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Posted on Oct 22, 2004 - 04:45 PM by Admin |
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Just in time for Halloween, the critically acclaimed team behind the World War I monster jam The Black Forest have reunited for an all new, horrific treat! Combining the western and horror genres, writers Robert Tinnell and Todd Livingston and the legendary artist Neil Vokes have creating the immediate masterpiece called The Wicked West! Gunslingers, bloodsucking vampires and a classic movie matinee feel! Saddle up, pardners! The west has never been this wild, nor this much fun!
Don’t look now, but there is a new Dream Team in Comicdom: writers Robert Tinnell and Todd Livingston and artist Neil Vokes! This creative trio wowed Comic Fanatics with the graphic novel The Black Forest, a World War I adventure that played out like a lost Universal movie monster jam! Well, pop up a new batch of popcorn - extra butter, please! - because The Black Forest folks are back with another big screen adventure put to paper - The Wicked West!
Combining the western and horror genres is just an ingenious idea! It’s really like those old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercials - two great tastes that taste great together! Sure, horror and westerns have been combined before. In fact, this wise combination was recently displayed in all its glory in the pages of Hoarse & Buggy’s Western Tales Of Terror. However, this genre pairing has rarely - if ever - turned out better than right here in The Wicked West!
Tinnell and Livingston have created a tale that combines so many elements of what it takes to make a Hollywood blockbuster - or at least a classic Hollywood blockbuster! The Wicked West is an adrenaline-churning thrill ride filled with classic western action, some of the creepiest artwork you’ve ever seen and - believe it or not - an emotionally touching story! And the irony of it all? The Wicked West is actually a movie within a movie - literally!
The “hero” of this tale is a gunslinger named Cotton Coleridge. Cotton is a Clint Eastwood-type character who rides into the town of Javer’s Tanks, on the run from his past and supposedly looking to fill the town’s vacant teaching position. Despite the fact that he possesses the knowledge, Cotton doesn’t exactly look like your typical teacher. Perhaps that’s because Cotton is much more that a teacher…in a town that is more than what it appears to be!
Javer’s Tanks is a town along the lines of a western version of Stephen King’s 'Salem’s Lot. This gives new meaning to that classic western phrase “you better get outta town before sundown!” When the sun goes down in Javer’s Tanks, bloodthirsty vampires come to “life”! And no one is safe…from the children to the women to the toughest man!
The only hope for Javer’s Tanks is Cotton - who ends up as the scapegoat for the mysterious murders in Javer’s Tanks - and a young boy who becomes an inadvertent hero, Roy. This is where the story undergoes a shocking twist. I went into The Wicked West expecting nothing more than a horror and western story. However, Tinnell and Livingston go for the swerve by throwing in emotion! And lots of it!
Tinnell and Livingston write The Wicked West as if it was a real story. This real story is reflected upon by a grandfather as he takes his grandson to a matinee showing of a movie called “Terror Over Texas”, which is loosely based on the events years earlier in Javer’s Tanks. This grandfather is actually a survivor of those events, and soon discovers that Hollywood softened up the “terror” in “Terror Over Texas.”
So who’s this grandfather? Not gonna spoil it for you! Discovering who this grandfather is and what role he played in the “real” story of Javer’s Tanks is worth the price of admission itself. And I dare anyone with half a heart not to get emotional and maybe a little misty-eyed before this one is said and done!
I think it’s ironic that Tinnell and Livingston use the matinee as an important part of this story. While I am - as my wife likes to remind me - an old fogey, I’m not quite old enough to have gone to Saturday afternoon matinees filled with film shorts and classic westerns. However, Tinnell and Livingston - and the gorgeous tone setting art of Vokes - made me feel like I was there in a rustic old theater watching this incredible popcorn flick play out on a big screen. The only things missing were the popcorn, the sticky floors and a kid behind me, kicking my seat!
I really enjoyed Tinnell and Livingston’s portrayal of vampires. The vampires in The Wicked West are a touch of the classic Dracula, a bit of King’s 'Salem’s Lot and a touch of the vampires created by one of my favorite authors, Brian Lumley. While Tinnell and Livingston don’t incorporate all the aspects of Lumley’s vampires from his excellent Necroscope series, they use one important aspect that I have always liked. The stake through the heart merely holds the vampire in place. To kill the vampire once and for all, you’ve got to lop off his or her head!
The Wicked West is a powerful piece. Chalk this up to the eerie, adventurous and surprisingly emotional story. But also chalk it up to some of Vokes’ best artwork to date. Not to make Vokes feel old, but this is a guy who has been kicking around this industry for a few decades now…and it seems that he just gets better and better. And Vokes’ artwork was dang near perfect to begin with!
I was initially a little worried when I heard that The Wicked West would be a full color graphic novel. The Black Forest had impressed me so much with Vokes’ black and white art that I really couldn’t imagine seeing his work in color ever again. However, thanks to the colors of Scott Keating, this is one gorgeous full color book!
Vokes gives each character a distinct feeling, from the tough gunslinger Cotton and the innocent Roy to the monstrous vampires and the kindly grandfather. Vokes’ art makes you believe in these characters and feel for them. And, while it is rare for an artist’s work to creep me out, Vokes pulls it off several times in The Wicked West. Wait until you see Roy’s young friend after he becomes a vampire and comes knocking on Roy’s window late at night…begging to be let in!
Vokes and Keating give this book that classic rustic western feel, perhaps better than any western comic that I have seen in ages. And the scenes of “Terror Over Texas” are just gorgeous! Vokes illustrates these scenes in such a way that the reader will believe they are actually watching a black and white western!
Allow me to give you an idea of just how engrossing and compelling this graphic novel is. The Wicked West landed on my cluttered desk yesterday, during one of the worst days ever. I’m talking one of those “Top 5 Worst Days Of All Time” days. In the midst of all the chaos, I picked up The Wicked West just to flip through it and look at the “purty pictures.” One page in, and I was pulled into this story like I rarely have been before. Nearly 20 minutes later - after some of the fastest, most anxious page turning ever - I had read this book from cover to cover…and was looking for more! And I was so excited about this book, I couldn’t wait to spread the word via a favorable review.
Not only did The Wicked West leave me begging for more, for those 20 minutes this book magically whisked me away from the real world and made me briefly forget those real world problems. Now, that’s power. That’s the kind of creative power that I - and anyone, for that matter - can only aspire to one day possess. That’s the magic of good storytelling. And with Tinnell, Livingston and Vokes it doesn’t get any better!
Rarely will you ever see a creative team that works so perfectly together. While The Black Forest was an instant classic, The Wicked West is an immediate masterpiece! Tinnell, Livingston and Vokes managed to capture lightning in a bottle with their first collaboration. Whoever said lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice hasn’t yet read The Wicked West! And the good news? This book leaves the door open for more returns to wonderfully Wicked West!
The Wicked West is a 96 page graphic novel published by Image. The Wicked West is now on sale for $9.95 at finer comic book stores, or you can order a copy of this book and get more information about The Wicked West by clicking here.
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