By Claudio Nizzi & Joe Kubert. English adaptation by Pete Carlsson & Philip R. Simon (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-61655-620-4 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-63008-169-0
One of the most popular western strips ever created, Tex premiered in September 1948, brainchild of writer Gian Luigi Bonelli and artist Aurelio Galleppini. Very much an Italian synthesis of classic Hollywood western fare, the strip is both mythically traditional and unflinchingly dark in a way US material wasn’t until the advent of “spaghetti westerns” in the 1960s. Gosh, I wonder if there’s some kind of connection there?
Bonelli was a prolific writer of books, articles, screenplays and comics for over 50 years and Galleppini eventually dropped a prestigious career as a book illustrator to draw approximately 200 issues of Tex and 400 hundred covers.
Comics featuring Tex Willer and his legendary allies Kit Carson, Kit Willer and Tiger Jack have been exported far and wide for decades, scoring big not only across Europe, but also in Brazil, Finland, Turkey, India and elsewhere. Guest artists for specials have included Ivo Milazzo, Jordi Bernet and the masterful Joe Kubert.
Kubert was born in 1926 in rural Southeast Poland (which became Ukraine and – if tyranny wins – might well be Outer Russia by the time you read this). When he was two his parents emigrated to America where he grew up a proud Brooklyn kid. They also encouraged him to draw from an early age and the precocious prodigy began a glittering career at the start of the Golden Age, before he was even a teenager.
Working and learning at the Chesler comics packaging “Shop”, MLJ, Holyoke and assorted other outfits, he began his close association with National/DC in 1943. A canny survivor of the Great Depression, Joe also maintained outside contacts, dividing his time and energies between Fiction House, Avon, Harvey and All-American Comics, where he particularly distinguished himself on dazzling originals The Flash, Hawkman, Wildcat and Doctor Fate.
In the early Fifties he and school chum Norman Maurer were the creative force of publishers St. Johns: creating evergreen caveman Tor and launching the 3D comics craze with Three Dimension Comics.
Joe never stopped: freelancing for EC’s Two-Fisted Tales, Avon’s Strange Worlds, Lev Gleason Publications & Atlas Comics until 1955 when, with the industry imploding, he took a permanent position at DC, only slightly diluted whilst he illustrated the contentious and controversial newspaper strip Tales of the Green Berets (1965-1968). From then, he split his time drawing Sgt. Rock and other features, designing covers and editing DC’s line of war comics. He also drew plenty of westerns – such as DC’s incarnation of Firehair, Tomahawk and Son of Tomahawk. At the time most people retire, he opened and ran (employing a host of new funnybook superstars beside many of his fellow comics veterans) a comics school when not creating a host of superb, hard-hitting mature reader graphic novels such as Fax from Sarajevo, Jew Gangster and Yossel: April 1943. The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art still trains and mentors the coming generation of arts industry giants…
Hugely popular and venerated in Europe, Kubert stretched his wings in 2000 by adding Tex to his list of achievements in a project written by Claudio Nizzi for Sergio Bonelli Editore’s premier imprint Tex Albo Speciale/Texone.
Nizzi began writing comics in 1963, and authored many popular series – like Larry Yuma, Captain Erik and Rosco & Sonny – before heading to Bonelli in 1983 to craft stories of Mr. No, Nick Raider and Tex.
As is the case with all such long-lived action icons, the working premise of this Western Wonder is devilishly uncomplicated. Outlaw Tex Willer clears his unjustly besmirched name and joins the Texas Rangers. He marries an Indian maiden and becomes honorary chief of the Navajo “Eagle of the Night” after she dies.
Over years, Tex travels far and wide dispensing justice and encounters every kind of peril you might have seen in western films. However, like any great comics character, he also has a few outlandish arch-enemies such as evil prestidigitator Mefisto, piratical foreign prince Black Tiger and malign master of disguise Proteus.
After being published to great success and acclaim in Italy in 2001 as The Four Killers, this particular tale was made available to English speakers in 2015; packing the entire pulse-pounding saga into one fearsome fable of electrifying energy and dogged determination.
Following an informative and appreciative Foreword by co-translator/letterer Pete Carlsson, the drama opens with the aging lawman approaching the remote farm of his old friends the Colters. He will not get there in time…
On finding the family’s slain and defiled bodies, doctored to appear victims of an “injun” outrage, Tex reads trail signs and deduces the killers are three white men and a renegade Indian, and resolves to arrest them. At this stage, he is ready to let the law judge them. However, after being ambushed and thrown him off a cliff, the miraculously still living manhunter is ready to do whatever is necessary…
When the killers split up, the patiently remorseless peacekeeper becomes repeatedly snared in webs of brutal violence the quartet spin around themselves. Many more will die before justice is finally served…
Raw, primal and visually grandiose, Tex: The Lonesome Rider is a stripped-down epic of the genre in the manner of Unforgiven and Once Upon a Time in the West: a graphic masterclass in civilisation triumphing over chaos and greed, played out in a pitiless arena shaped by Big Sky Country aesthetics and with iconic scenery honed by a matchless craftsman into a major player and contributor to the story.
This is The Western at its most potent, pure and powerful: perhaps the best and credible cowboy comic you’ll ever see…
© 2001, 2005, 2015 Sergio Bonelli Editore. Licensed through Panini SpA All rights reserved.