Jonah Hex And Other Western Tales #1 - Oct. 1979

Ok, I've taken the pulse of you, the audience, and the one common theme among all of the opinions is variety, especially since over time the digests basically went back and forth between Superman and Funny Stuff for what seemed like forever.

And since I also want this site to be of use as reference guide for the digests, I thought the best way to satisfy everybody was to index the digests in chronological order, and jump from title to title, that way we get a nice variety. So we need to play a little catch up!

Released the same month as Best of DC Blue Ribbon Digest #1 was this, a digest series entirely devoted to Jonah Hex. Huh? Since I think its a safe bet that Jonah Hex was not (and never did) outselling Superman or Batman, you have to wonder why did he get his own digest book ahead of the DC's bigger stars? I have no evidence to back this up, but the only thing that makes sense is that DC was trying to market Hex to a slightly different audience (older?) so instead of folding him into the regular digest rotation, they gave him his own series. Anyone else have a better idea?

Anyway, behind the strking cover by Luis Dominguez is a collection of Jonah Hex and, yes, other western tales: 
• Jonah Hex in "The Hundred Dollar Deal" by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga 
• El Diablo in "Night of the Living Dead"(!) by Cary Bates and...Neal Adams(!!). 
• Jonah Hex in the two-part "The Point Phyrrus Massacre" by Michael Fleisher and Tony DeZuniga, with that mysterious "Script Continuity: Russel Carley" credit you saw in some DC comics once in a while. 
• Billy the Kid in "Bullet for a Gambler" by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga 
• Scalphunter in "Scalphunter" by Michael Fleisher, Dick Ayers, and George Evans

...and in lieu of their usual text piece for the inside back cover, we get "Notebook of a Gunfighter" a one-page feature on gunfightin' lore, written by Michael Fleisher and drawn by ER Cruz.