PAPERBACK
Authors: Pierre Dubois; illustrated by Dimitri Armand
Age: 15 years and up
Size: 21.7 x 28.7 cm
Number of pages: 64 colour pages
Publication: June 2022
ISBN: 9781800440531
£9.99 Incl. VAT
Texas Jack is a legendary hero, a crack shot and a champion of the helpless who gunned down dozens of enemies … in his travelling show and the novels that bear his name! In reality, though, he’s never been west, and has never shot at anyone. So when a government agent asks him to go to Wyoming to face a bloodthirsty maniac, his first reaction is to say no. Yet to preserve his reputation, he eventually takes the job, and leaves with his three co-stars in the show …
Authors: Pierre Dubois; illustrated by Dimitri Armand
Age: 15 years and up
Size: 21.7 x 28.7 cm
Number of pages: 64 colour pages
Publication: June 2022
ISBN: 9781800440548
£9.99 Incl. VAT
Jack and his friends, still attached to Marshal Sykes’ posse, are on their way to Eagle Town to rendezvous with a cavalry detachment. Yet there are still questions marks hanging over his mission. Too many ambushes, too many coincidences … Not to mention that the idea of sending a circus act to fight a deadly bandit remains a preposterous idea to Sykes … and that the presence of the too-beautiful Amy creates tensions between the two teams.
Part of Cinebook's effort to bring great stories in 1 or 2 books -the "Double Expresso" and you may well think "Texas Jack from Lion weekly comic?" (1966 by the way). And...you would be wrong.
Just another Western then?
Nope.
Covers look nice and flicking through the pages the art looked good, too. But I waited as I felt I needed to be in the right mood to read a Western but last night I sat back. Bored. And those Cinebook volumes kept winking at me so....
Volume 1 establishes that our villain of the piece is one mean, ornery bastid and deserves to have his nuts roasted in Hell. No redeeming features and what he does at the start of this story ....well. He and his gang don't much care if it's a man, woman or baby -if it's there it is going to get killed. Have no doubts that when I say this is a perfect Spaghetti Western opening it is -but there are things even those movies would not do.
We then see our hero. The self styled hero of the West Texas Jack and how he and his small company of fellow showmen (and woman) embark on an adventure to get Ironsmoke and his gang. Luckily, along the way they encounter Marshal Sykes who is Tom Doniphon to Jack's Ransom Stoddard (reference there to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, 1962).
The story grabbed me straight away as I thought it was going to be a Bronco Billy (1980 movie) style story but it's clear that things are not going that way and the violence is never that far away.
I really do not want to give too much away but I quickly opened book 2 and things were picking up more speed. I will tell you that the double page town shoot out scene had me saying a rude word out loud. THAT is what I want to see in a Western comic strip. Lead flying, Sam Peckinpah blood splatter The Wild Bunch (1969) effects (lot of movie references here, aren't there?). This is a confrontation not to be missed. And, naturally, there is a tragedy that I was not expecting.
The final six pages and THAT ending. Still getting goosebumps from it and, yes, I did utter a naughty word again. Armand's artwork is beyond reproach and the colour work adds so much to this very gritty Western. Dubois's writing -story telling and dialogue drew me in and delivered a Western that I have no doubt I will return to reading again (I just did for a secnd time).
Recommended? Hell yeah!
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