Western Webcomic: The Ranger and the Spectacular Steed - Luke Varner

I've recently discovered this new webcomic that mixes Westerns, steampunk, and horror. Written and drawn by Luke Varner, it's a lot of fun and I'm enjoying reading it. It's available on Instagram, and you can find it here. Here are a couple of early Sunday strips you should be able to click on to read.

Cold as Hell - Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle

The Weird Western is an odd subgenre, and I don’t just mean the subject matter. Robert E. Howard invented what we think of as the Weird Western in stories such as “The Horror From the Mound”, “Old Garfield’s Heart”, “For the Love of Barbara Allan”, and “The Man on the Ground”. Adding horror elements to traditional Western tales can be very appealing to writers. You’re getting to play in two different sandboxes at the same time. However, they’re tough sells to many Western readers, who don’t want even a hint of the supernatural in what they read. That’s why a lot of Westerns that seem to have supernatural elements wind up explaining all that away in Scooby-Doo endings. I’ve done that several times myself. My hunch is that Weird Westerns are more likely, overall, to find their audience among horror and fantasy readers . . . who, in turn, may be put off by the Western stuff.

All that said, it is indeed possible to write a novel that’s both an excellent horror/fantasy story and a solid Western yarn. That’s exactly what Rhett C. Bruno and Jaime Castle have done in COLD AS HELL, the first novel in their new Black Badge series, that mixes truly creepy horror and fantasy elements with a well-done, believable Western setting and characters.

Former outlaw and gunfighter James Crowley is a Black Badge, an undead avenger working for Heaven with an angel who sends him on missions to battle demons and monsters plaguing the frontier. As COLD AS HELL opens, he takes up the trail of a trio of bank robbers who seemingly have supernatural abilities. He runs into plenty of other dangers before he tracks them down, and there’s no Scooby-Doo ending to any of this. Crowley and his enemies and allies are the real deal.

He’s also a very good protagonist, tough and smart and not without flaws even though he’s basically unkillable, already being dead and all. Bruno and Castle aren’t afraid to pile up trouble on him, and then, in the end . . . there’s a very nice twist that sets up the next book in the series, which I’m already looking forward to. If you’re a Weird Western fan, COLD AS HELL is one of the best I’ve read in a long time, and if you’ve never tried one before, I think it would be a fine place to start. It's available in ebook and hardback editions. Highly recommended.

Western Weirdness and Voodoo Vengeance: An Informal Guide to Robert E. Howard's American Horrors - Fred Blosser

Fred Blosser has been writing excellent articles, essays, and books about Robert E. Howard for decades now, and he adds to that distinguished body of work with his latest volume, WESTERN WEIRDNESS AND VOODOO VENGEANCE: AN INFORMAL GUIDE TO ROBERT E. HOWARD’S AMERICAN HORRORS. This book takes a detailed look at Howard’s Weird Westerns (prehistoric, historical, and modern) and his contemporary Westerns such as the great “Wild Water” (one of my personal favorite Howard yarns) and the stories in which detective Steve Harrison’s cases bring him to Texas; as well as horror and Weird Menace stories set in the swamplands and the backwoods. Blosser provides plot summaries for more than two dozen Howard stories and discusses each of them, relating them to Howard’s own life, the region where he lived and worked, and other influences.

One of Blosser’s greatest strengths, along with his deep knowledge of Howard and his work, has always been his clear, concise prose, and that’s demonstrated again in this book. Blosser makes his points without ever getting bogged down in the sort of over-analysis you sometimes find in critical studies. As a result, WESTERN WEIRDNESS AND VOODOO VENGEANCE is always fast-paced and entertaining to read, as well as being packed with information and some connections that casual readers of Howard’s work might not be aware of.

Fred Blosser is in the top rank of Howard scholars, and that reputation is well-deserved. Some of my favorite Howard stories, the ones that I’ve read over and over, are discussed in this book and I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about them. In the case of the ones I haven’t read multiple times, this volume made me want to read many of them again. I may have to do that. In the meantime, if you’re a Howard fan new or old, I give WESTERN WEIRDNESS AND VOODOO VENGEANCE my highest recommendation.

Punished, Book 3: Bayou Voodoo - Jackson Lowry

Hanged twice, but still . . . undead.

