One saddletramp's multimedia, cross genre search for the perfect western.
Some sexy times.
Spiders.
SIPDERS?!? Yup, spiders.
That’s The Rush in a nutshell. Oh, and Mountie, too.
The Rush is interesting graphic novel that is a mix of weird
west and family drama, with a healthy dose of survival horror to boot. The art is fantastic, the writing is crisp,
characters are multi-dimensional and believable. Go read it, true believers.
About the only thing that makes this graphic novel a western
is the word Apache; regardless, I loved it.
It has some of my favorite story elements:
· A main character who doesn’t fit well among other people
· A vast wilderness
· Shit exploding
We follow Ernie, a US Army forward observer in the Vietnam
War, who much prefers to be out in the jungle away from people calling in
airstrikes (the eponymous “Apache Delivery Service”, although Ernie is Dine /
Navajo) rather than dealing with racist ass hats at the base. While out on a long solo scout he runs into
an out of place by about 15 years French colonial, who enlists him to help find
some buried Nazi treasure. The treasure
is, of course, in a mountainous area that may or may not be haunted but is
certainly filled with Viet Cong. Paranoia
and mayhem ensues.
The story zips along, the artwork of the jungles and
mountains are lush, the main character reminds me of the quiet, reflective
moments of Zen that Larry Hama tucked away in GI Joe back in my childhood. Fantastic read.
Not a lot of writing lately, because life is messy and I'm tired. However, I'm sure all of my four reliable readers are eager to see what's going on in the wild west. And by wild west, I mean the wide expanse of Marvel western comic-book pages I've saved to the desktop of my tablet. Enjoy!
I wrote a draft of this probably eight years ago, after stumbling across a vigorous spanking scene in a Zane Grey short story. This is when 50 Shades of Grey was THE phenomena sweeping the literary world and the masses were seemingly just discovering the wonderful world of spanking and BDSM. It was with irony that I kept running across spanking in so many vintage western comics, movies, and books, suggesting that the love of a spanking was not a new phenomenon.
I knew that, of course. I’ve read Anne Rice’s stories under her naughty pseudonyms, the Story of O, 9 1/2 Weeks, a lot of Victorian smut, an erotic novel that Oscar Wilde put out under a pseudonym, and even made my way through the Marquis de Sade back in a college political philosophy class (that was the only week that the class unanimously agreed to stay late- eventually the next class had to kick us out). I know that…
I just never expected to see it so much in classic westerns. Perhaps it's because I had never seen McLintock, the grand daddy of cowboy spanking. For example, here's a good read:
Is this just a hetero thing? I wish I could remember where I found this (Reddit?) but this is from a gay cowboy dating page when someone objects to being asked if he likes spanking:
"WHAT THE FUCK? I don't get it. Any guy spank me will be picking teeth out of his shit for a week. I am strictly into man on man as equals. I need a good guy to turn me on not some game. Being my partner is not some role jut anyone can fill. But whatever it takes I guess?"
They don't call it "Slap Leather" for nothin'!
The title of the post is a friendly poke at the video "Lesbian Spank Inferno" that is constantly referenced in the British sitcom "Coupling".
Good grief, there is a Breckinridge Elkins web comic! To be honest, I probably knew about this in my first time pass through this blog, but I had a chance to give it a good read lately and I really enjoyed it. Not sure what else this guy has worked on, and it's amazing that the site is still up after a decade.
Breckinridge Elkins is by far my favorite Robert E. Howard character, more so than Conan and Solomon Kane. His mountain man stories are where Howard really started to come into his own as a writer and folklorist, and where he put most of his efforts in the last years or his life. The Conan stories (the originals, not the pastiches or stories adapted into Conan stories) read like man managing his bipolar disorder through writing. By the time we get to Elkins, it felt like he had passed a rough patch and was enjoying his professional life.
Then his dog died, his mother died, and he put a .38 in his own brain. He was 36.
Breckinridge Elkins is a reminder that adversity can be overcome, life can be good, and it can also be fleeting.
Enjoy.
Most people likely know Garth Ennis from the books he’s written that have gone on to be television series (Preacher on AMC and The Boys on Amazon). Ennis’ big jump into comics was in fact with Preacher, way back in 1994, where he explicitly set out to write a western, but turned it on it’s side with the modern time period, metaphysical plot, crude humor, and general insanity.
Ennis’ work comes in two flavors- derivative nonsense (Streets of Glory) and pure genius (Saint of Killers). Sometimes he manages to do both in the same book (Punisher: Born). From the outside Crossed looks like something completely derivative, just being Ennis’ take on the ever popular Zombie Apocalypse. Once I got a few issues in it became clear that just as Preacher is inspired by a broad brush of western tropes, Crossed is inspired by Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian.
In this story an unknown event infects a mass of the population. Rather than turning them to zombies, it strips away social constructs like morality, guilt, or conscience, leaving nothing but rage and depravity. The infection leaves a cross-shaped rash on their faces; someone who is infected is referred to as having “crossed” over. A group of survivors make their way through the wilderness to safety, dogged for hundreds of miles by a pack of Crossed.
There’s a point in the story where a group of Crossed makes an attack, and it immediately looked like the Indian attack that broke up Glanton’s gang in Blood Meridian:
Ennis’ nine issue first story of Crossed is a horrible, hopeful, and brilliant western. It'll break your heart.
Not good. Palmiotti and Gray have written some great westerns, and this isn’t one of them. Interesting concept (hitman goes into witness protection that happens to be in the old west) that could have been held up with decent art, but this is like the Rob Liefeld’s understudies got together and decided to try a western. Ugh. Cover art is great, though!
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| President Jefferson implores you to go West |
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