3 -- Robert Deis and Bill Cunningham, eds.

MEN'S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY started off great and just keeps getting better with each issue. Following volumes devoted to Westerns and espionage, the third issue of this beautifully done publication is devoted to vigilante justice, specifically that carried out by Vietnam vets against the Mafia and outlaw biker gangs. Not surprisingly, the Executioner novels by Don Pendleton get a lot of coverage, since that series pretty much created the genre. Abridged versions of the first two Executioner novels that ran as "Book Bonuses" in men's adventure magazines, along with articles by Linda Pendleton, Don Pendleton's widow, about her late husband's creation, occupy roughly half the pages in this issue, and it's fascinating stuff. I remember picking up the first Mack Bolan novel, WAR AGAINST THE MAFIA, when it was new and reading it one day when I was home sick from school. I was so impressed that after that, I bought and read each of Pendleton's entries as it came out. The "Book Bonus" version is called simply "The Executioner" and appeared in the October 1969 issue of FOR MEN ONLY. The second novel, DEATH SQUAD, got the "Book Bonus" treatment in the September 1971 issue of MEN. Both are reprinted here in their entirety.

But there's more, as they say on the late night TV commercials. You also get a guest editorial from Chuck Dixon, for many of us the top scripter on the long-running Punisher comic book, an article about THE EXECUTIONER'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, a digest that didn't really have anything to do with Mack Bolan but is interesting in its own right, page after page of fantastic artwork by Earl Norem, Gil Cohen, Mort Kunstler, and Jack Faragasso, among others, and three more long stories that fit in the vigilante genre. "Blood Feud With the Mafia" (TRUE ACTION, August 1970) is by Donald Honig, an author whose work I've grown to enjoy recently because each issue of MEN'S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY has reprinted one of his stories. "We Wiped Out Brutal Mack's Cycle Killers" (FOR MEN ONLY, November 1972) is a supposedly true story by one of the characters, "Jack August", who was actually some unknown pro spinning a yarn, and a good one, at that. It's more a tale of rival outlaw motorcycle gangs, but it does have a vigilante angle. Finally we have "The Amputee Vengeance Squad's Mafia Wipeout" (MEN, August 1975) by "Jack Tyler", another pseudonymous author, with a fantastic, over-the-top illustration by Earl Norem. This is my favorite of the three non-Executioner stories, and if the author had expanded it into a novel, it would have made a fine entry in the explosion of paperback series that followed the Executioner's success.

When I was a kid, men's adventure magazines were staples on the magazine racks where I bought comics and paperbacks. It seemed like FOR MEN ONLY, especially, was always there, month after month. And I always wanted to buy some of them but never did, since my allowance and the money I earned would only stretch so far. But now, thanks to Bob Deis and Bill Cunningham, I can at least read some of the stories and feast my eyes on the great artwork. They're to be commended for bringing this material to a new generation of readers. MEN'S ADVENTURE QUARTERLY is great. If you're not reading it, you should be. You can get the latest issue on Amazon or directly from Bob Deis via his eBay store.

Levon's Trade - Chuck Dixon

FROM BEST-SELLING AUTHOR CHUCK DIXON COMES THE LEVON CADE SERIES – A CAN’T-PUT-IT-DOWN VIGILANTE JUSTICE SERIES.

Levon Cade left his profession behind to work construction. He just wants to live an anonymous life and be a good dad to his daughter. But when a local girl vanishes, he’s asked to return to the skills that made him a mythic figure in the shadowy world of counterterrorism.

Follow Levon and his daughter while they go on the run from the Feds and a growing army of enemies that Levon makes along the way.

(Chuck Dixon is one of my all-time favorite comic book writers, and over the past few years he's become one of my favorite novelists, as well. I'm a little behind on his work, but I recently read LEVON'S TRADE, the first book in his Levon Cade series, and it's great. Full of gritty action, a likable protagonist, well-developed villains and supporting characters, and quite a bit of wry, dark humor. This book read very fast and I really enjoyed it. The first six books in the series are available in one giant, inexpensive omnibus, and I'm eager to read the others. So far the Levon Cade series gets a high recommendation from me.)

Forgotten Books: El Cazador - Chuck Dixon and Steve Epting

I always enjoy a good pirate yarn, and here’s one I completely missed. EL CAZADOR was a six-issue comic book written by Chuck Dixon with art by Steve Epting, published by CrossGen Comics. It came out in 2003 and 2004, when I was reading hardly any comics at all, so I wasn’t even aware of its existence until recently. Thankfully, all six issues were reprinted in a trade paperback collection, because it’s a really good tale.

