Showing posts with label
Jonah Hex and Other Western Tales.
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Showing posts with label
Jonah Hex and Other Western Tales.
Show all posts
While the books were of consistent quality, obviously DC's experiment at giving Jonah Hex his own digest series didn't work sales-wise, as this was the final issue.
The one minus this third volume has is it doesn't have another excellent El Diablo story by Neal Adams. But behind the excellent, unsettling cover (didn't Conan find himself in situations like this a lot?) by Luis Dominguez we've still got a nice collection of stories:
• Jonah Hex in "Killers Die Alone" by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga
• A fun four-pager called "Turnabout" by Sergio Aragones and Gil Kane(!!)
• Outlaw in "Draw Death" by Robert Kanigher and Tony DeZuniga
• Jonah Hex in "Face Off with the Gallagher Boys!" by Michael Fleisher with art by Doug Wildey
• A 3-page(!) feature called "Town Tamer" written and drawn by Gil Kane
• Scalphunter in "The Black Seer of Death Canyon" by Michael Fleisher, Dick Ayers, and Frank Springer
• A horror-ish tale "The Night of the Snake" by Denny O'Neil, Gil Kane, and Tony DeZuniga
• Jonah Hex in "The Hangin' Woman" by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga
...and we end with a one-page feature "Frontier Justice" by Mike W.Barr and Mike Nasser. But not before one last nice back cover painting by Dominguez. And so we bid farewell to Jonah Hex, and his tiny, hard-to-read adventures!
Another beautiful cover by Luis Dominguez, another collection of hard-bitten, hard-shootin' tales of the old west! Like the previous Jonah Hex digest, this collection devotes space to many of DC's western characters.
Stories include:
• Jonah Hex in "Blood Brothers" by Arnold Drake and Tony DeZuniga
• Billy the Kid in "Billy the Kid--Killer!" by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga
• El Diablo in "Never Kill A Demon!" by Cary Bates and Neal Adams (man, how did El Diablo not become a huge hit with stories that looked this good?)
• Jonah Hex in "Grasshopper Courage" by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga
• Scalphunter in "Mark of the Warrior!" by Michael Fleisher, Dick Ayers, and George Evans
• The next story is a real treat--"Anachronism" by Don Kaar and Alex Toth! You can always depend on Toth for unusual storytelling, and this story is no different--the entire tale is told horizontally, so you have to flip the book sideways to read it
• Jonah Hex in "Promise to a Princess" by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga
...and finally is a one page feature "The Old West: Fiction vs. Fact" by the always-entertaining Mike W. Barr and drawn by Mike Nasser.
Giddyap, pardner!
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.
