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Post by berkley on Jul 20, 2016 18:12:34 GMT -5
I remember liking the Rawhide Kid best of all the Marvel gunfighter characters, probably because his blue-black outfit looked better than Kid Colt's white and read or Two-Gun's blue-beige, or whatever it was. I also liked Ghost Rider. And Gunhawk, because he had cool sideburns like Elvis, and like Jim Dorey on this hockey card:  |
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Post by String on Jul 20, 2016 18:12:58 GMT -5
Jonah Hex Vol 2 (2005-2011) was consistently my favorite DC comic. Writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti managed to keep the book fresh and interesting and the various artists were top-notch. Then came the wretched New52 revamp, tying it into the Batman mythos and bringing Hex into modern times. Absolutely destroyed what made the book special. I tried to stick with it as long as I could, hoping it would revert back. Alas it was not to be and I said adios and rode off into the sunset, consigning Hex and his DC brethren on Boot Hill In today's market, I think that's a great sign for DC (and Westerns) that this volume of Hex lasted for nearly a decade with the same creative team. I have a passing knowledge of DC's Western characters, having read of Hex and Scalphunter the most. I've hardly read anything concerning Marvel's Western characters. Though my favorite of those I have read is oddly enough Daredevil #215
Denny O'Neill tied DD in with a Two-Gun Kid adventure, showing similarities between the two heroes that frankly I never considered before reading this issue. I've been a fan of Moebius ever since the days of his Epic GN collections but his Blueberry strips are one set of collections that I never saw in my area. |
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Post by berkley on Jul 20, 2016 18:15:04 GMT -5
Who can remind me about that very strange and surreal european western strip that ran in the early years of Heavy Metal for many issues? The art was beautiful and the story was...snakey if I recall Was it called Texarkana, or something like that? |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jul 20, 2016 18:17:26 GMT -5
Who can remind me about that very strange and surreal european western strip that ran in the early years of Heavy Metal for many issues? The art was beautiful and the story was...snakey if I recall Was it called Texarkana, or something like that? Yeah, something like that. I think each installment was short, maybe 1 to 3 pages each. Not even sure if it was a euro artist or an American from the underground days. It was definitely B&W |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jul 20, 2016 18:23:03 GMT -5
Who can remind me about that very strange and surreal european western strip that ran in the early years of Heavy Metal for many issues? The art was beautiful and the story was...snakey if I recall Was it called Texarkana, or something like that? Well thanks berkley for the clue that helped me look it up Tex Arcana by John Findley en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tex_Arcana  |
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Post by berkley on Jul 20, 2016 19:37:40 GMT -5
I remember being curious about that one but I could never get a handle on what the hell was going on with the story. I was only a semi-regular HM reader, so missing the opening and every 2nd or 3rd installment probably didn't help.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
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Post by Confessor on Jul 20, 2016 19:43:20 GMT -5
I'm a big fan Jonah Hex. I discovered the character with the '90s Vertigo mini-series by Tim Truman and Joe R. Lansdale, which I absolutely loved. From there I began picking old issues of Weird Western Tales and jumped right on board when the Palmiotti and Gray series began in the mid-2000s. These days, I'm still working on a complete run of Hex's Bronze Age series and his appearances in Weird Western Tales (I'm about half way through and have all the expensive issues, like All-Star Western #10, Jonah Hex #1 and the DC Spectacular). Another western that I really enjoyed was Desperadoes by Jeff Mariotte and I own all five mini-series of that series. I never quite understood the love for Bat Lash though. I always thought that El Diablo was a much more interesting character. What did you people think of Caleb Hammer, a Marvel character pretty much in the tradition of Jonah Hex? Not exactly overexposed, but his Marvel Premiere issue showed great promise. I liked the reference to early workers' unions. I have that Marvel Premiere issue and, yeah, the character definitely showed some promise. Difficult to judge him against Jonah Hex based on only one appearance. I mean, the Hex that debuted in All-Star Western #10 was a very different character to the one that we grew to know and love. There's no telling how Hammer may've changed or evolved. However, I would say that, visually, Celeb lacked anything anywhere near as memorable as Jonah's facial scarring. Jonah Hex Vol 2 (2005-2011) was consistently my favorite DC comic. Writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti managed to keep the book fresh and interesting and the various artists were top-notch. Then came the wretched New52 revamp, tying it into the Batman mythos and bringing Hex into modern times. Absolutely destroyed what made the book special. I tried to stick with it as long as I could, hoping it would revert back. Alas it was not to be and I said adios and rode off into the sunset, consigning Hex and his DC brethren on Boot Hill This pretty much sums up my feelings. I loved the Gray/Palmiotti run and hung in for a while after the New52 reboot. I thought placing Jonah in 19th century Gotham was an interesting idea to begin with, but he stayed there way too long and when characters related to the Batman mythos began popping up, I was on the verge of dropping the book. Finally though, Jonah left Gotham and headed out into the wild west...where he promtly ran into a time traveling Booster Gold and ended up being sucked through a time vortex to modern day Gotham. Yeah, that was the moment when I dropped the book like a hot poker. |
