Thursday, September 19, 2013

Quickshots: Outlaw Territory Vol 3 (Plus Good Things To Say About Peter Brandvold!)



Outlaw Territory, Image’s anthology of short western comics, is back for its third and reportedly final installment.  If this is the last, well, I think that’s okay.  Volume 1 has some genius storytelling and artwork.  Volume 2, never quite rising to the heights of the first, none the less was a solid collection of action packed, sexy westerns.  In Volume 3 the good ideas started running dry.

The stories is Outlaw Territory Vol 3 have more rape than sex, more violence than gore.  O Henry’s legacy as a western writer was evident in the first two volumes, where ironic twists were the order of the day.  Here, the key message is that the west was not so romantic, with bloody bodies and traumatized survivors to drive the point home. 

One exception to this was Peter Brandvold’s Rogue Lawman comic- short, fun, sexy, with an ironic twist at the end.  Even the weirdly stylized art, which I hated at first, ended up working well.  I liked this comic better than his first Rogue Lawman novel.

I still respect the folks at Image for making this series, which took some guts to pull off.  I just wished the last hurrah was better.

Crazy artwork, great story, two thumbs up for Mean Pete!

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Who Is Barry Denton?

Who is Barry Denton?  I have no idea.  Apparently he owns a ranch, and traveled a lot.  More importantly, he takes great photographs.  Even more importantly, they often involve less than fully clad cowgirls.  More Barry Denton, I say!