Vincent Bayonne’s luck may have run out at last. The former plantation owner must find William, the freed slave who placed the zombie curse on him, if he wants to avoid the unholy fate of a living death. To reach William in New Orleans, he makes his perilous way across the untamed American frontier while escaping from US Army patrols, dodging lawmen and railroad detectives after the reward on his head, and trying not to get killed by those who hate him because of his cruel rule over Dark Oaks Plantation.

Bayonne's quest for revenge is now a fight for sheer survival. The medicine he needs to hold back the slow coarsening of his body and mind, turning him into a zombie, is long gone. His only hope is to find William, and to do that he must first get Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, to befriend him. His only allies are a beautiful woman from his past and his own incredible strength while under the curse. With the choice of becoming totally undead or begging those he hates most for aid, Bayonne plunges into the darkest recesses of black magic, hoping for a cure—and redemption.

(The final volume of this Weird Western trilogy by Jackson Lowry--really Robert E. Vardeman--is just as entertaining as the first two books. If you haven't checked out this series, it's the perfect reading for the Halloween season. Highly recommended.)

Punished: Navajo Witches - Jackson Lowry

Vincent Bayonne has gone from wealthy Louisiana plantation owner to penniless drunk in a very short time. But that’s not all. William Sherman, the ex-slave who put the torch to Bayonne’s beloved plantation, Dark Oaks, has done the unspeakable. Sherman, a voodoo priest, has placed a curse on Bayonne and made him one of the undead—living, but not truly alive. 

The elusive Dr. Glencannon is the only man who can stave off the sense-dulling effects of the curse with his elixir—but Bayonne is always one step behind him. A young Navajo boy tells Bayonne his uncle, Begay, can help—but for a price—killing the skinwalker that has been terrorizing the Navajo people. 

Though Bayonne resents having to hunt the supernatural shapeshifter, there is no choice for him. For Begay, true to his word, concocts a potion that holds the zombie traits at bay and allows Bayonne to do what he must do—including hunting the skinwalker.

As Bayonne stalks the skinwalker, he makes a surprising discovery. Will he be able to kill the beast? And can he make it back to New Orleans in time to meet the Queen of the Cape when William Sherman comes ashore?

I'm really enjoying this series. It's fast-paced, appropriately creepy, and Vincent Bayonne continues to be a compelling protagonist even though for the most part he's a very unsympathetic character. Jackson Lowry is doing some very skillful characterization in these books. I'm not a big fan of modern-day zombie stories, but I love the classic style tales and PUNISHED is a good one. Highly recommended.

Punished, Book 1: Undead - Jackson Lowry

PUNISHED, BOOK 1: UNDEAD is the first book in a new series of semi-weird Westerns by popular author Jackson Lowry, who is actually a prolific author of science fiction, mysteries, and Westerns under a variety of other names. I say semi-weird because while are some supernatural elements, most of the book is fairly gritty and realistic.

Vincent Bayonne is a former plantation owner from Louisiana who lost everything in the aftermath of the Civil War. His mansion was burned down by the freed slaves who worked on the plantation, and his wife and children were herded off as prisoners by Union soldiers. The soldiers tried to lynch Bayonne as well, but he escaped to hunt for his family and seek revenge on those who destroyed his life. Branded a fugitive, he’s forced to flee and eventually winds up down and out in San Francisco, where he encounters an old enemy five years after the war and his fate takes an unexpected twist.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Lowry’s prose is smooth and professional, and the action never slows down for long. He takes on the difficult task of writing about a protagonist who’s rather unsympathetic most of the time and making the reader care about him anyway. That’s not easy to do. It’s not so much a matter of rooting for Vincent Bayonne as it is being compelled to find out what’s going to happen to him next. He’s pretty well knocked around by life, but by the end of the book, even though his circumstances are, shall we say, challenging, he’s making plans to fight back against what he considers an unfair destiny. I’m eager to see where Bayonne’s vengeance quest is going to take him next.

Night of the Ghost Cat - Peter Brandvold

Hell has frozen-over in the town of Sanctuary, New Mexico Territory... 