As pirate stories often do, this one opens with a battle at sea, as the pirate ship captained by the villainous Blackjack Tom captures a Spanish vessel, kills the crew, and takes a couple of aristocratic passengers to hold for ransom. But unknown to the pirates, one of the passengers has managed to hide from them, a young woman named Cinzia Elena Marie Esperanza Diego-Luis Hidalgo. She does more than just hide, though. When Blackjack Tom leaves a skeleton crew on the Spanish ship to sail it into port, Cinzia (who was taught to use a sword by her father) kills the man in charge, takes over the ship, convinces the crew to swear loyalty to her, and sets off after Blackjack Tom to get vengeance and free the prisoners, who are her mother and younger brother. She renames the ship El Cazador (which means “The Hunter”) and instead of using her long real name, the crew dubs her Lady Sin.

The rest of the story involves the pursuit of Blackjack Tom, a mutiny, clashes with other pirates, etc. And what’s frustrating is that because of the bankruptcy and collapse of CrossGen Comics, the tale never reaches an ending. “To Be Continued”, it says on the final page, but unfortunately, it never was.

What we have, though, is wonderful stuff, with a fine, hardboiled, and historically accurate script by Dixon, one of the all-time great comics scripters, complemented by excellent art from Steve Epting, one of the best modern-day comics artists. It’s a shame the story was never finished, but what’s there can be read with great enjoyment by comics fans, pirate fans, and really, anybody who likes top-notch historical fiction. EL CAZADOR gets a high recommendation from me.

Forgotten Books: The Lone Ranger: Snake of Iron - Chuck Dixon

A comic book mini-series about The Lone Ranger (one of my all-time favorite characters), written by Chuck Dixon (one of the best comic book scripters of the past thirty years), and somehow I missed it when it came out back in 2012? How is that possible? Well, thankfully I’ve remedied that oversight and have now read THE LONE RANGER: SNAKE OF IRON.

This isn’t a Weird Western or a Revisionist Western (although it does feature the current, more politically correct version of Tonto rather than the Jay Silverheels version, which I suspect is the way the license holder wants it based on my own experience writing a Lone Ranger story). It’s pure Traditional Western, with the Kiowa going on the warpath and trying to join forces with the Comanche, a train derailed and stranded in a snowy winter Texas landscape, a plucky female newspaper reporter, a little kid in danger, a cavalry patrol, and a touch of Indian mysticism (but not enough to make it a Weird Western). In a bit of a twist, The Lone Ranger and Tonto are apart for most of the series, although it’s inevitable that their storylines will come together in the end, which they do with quite satisfactory results.

Dixon’s script is top-notch, with plenty of action, good characters, the occasional poignant moment, and bits of humor here and there. His Lone Ranger absolutely rings true to the character, and his Tonto lacks the pretentiousness that shows up in some other authors’ versions. I also like the fact that the story takes place in the winter, with snow on the ground, instead of the hot summer like most Westerns set in Texas. The art by Esteve Polls, an artist I’m not familiar with, is good as well, with strong storytelling so I was always able to keep up with what was going on. That’s not always true with modern comics artists. I could quibble a little with some things. There are no towering, snow-capped peaks in the part of Texas where this story takes place, and frontier forts didn’t look like how Fort Griffin is depicted. But that’s just part of the mythology of the Western, and overall I was quite pleased with the art. (Hey, West Texas doesn’t look like Monument Valley, Utah, either, but that doesn’t make THE SEARCHERS any less of a classic film, does it?)

I’ll admit I’m a bit of a curmudgeon and a purist where The Lone Ranger is concerned, so I haven’t liked some of the modern tales featuring the character. But I really enjoyed SNAKE OF IRON and don’t hesitate to recommend it to any Lone Ranger fan. It’s a good yarn.

Snakehand - Chuck Dixon and John Neal

Town-taming lawman Joe Wiley was once a Comanchero, an outlaw and a killer so fast on the draw he's come to be known as Snakehand. However, an unexpected tragedy leads him to change his ways. Now with his blind mentor and sidekick, the former leader of the Comanchero band, Joe travels from town to town in the West, taking on the job of bringing law and order to the worst hellholes between the Mississippi and the Pacific. It's that job that brings him to the settlement known as Mercury Wells, but what he finds waiting for him there is worse than he ever expected and will change his life again.

This is the first Western novel by comics scripting legend Chuck Dixon, along with his co-author John Neal, and it's a rip-snorting tale that barrels along at full speed, an action-packed blend of the pulp, the traditional, and the Spaghetti Westerns. The violence is reminiscent of the Edge books by George G. Gilman and other series produced by the Piccadilly Cowboys during the Seventies, the settings are well rendered, and while Joe Wiley may not always be the most likable guy, he's a fine protagonist. I'm looking forward to the next book in this series. Recommended.

