Historical – Page 41 – Now Read This!

March 20, 2007March 14, 2013

Jonah Hex: Face Full of Violence

By Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray & Luke Ross

(DC Comics) ISBN 1-84576-408-0

For a very long time westerns were an integral part of every comic publisher’s stable, and then they fell from favour. In the 1970s DC Comics published a grim, sardonic anti-western anti-hero with a ruined face who mirrored the dark turn that film cowboys had taken. Then the comic book West all but disappeared again.

There’s often a relationship between moving pictures and drawn ones, and I’m sure that the style and success of such shows as Deadwood has convinced the powers that be at DC that the time is once again right for Jonah Hex.

Lucky for us then that the creators involved have done such a bang-up job of updating him. What was once one of the best comics DC published, is almost as good in this incarnation — and looks like getting better with every issue. Electing to buck the modern trend for continued stories, the first six tales collected here are short, punchy, complete adventures displaying the character of the man and the true barbarity of the world he inhabits. With titles such as A Cemetery without Crosses, Bullets of Silver, Cross of Gold, The Slaughter at Two Pines, Chako Must Die, Christmas with the Outlaws and The Plague of Salvation owing more to Sam Pekinpah than Zane Gray, these splendid stories are worthy addition to a great tradition — and just the sort of thing to get more people reading comics.

March 13, 2007July 24, 2012

Comanche Moon

By Jack Jackson

(Rip Off Press Inc./Last Gasp)Â ISBN 0-89620-079-5

One of the earliest Graphic Novels, Comanche Moon was originally published as the comic books White Comanche, Red Raider and Blood on the Moon during the 1970s by Last Gasp, a regular packager of work by underground cartoonists such as Jackson. This reworked and augmented edition appeared in 1979. So far as I know it’s not currently in print, although it really should be.

The book follows the astounding life of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah and the course of their lives among Texas Comanches and her own – white â€“ people. Whilst the Parkers are eking out a living on the Southern Plains of Texas in 1836, their homestead is attacked by a Comanche raiding party and little Cynthia Ann and her younger brother are carried off. Separated from him she is raised as a squaw, eventually marrying a sub-chief and birthing a son. The folksy, matter of fact story-telling reinforces the powerful truth of this documentary of the final downfall of the Plains Indians under the relentless expansionist pressure of the new Americans.

Quanah grew to be the last chief of the Comanches and as the old ways died he was responsible for all the meagre concessions his people managed to gain from the unstoppable white men. He was a Judge, a Sheriff, a huckster for Teddy Roosevelt and died a loved and respected political figure among both the Comanches and the settlers.

My dry prÃ©cis does nothing to capture the hypnotic skill of Jackson in making this history come alive. Comanche Moon reads as easily as the best type of fiction but never strays from the heartbreaking truth that underpins it. Jack Jackson’s work is powerful, charming, thoroughly authentic, astoundingly well-researched and totally captivating. If only all history books could be his good.

February 4, 2007March 30, 2012

Charley’s War: Book III (17 October 1916 – 21 February 1917)

By Pat Mills & Joe Colquhoun

Titan Books ISBN: 1-84576-270-3
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â ISBN-13: 9781845762704

After much too long a wait the third volume collecting the greatest war comic strip of all time is finally out. Charley’s War, originally published in the weekly comic “Battle” (beginning in issue #200 – 6 January 1979 and running until October of 1986), tells the story of underage East-Ender Charley Bourne, who lies about his age to enlist in the British Army setting out to fight the Hun in 1916.

By the beginning of this volume he has already survived the hellish conditions of trench warfare, endured the cruelty and stupidity of his own leaders and lost most of his friends. The introduction of Tanks has brought a furious response from the Germans, many of whom consider the innovation to be an atrocity weapon. In retaliation, they unleash a savage attack using “Judgement Troopers” whose “total war tactics” overwhelm the British Lines.

Book III opens with the brutal battle for the British positions in full swing, with neither side gaining any real advantage, and ends for Charley when he is wounded sufficiently to be sent home to England (called “getting a Blighty”). Naturally, things are never that simple and the callous indifference of the doctors behind the lines means that any soldier still able to pull a trigger is sent back into battle. Once more facing the Judgement Troops, Charley and his mates are forced to experience fresh horrors before the bloody battle peters out indecisively. Charley is again wounded, losing his identification in the process and returned eventually to England as a shell-shocked amnesiac.

Mills and Colquhoun now begin a masterful sequence that breaks all the rules of war comic fiction, by switching the emphasis to the home-front where Charley’s family are mourning his apparent death and working in the war industries, just as the German Zeppelin raids on British cities are beginning. The writer’s acerbic social criticism makes powerful use of history as the recovering hero experiences the trials of submarine warfare, bombing raids and the callous exploitation of British munitions magnates who care more for profit than the safety of their workers or even the victory of their homeland. The book ends as Charley attempts to rescue his mother from a bomb factory as Zeppelins drop lethal payloads all around them…

Included in this volume are a rare interview with artist Joe Colquhoun, a feature on the history of Zeppelin warfare and writer Pat Mills’ wonderfully informative chapter notes and commentary. Not just a great war comic, Charley’s War is a highpoint in the narrative examination of the Great War through any artistic medium.

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