Clay Carmody, unwitting ghoul hunter, has no time for ghouls. He had his fill of ghouls in Poudre Canyon. (See Canyon of a Thousand Eyes.) Having forked paths with the beautiful Claudine Bridger, sheriff of Camp Hawkins, the drifter has lit out on his own to the mountains of northern New Mexico, where he is holing up in a remote line shack. 

It figures to be a quiet winter for Clay Carmody. He and his young line shack partner, Ronnie Landry, will likely fill their nights drinking and playing poker and watching the snow fall after days filled with making sure the range of their boss, Old Man Bradbury, isn’t encroached upon by rustlers or nesters. 

Unfortunately, rustlers or nesters are the least of Carmody’s problems. 

When a big cougar kills young Landry, Carmody must take to the hunting trail. The trail leads him to the town of Sanctuary, which, much to Carmody’s dismay, is no sanctuary at all. 

It turns out that Sanctuary is being stalked by the same cat that killed Carmody’s partner. The cat seems to kill indiscriminately. Its blood lust is insatiable. Not even Carmody’s boss, Old Man Bradbury, and the young Duke and Duchess of Norfolk are exempt from its savagery. It will render Bradbury’s pretty, lusty young daughter speechless and worse... 

As the storm rages over Sanctuary, the cat stalks the town—attacking and terrifying, torturing its victims. It amuses itself by torturing men in the most hideous ways imaginable. 

And it seems impervious to bullets... 

Clay Carmody, the reluctant ghoul hunter, finds himself on the hunt for yet another ghoul. At least he has a beautiful demon-hunting witch at his side. But not even the lovely witch from another time, another place may be enough to save Carmody from the cunningly wicked and shape-shifting ghoul who time and time again proves itself the Devil’s own worst nightmare. 

For the ghost cat seems intent on turning the town of Sanctuary into a blood-drenched Hell... 

WARNING: CONTAINS GRAPHIC SCENES OF SUPERNATURAL TERROR, SEX, AND GORE! 

(About that warning...you'd be well advised to take it seriously. However, it doesn't say anything about great action scenes, vividly described settings, and a fine protagonist in Clay Carmody, and you get all those things in this book, too. As always, Mean Pete spins a fast-paced Western adventure yarn. NIGHT OF THE GHOST CAT is one of those one-sitting books you hear about, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys a Weird Western!)

Now Available for Pre-Order: Blaze! Zombies Over Yonder - Stephen Mertz

It's the wildest BLAZE! adventure yet, as J.D. and Kate investigate the mysterious death of a mine owner and find themselves facing a danger unlike any they've ever encountered. From bloodthirsty outlaws to cold-blooded killers to marauding Indians, they thought they had seen it all—but the looming castle atop a ridge near the settlement of Yonder, Arizona, holds something new and deadly. It's the Old West's only team of husband-and-wife gunfighters versus a sinister count and his walking dead minions—and hot lead may not be enough to stop them! 

Legendary action writer Stephen Mertz spins a fast-paced yarn filled with suspense, horror, and non-stop action in ZOMBIES OVER YONDER!

What Rough Beast - James A. Moore and Charles R. Rutledge

WHAT ROUGH BEAST is a new limited edition chapbook from James A. Moore and Charles R. Rutledge, with art by Keith Minnion, available from White Noise Press. It combines horror and sword and sorcery with a Western yarn, making for one of the weirder Weird Westerns you'll ever read. And it's top-notch work, as well.

The protagonist is Tom Morton, a deputy whose wife is on a stagecoach lost in a snowstorm. When he asks for help from the townspeople in looking for the coach, three of the four volunteers are strangers: Jonathan Crowley, a normal-looking hombre who is more than he seems; Slate, a mysterious and dangerous albino; and a huge man who calls himself Kharrn. No mister, just Kharrn.

This odd group sets out to look for the stagecoach, but there is more lurking in the snowstorm than a disabled vehicle. The cover art is a pretty good tip-off to what's waiting for our heroes. They find a lot more than Tom Morton expected, and the result is a bloody, epic battle in the snow with creatures made more dangerous by the fact that they're partially human.

WHAT ROUGH BEAST is a well-written, fast-moving tale that generates quite a bit of suspense before it explodes into action. Moore and Rutledge have crafted an excellent story with some great characters, and Keith Minnion's art and production match it. This is actually the first thing I've read by these two authors, but I have several more of their books and look forward to reading them soon.