Shrinkage - Chuck Dixon

Jeff is a shoplifter working the department stores of downtown Philadelphia in the 1970s. Slick. Professional. Smart. He believes he’s all of the above. He thinks he’s found the perfect angle when he gets an inside job at the city's premiere retail palace over the Christmas season. He's the fox in the hen house until he draws the wrong kind of attention to himself. Suddenly Jeff's world is out of control and everything, and everyone, he cares about is drawn into a web of deceit and danger that even he doesn't have the street smarts to escape from.

I've really enjoyed all of Chuck Dixon's action/adventure novels that I've read. SHRINKAGE is a bit of a departure for him, a noirish crime novel that races along and does the difficult job of making us root for an unsympathetic protagonist. It captures the 1970s setting very well, too. I was really impressed by this one. It's the best Chuck Dixon novel I've read so far and one of the best books I've read this year. Highly recommended.

Joe Frankenstein - Graham Nolan and Chuck Dixon

Joe Pratt is a pretty hapless case: 17 years old, living in a foster home because his parents were killed in an airplane crash, delivering pizza at night and struggling through school in the day. That all changes one snowy night in Buffalo when he makes a delivery to a house full of beautiful women who turn out to be vampires wanting to feed on him. Before that can happen, a giant but somehow urbane monster crashes in, dispatches the vampires, and tells a stunned Joe that his real name is Joe Frankenstein. The monster, of course, is the legendary Frankenstein's monster, who has spend centuries protecting the descendants of Victor Frankenstein.

This all happens quickly in the beginning of a very fast-paced tale originally published as a four-part mini-series. This collection adds a new ten-page prologue that establishes the history behind the on-going conflict in which Joe finds himself. The back cover calls it "an action-horror-adventure tale", and it's all of that and more, as there's plenty of dark humor (including a Sesame Street joke that you'll miss if you blink) and a sort of globe-trotting, international intrigue vibe. The monster, you see, is a tycoon (easy to make money when you have all the time in the world, he explains) who has all sort of high-tech weaponry and gadgets. He needs that because he's engaged in a long, bitter war with his renegade "bride", who now commands a vast supernatural criminal empire.

JOE FRANKENSTEIN was created by Graham Nolan, who provides the art and co-wrote the script, and Chuck Dixon, the other scripter on the project. It's great, over-the-top fun from start to finish, never taking itself too seriously as it races along at a breakneck pace. It's clearly only the first chapter in a much bigger story, and I hope the sequel(s) come along soon. If you're a comics and/or horror fan, I give it a high recommendation.

Bad Times: Blood Red Tide - Chuck Dixon

Chuck Dixon's time-traveling former Army Rangers return in BLOOD RED TIDE, the second novel in the Bad Times series. Hiding out from villains left over from the first book, they and their scientist allies plan another trip into the past, this time to recover a fortune buried on an island in the Aegean Sea by Phoenician traders. Naturally, things go wrong, and Dwayne, the leader of the Rangers, and Caroline, the beautiful blond scientist who helped invent the time travel device, find themselves in the middle of a sea battle between the Phoenicians who captured them and a couple of ships from the Carthaginian navy. Meanwhile, back in the present (The Now, as the Rangers call it), the rest of the group is being stalked by at least two groups of mysterious enemies.

BLOOD RED TIDE is a wonderfully fast-paced, very colorful book. The battle scenes set in the past are downright Howardian at times. But while you might expect the action and adventure to be the primary appeal of a novel by Chuck Dixon, I've got to say that the science-fictional premises he's playing with are even more intriguing. He's come up with some new twists in an old genre, blended them with great action scenes, piled mystery upon mystery, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.

CANNIBAL GOLD, the first novel in this series, is one of the best books I've read this year, and BLOOD RED GOLD is a worthy successor. The next one, AVENGING ANGELS, is already out, and I'll be reading it soon, I hope. If you haven't checked out this series already, start at the beginning, as the books benefit from being read in order. They're great fun, and thought-provoking, to boot.

Winterworld - Chuck Dixon and Jorge Zaffino

I've always liked a good post-apocalyptic yarn, and Chuck Dixon and Jorge Zaffino's WINTERWORLD is a very good one indeed. Somehow I missed the original three-issue mini-series when it was published by Eclipse Comics back in 1988, but it's been reprinted in a hardback edition by IDW, which as a bonus also includes the two-part sequel "Wintersea", also by Dixon and Zaffino, which has never been published before.

We don't get any real back-story with this. Dixon and Zaffino just drop us down on a brutal future Earth where the entire planet is covered with snow and ice. Nuclear winter? Some ecological catastrophe? Who knows? Not the characters, for sure, but it doesn't matter because all they're concerned about is survival.

