Growing up, I never really liked Westerns…
I mean, Back to the Future Part III was my jam, and I guess I could sit through a viewing of An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, but I didn’t quite grasp the allure surrounding fiction set left of the Mississippi River. It was the fodder of older folks – dusty and macho and pallid, especially in comparison to the vibrant cartoons and movies of the 1990s. Playing cowboys and Indians was way past my time. Then, during my second year in college, I took a course titled Literature of the American West.
I added the class on a bit of a lark, trying to fill credits toward my degree in English Writing, but I quickly discovered the genre contained more than earthy vistas and quirky accents. Classic works of prose opened my eyes to the vast possibilities of the Old West. Redemption, freedom, revenge, surprise, fear, adventure and so much more. The United States’ western frontier has commonly represented opportunity and possibility, and the stories set there are the epitome of that sentiment. I was pretty much immediately hooked, in spite of my B grade.
Over the next couple of decades (whew), Westerns became a type of comfort food for my brain. The copious amount of TV and film were an easy find, but the special relationship between the Western genre and comics surprised me. Dominating shelf space in the 1950s, comics set in the Wild West were an echo of the domination of Hollywood’s output, but it is here the setting really sang to me. The American West in comics was a place where morality and expectations were contorted in ways unseen. Comics are a medium of experimentation, and when combined with the West’s promise the union is rife with wonder.
Here, on the first Monday of each month, you’ll find a new black & white short comic created by a team of extraordinarily talented artists, letterers and editors. Inspiration for these stories comes from comics like Jonah Hex, All-Star Western, Suicide Squad, Stray Bullets, Hulk, Criminal and Torpedo. Television like Deadwood, Fargo, Star Trek, True Detective, The Sopranos, and Have Gun – Will Travel. Books like Riders of the Purple Sage, The Sun Also Rises, Notes from Underground, The Big Sky, The Ox-Bow Incident, Catcher in the Rye, Shane, and the literature of Classical Greek and Rome. Movies like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Shawshank Redemption, Outland, There Will Be Blood, Unforgiven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Bone Tomahawk. Oh, and the Red Dead Redemption series, for sure!
ALL-TRUE OUTLAW is a project that has been rattling around in my heart and mind for a long, long while. I hope you enjoy what you see.
Thanks for reading. Truly.
Westward!
~ Jamil
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