Now Available: Hunting Monsters is My Business - John M. Whalen

Mordecai Slate was a mysterious figure who roamed the United States and its Territories from 1870 to 1912. He was more or less a bounty hunter, who just happened to specialize in hunting outlaws of the supernatural variety. He carries a special modified 1855 Colt Revolver Rifle that fires 12 rounds of silver ammunition, a Remington double-barreled Derringer, a Colt Peacemaker .45, and a silver-plated stiletto. But his hard, cold attitude as a professional is perhaps his greatest weapon. Where others lose their heads in fear or rage, Slate keeps his cool. He isn't out for revenge or justice. But when he's paid to do a job, he always sees it through to the end. 

In HUNTING MONSTERS IS MY BUSINESS, undead Tlingit tribesmen rise from their graves in the Yukon; something not of this world stalks Dodge City; a creature emerges from the ocean off the coast of the Monterey Peninsula. Slate takes on these and other terrifying creatures in nine tales of horror and wonder, including a brand new novella written specially for this book.

Saddle up with Slate and ride with him through the Wild, Weird West. The print edition is now available, with an e-book edition coming next week.

(The first Mordecai Slate novel, VAMPIRE SIEGE AT RIO MUERTO, is excellent. I'm looking forward to reading this collection of his adventures.)

Now Available: Last Chance Canyon - James Reasoner

Only desperate men dared to venture into Last Chance Canyon, like bounty hunter Rye Callahan and the deadly outlaw he pursued. The fate that awaited them inside the lonely box canyon was something neither man could have anticipated, and the question was whether either of them would make it out alive!

One of my Western short stories that's never been published in English before is now available exclusively at Amazon in an e-book edition. A big thank you to Juri Nummelin for making this possible. This is also the first of my e-books where I designed the cover. As many of you know, Livia broke her arm a couple of weeks ago, so I decided to see if I could publish one of our projects by myself. As it turned out, she did have to give me a little help and advice on the cover, but it's mostly my design. I hadn't read this story in many years, but I think it holds up pretty well and is an entertaining Weird Western yarn. I hope some of you will check it out and enjoy it.

LAST CHANCE CANYON on Amazon

Available for Pre-Order: Robert E. Howard's Western Tales

The Robert E. Howard Foundation Press has announced that pre-orders are being accepted for ROBERT E. HOWARD'S WESTERN TALES, the largest collection of Howard's traditional and weird Western fiction ever published. All the details are here, including the fact that I wrote the introduction to this one, with much valuable assistance from editor Rob Roehm. I love Howard's Westerns and think their significance in the genre has been overlooked for the most part. If you haven't read them and want to check them out, or if you've read them and want to revisit them, this book is the best place to do so, if I do say so myself. Plus there's that fine cover by Tom Gianni and the usual high quality production that the REHF Press always provides. This one, not surprisingly, gets a high recommendation from me.

Bad Sanctuary - Heath Lowrance

"Bad Sanctuary" is the latest short story from Heath Lowrance featuring Hawthorne, his scarred and haunted gunslinger/bounty hunter/avenging angel. In this one he's tracking down a killer to an abandoned army fort that's been turned into a refuge for outlaws and other men on the run, but there's another evil lurking there, too, and it's really what Hawthorne is after.

This is a truly creepy story, and the odds against Hawthorne are so high at one point you have to wonder how he's going to come out of it alive. There's plenty of bloody action, and also a few tantalizing hints about Hawthorne's background. Lowrance is doing a masterful job with this series, and I always look forward to the new entries. If you're a fan of the so-called Weird Western and haven't read the Hawthorne stories yet, you really need to. Go back to the first one, "That Damned Coyote Hill" and read them in order.

Of course, if you're a fan, no doubt you already have "Bad Sanctuary". If you don't, grab it right away. It's great stuff, as always.

Pariah, Missouri: A Kickstarter Campaign You Should Check Out

Here's a very interesting-looking Weird Western graphic novel project currently being funded on Kickstarter.

1857. Pariah, Missouri is a riverboat boom-town and a haven for the unscrupulous. The charismatic Hy Buchanan works undercover as a foppish cheat, and creates a rag-tag team to ferret out evil, both the corruption of man and the supernatural. His first challenge is the arrival of a duo of thespians, whose intentions are not to entertain.