The protagonist is a traveling trader named Scully whose only friend is a pet badger called Rahrah, until he rescues a young teenage girl named Wynn from one of the various tribes of primitives that roam the frozen-over land once known as Texas. They're captured and enslaved by another tribe that makes its home in an artifact left over from the world before, a domed sports stadium.

That's the start of a series of dangerous adventures shared by the three companions as they try to find the possibly mythical land where Wynn came from, a land where there is warmth and science and some hope for the future. In a way Dixon's story reminds me a bit of Edgar Rice Burroughs, the way that Scully, like Tarzan or John Carter, has to deal with warring tribes and lost civilizations. He's not exactly as clean-cut and noble as those Burroughs heroes, mind you, but he has his moments.

The script is very fast-paced and hardboiled, and Zaffino's art looks to me like it was very influenced by Joe Kubert and Alex Toth, so you can't go wrong there. I'm sort of glad I missed these stories when they were first published, because I get to read and appreciate them now. WINTERWORLD is excellent and well worth reading for fans of graphic novels and post-apocalyptic SF, or anyone who just enjoys a good adventure yarn, really.

A Kickstarter of Note: Sword of Wood - Chuck Dixon

Lord William Corrington, the second baron of Corrington and Knight of Christ is a warrior in the Holy Lands at the time of the First Crusade. Tired and disillusioned by years of war, William journeys home to his manor and village along with his squire, Pilsen, only to find the fields and hovels empty and his wife and children gone.

A Dominican friar named Henri DuChamps is the only soul remaining and is forted up in the village church. The friar is glad to see William, but is angered with his absence, stating that while the men of England were out fighting God’s war, Satan has come to take England in the form of an army of vampyres. He tells William of a rampaging horde of monsters that he has been stalking for a year. They sweep down on villages to kill and abduct all they find. They are an army of Satan’s and their ranks swell with each attack. A dark red-haired lord and agent of the Devil called only Kerioth, or ‘The Apostle,’ leads them.

William cannot know if his wife and children have been taken as feedstock or have joined the blood-sucking host.

I'll read just about anything Chuck Dixon wants to write, and this graphic novel looks excellent. You can find out the details about it here.

Bad Times #1: Cannibal Gold

There's no telling how many comic book stories by Chuck Dixon I've read over the years. Hundreds, certainly. But I'd never read any of his novels until now. CANNIBAL GOLD is the first in a new series of science fiction adventure novels, and it's a mighty good one. The set-up is pretty simple. Brother-and-sister genius scientists invent a time machine. Sister gets stuck in the past, 100,000 years ago in prehistoric Nevada. Brother hires a group of ex-Army Ranger badasses to go back in time and rescue her. Much shooting and fighting ensues.

In fact, after some very well done opening scenes in which Dixon introduces us to the characters, the rest of the book is mostly action, which is handled excellently as you'd expect from someone with Dixon's credentials. But in a nice twist, the characters encounter a few things in the past they weren't expecting, and Dixon does a fine job of layering in a few hints that there's a bigger story going on. Although this book comes to a satisfactory conclusion, not everything is resolved, but that's all right. The second book is already out, and I'd already bought it and downloaded it to my Kindle before I was halfway through with this one. That's how much I enjoyed CANNIBAL GOLD.

Robin: Year One - Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty

Chuck Dixon is one of my favorite comics writers. His run on AIRBOY back in the Nineties was great, and he's done plenty of other things I've enjoyed, including a lot of Batman stories. In this mini-series from about ten years ago, he's collaborated with co-writer Scott Beatty and artists Javier Pulido and Marcos Martin to produce a very entertaining tale about the early days of the Batman and Robin partnership.

As a rule, I'm a little leery of "Year One" stories, because they're often just an excuse for the dreaded retconning. Not so much here. The plot works well and doesn't violate established continuity. (Although, does "established continuity" mean anything in the DCU anymore? I think not, he said snarkily.) Two-Face is the main villain here, although the plot twists enough to include run-ins with the Mad Hatter, Mr. Freeze, and the League of Assassins. The going proves to be unexpectedly rough for Robin, but he winds up being able to hold his own against some major league bad guys.

The script by Dixon and Beatty is excellent, with its hardboiled narration interspersed with journal entries by devoted butler Alfred Pennyworth. I'm less fond of the art by Pulido and Martin, which has that modern look that manages to seem hyper-stylized and unfinished at the same time. Their storytelling is decent most of the time, though, and the art doesn't detract any from the script. (Boy, you can really tell that I'm a word guy instead of an art guy, can't you?)

Overall I enjoyed ROBIN: YEAR ONE quite a bit. It feels like it fits in with the classic era of Batman, and that makes it good stuff as far as I'm concerned.