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Post by berkley on Jul 20, 2016 19:45:12 GMT -5
Anyone a fan of Eerie's continuing western feature Coffin? I never read enough to really get into it but I always thought the character had a pretty cool look on covers like these:   Not sure which came first, but possibly influenced by or an influence on Jonah Hex? |
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Post by Rob Allen on Jul 20, 2016 19:53:08 GMT -5
For some reason, Sol Brodsky and Israel Waldman decided to launch their new comics company (Skywald - Brod sky-Waldman) with two focuses - black & white horror mags and color Western comics. They got new material from classic Western artists like Dick Ayers and Syd Shores and filled out their 52-page comics with reprints from Waldman's extensive library - including some Bullseye stories by Kirby. Skywald's Western comics are well worth looking for. Also, Tony Isabella has been reviewing the Rawhide Kid series in his blog - he's done 82 issues so far. Here's the latest: tonyisabella.blogspot.com/2016/07/rawhide-kid-wednesday-82.html |
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Post by berkley on Jul 20, 2016 20:21:50 GMT -5
Another Coffin cover:  My recollection from the one or two stories I read is that they weren't quite as good as these excellent covers would lead one to hope. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jul 20, 2016 20:30:16 GMT -5
Weird. I've read those Eerie issues and have absolutely no recollection of Coffin. I do recall The Rook being transported back to the Old West.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jul 20, 2016 21:26:40 GMT -5
Another Coffin cover: My recollection from the one or two stories I read is that they weren't quite as good as these excellent covers would lead one to hope. So, the character from the movie War Of The Colossal Beast inspired Coffin. So it wasn't Jonah Hex after all    |
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Post by berkley on Jul 20, 2016 23:01:08 GMT -5
Yeah, pretty clear from those images that Coffin's face was lifted (er, so to speak) straight from the Colossal Beast.
I'd like to try Blueberry some time, but man, there are a lot of volumes. At least 5 Intégrales, at around $50 each. I love Moebius but not sure I'm enough of a western fan to shell out that much cash. Still, I might try the first one or maybe I should start with the second: I think I saw somewhere that there's a "Young Blueberry" volume and I'd prefer to avoid that one, not being a fan of the whole sub-sub-genre of teenage versions of famous characters, like "Young James Bond", "Young Sherlock Holmes", the new Star Trek movies, etc.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 21, 2016 4:58:48 GMT -5
Yeah, pretty clear from those images that Coffin's face was lifted (er, so to speak) straight from the Colossal Beast. I'd like to try Blueberry some time, but man, there are a lot of volumes. At least 5 Intégrales, at around $50 each. I love Moebius but not sure I'm enough of a western fan to shell out that much cash. Still, I might try the first one or maybe I should start with the second: I think I saw somewhere that there's a "Young Blueberry" volume and I'd prefer to avoid that one, not being a fan of the whole sub-sub-genre of teenage versions of famous characters, like "Young James Bond", "Young Sherlock Holmes", the new Star Trek movies, etc. All the secondary Blueberry series (Young Blueberry, Marshall Blueberry) can be set aside. The first one has the merit of having been produced by Charlier and Giraud themselves, but they were meant for a small-sized anthology periodical and the art was later blown up to album size, giving it a rougher appearance. Being set during the civil war gives it a certain originality, but since the series is from an anthology, all its stories are cut in something like eight-page independent adventures. Even as a young fan of Bluberry, I never eagerly waited for a new "Young Blueberry" book. The main series, though... Wow. Western stories were never that good. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2016 8:40:57 GMT -5
The days of youth. Rerun's of many old western television shows was the fix after school and Saturdays. Rifleman, Lone Ranger, Cisco Kid, Wanted Dead or Alive, Have Gun Will travel, Bonanza, High Chaparral, Fury and others. A gateway into a not so distant past that was a very American cut of life that if lucky was still being lived. I grew up learning horses with a church deacon who raised horses for rodeo events. So every Saturday and Sunday afternoon when i was a teen i would help walk, groom, feed, train his horses with him and learned so much. Every once in awhile i would go to rodeo's with him where he had his horses in barrel racing and calf roping contests and since we lived near a long dried out river bottom we could ride through it from the rodeo grounds back to his house. it was these early television shows and training/working along him that drew my interests into western anything at the time. Comics being easily had and the bags of old western novels i would devour with my grandfather. Now i will go out of my way to attend any new western movie that comes along to support the continued making of western movies and wishing there were more western comic books to be found. Still read and grab certain western authors as i can find them at Wal-Mart or the bookstores. Looking forward to see what the new Magnificent Seven will be like this fall. I didn't read a lot of Westerns but I was raised on the TV shows you mention. Still watch them on Me TV if I have some time. Yay for Me TV! |
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