The script by Andres Salazar and the art by Jose Pescador look good on the sample pages on the website. I plan to contribute to this, and if you're a Weird Western fan you might want to, as well.

The Canyon - Frank Leslie (Peter Brandvold)

Since today is Halloween, what better to talk about than a ghost story? THE CANYON is a new novella from Peter Brandvold writing under his Frank Leslie pseudonym, featuring Yakima Henry, the hero of half a dozen Leslie novels. In this one, Yakima is on the run from a trio of bounty hunters who want to bring him in for a crime for which he's wrongly accused. While heading for Mexico, his route takes him to Skull Canyon, where he meets a beautiful woman who warns him not to continue on that path. But does Yakima heed that advice? You know he doesn't . . .

This story doesn't have quite as much action as a Brandvold yarn usually does, but it's got plenty of sinister atmosphere and Pete does a great job on that, too. He's one of the best writers in the Western field today and never disappoints. He has a sure touch with the Weird Western as well, as this story and his novel DUST OF THE DAMNED prove. If you want to read an excellent spooky story tonight while you're waiting for the trick-or-treaters, I highly recommend that you check out THE CANYON.

The Spider Tribe - Heath Lowrance

Hawthorne, the mysterious gunfighter with the cross-shaped scar on his forehead, returns in Heath Lowrance's "The Spider Tribe", and he runs right into the sort of creepy menace that makes the Weird Western genre so much fun.

This time Hawthorne finds a Lakota Sioux village where a massacre has taken place, but the killers aren't the U.S. cavalry as he first assumes. An ancient evil is responsible for wiping out the village, as he discovers when he joins forces with two young survivors to go after the culprits.

As usual in these stories, there's plenty of well-written action, an unrelenting pace, and a palpable sense of lurking evil. Hawthorne is a fine character. Lowrance hasn't told us much about him yet, but I'm sure he will in the future.

"That Damned Coyote Hill" and "The Long Black Train" are the first two yarns in this series, and if you haven't read them yet, you should, even though the stories stand alone. "The Spider Tribe" continues what is fast becoming a tradition of excellence. Highly recommended.

Hawthorne: The Long Black Train - Heath Lowrance

One of the most entertaining things I read last year was THAT DAMNED COYOTE HILL, Heath Lowrance's first supernatural Western story featuring the mysterious scarred gunfighter known as Hawthorne. Now Hawthorne is back in THE LONG BLACK TRAIN, the second story in the series, which I hope has settled down for a long run in David Cranmer's Beat to a Pulp publishing empire.

Hawthorne is a bounty hunter – sort of – and this story finds him on the trail of a man who murdered his sister-in-law when she tried to shield his runaway wife. That trail leads Hawthorne to a train making a nighttime run from Denver to Santa Fe, but as Hawthorne soon discovers, something even worse than his quarry is on that train. Much worse.

THE LONG BLACK TRAIN is gruesome, occasionally funny in a bizarre way, packed with action, and very well-written. In the space of a year or so, Heath Lowrance has become one of my favorite authors. If you enjoy Westerns with a supernatural touch, you definitely need to check out the Hawthorne series. I'm already eager to read the next one.

Hallowed Ground - Steven Savile and David Niall Wilson

Note to Steven Savile and David Niall Wilson: Guys, you had me at the sight of the mysterious-looking female gunslinger on the cover.


Luckily for those of you who are, ahem, less shallow than me, behind that cover is a fine novel in the burgeoning Weird Western genre. A sinister character known only as The Deacon shows up in the frontier town of Rookwood along with a caravan of grotesqueries and freaks. Is The Deacon a traveling preacher? Is his troupe a circus or carnival of some sort? A rival/old enemy called Balthazar shows up as well, and these arrivals start to have an effect on various citizens, leading up to some dramatic supernatural confrontations.


HALLOWED GROUND is very well-written and makes excellent use of its dusty frontier setting, with influences that seem to range from Ray Bradbury to Sergio Leone. And not to harp on it, but hey, having a beautiful female gunfighter in a book never hurts. I enjoyed this one a lot. Highly recommended.