All Star Western Volume 1 Guns And Gotham - Uglier than sin and just as fun

All Star Western Volume 1 contains issues 1-6 written by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, art by Moritat, colours by Gabriel Bautista, letters by Rob Leigh, published by DC Comics and is part of the New 52 collection. I don't read a lot of ongoing DC titles and I've never really fallen in love with any of the titles or characters with one exception. There is one DC character that I always love to read, buy any merchandise they are on and will always have a special place in my heart. I'm talking about Jonah Hex, I love reading about that rough, morally ambiguous, gun slinging bounty hunter and his antics, finding him one of the most interesting, enjoyable and appealing characters.

Look at this badass!

All Star Western mainly follows the story of Jonah Hex but also has shorter ongoing stories about characters such as El Diablo and The Barbary Ghost and while I do quite enjoy The Barbary Ghost comics I want to talk about the star of the show Jonah Hex's stories. The story begins in Gotham city in the 1880's with Gotham being a rapidly growing and developing city. Dr. Arkham (yes that Dr. Arkham) has been employed by the police to help solve the increasingly gruesome murders of several local prostitutes. Despite already being unwanted by the local police chief Dr. Arkham decides to bring in more help on the case and brings in the infamous bounty hunter Jonah Hex to help him traverse the increasingly treacherous underworld of Gotham City. Jonah Hex gathers his information in his own typical style and a few broken bones, bribed prostitutes and death threats later Jonah has his information. Of course because this is Gotham, Hex and Dr. Arkham realise that they are not just searching for a single killer but an evil organisation that follow the "crime bible".

I feel like this message may be for Hex

Jonah Hex is deeply damaged both physically and mentally as Dr. Arkham constantly observes and yet this is part of the character's appeal. Hex is not a hero but not a villain, he is firmly somewhere in the grey area between. And although he does the occasional good such as giving a prostitute money to not work while a killer is on the loose and giving a rich boy a harsh lesson about abusing the poor, a kindness he didn't need to give either, Jonah Hex is really only concerned about his next bounty and his next drink. Despite all his flaws Hex is such a well written character that you want him to succeed and follow him on his journey. Dr. Arkham is completely out of place in Hex's world, being a doctor he usually deals with the aftermath of violence rather than being involved himself. Dr. Arkham often seems more of a hindrance than help throughout the comic but he is written well enough that between his narrations and mannerisms as a bumbling fish out of water he isn't a complete annoyance.

The art of All Star Western uses really thick line work and uses a lot of red, orange and brown tones that fits well with the industrial look of developing Gotham and the overall grim tone of the comic. The scarred half of Hex's face is as gruesome and horrifying as always but overall his skin has a weathered look that you would expect to see from someone who has spent most of his life riding around in the harsh sun. Something I noticed is that the artist seems to really enjoy doing the faces and hair of young women as they are fresh faced and rosy cheeked compared to the harsh lined look of the faces of the men. The backgrounds are wonderfully done, usually with large amounts of detail or using some fantastic colours and textures.

Between the old house and the dead bodies this page just has so much detail

I'm not entirely sure why Jonah Hex appeals so much to me perhaps it is because he is not a black and white good or bad kind of character or maybe because its just enjoyable to read something dark and gritty sometimes. Whatever the reason I can't get enough of the scarred bounty hunter and find it is something I often go back and reread it every so often.

I give All Star Western Volume 1 4 out of 5 drinking Jonah Hexs

Find out more about All Star Western here.

Not from the comic but something I found hilarious

Giant Days #19 - We Are Gonna Talk About It

Giant Days #19 is written by John Allison, pencils by Max Sarin and published by Boom! I really enjoy Giant Days and have been reading it back since issue 1, which I have reviewed before, my first logo was even based off the original cover of issue #1 by Lissa Treiman. It's a great slice of life comic about 3 women, Daisy, Susan and Esther, enjoying their time at university (set in England) and despite the funny and slightly goofy art style of the comic it is not for children and has made it clear on numerous occasions dealing with some fairly adult stories involving drugs, sex, relationships, sexuality and heartbreak. However in Issue 19 they decided to use a storyline that I feel was handled so poorly that it is bordering on offensive, this particular issue involves drink spiking.

During a three day music festival Susan, while getting drinks for herself and Daisy, bumps into someone from her old hometown called Cowboy, he distracts Susan and drops a pill into her drink. At this point I stopped reading the comic for a moment having two concerns. One, that this lighthearted comic was about to get very dark, and two, that this comic was about to very poorly handle a serious issue. Fortunatly the fun lighthearted comic did not get extremely dark, unfortunately it very poorly handle the concept of drink spiking. Daisy and Esther begin looking for Susan and find her stuck in a porta-potty absolutly freaking out and high as a kite from the spiked drink. What follows is a comical series of events as they attempt to traverse the music festival and help their drugged and hallucinating friend. The problem is that it shouldn't be funny.

While the whole situation is played off for laughs and I do honestly see that it is supposed to be funny drink spiking is a very serious issue that many women (and men) fear. In reality Susan's friends should have taken her straight to the medical tent at the festival and contacted the police, they have no idea what she has been drugged with or how it will react with the alcohol she had been drinking. It goes without saying that it is very VERY illegal to give somebody drugs without their consent, and very VERY dangerous to leave a drugged and disoreinted person wandering around a music festival where they could easily be injured or attacked in their drugged state. Cowboy recieves no real repercussions for his actions with Susan later seeing him laying in a puddle of mud so drugged up that he doesn't remember his own name when really he should be arrested.

Not even close to what I'd call justice

Giant Days has actually had a main character take drugs before with the very sheltered Daisy taking drugs with a friend at a club. This story was done well, with Daisy volunterly taking them herself, clubbing with her friend and then later being taken home and put to bed by said friend. This story was funny, did not advocate yet did not condem the use of drugs with neither Daisy or her Friend, who offered the drugs, coming off in a negative or positive light. That story involving drugs was done tastefully the story in issue 19 is not. If the story was done with Susan taking the drugs in a different way such as asking someone for an asprin and accidently taking the wrong pills out of their bag or accidentally picking up the wrong drink that someone had intentionally mixed their pills with or hell even just deciding to take the drugs voluentarily the story would have been funny but when you add that horrifying and shocking layer of having her drink spiked just takes any humour out of the story.

Drink Spiking is not a rare crime, in Australia between 2002 and 2003 there were an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 incidents of drink spiking with only a portion of these being reported to the police. One of the most common types of drink spiking is called "prank spiking" where the victim is not attacked in any further way, which is what happens to Susan in the comic but simply because she is not attacked further doesn't make it a harmless prank. It sends a terrible message that simply because Susan was not hurt that the situation is funny or not harmful and that the perpetrator shouldn't be reported, it is a crime anyway you look at it.

Fortunately Susan had friends to take care of her

My way of thinking when it comes to comedy or any art form is (straight from South Park) It's either all okay or none of it is, however that doesn't mean I need to find it funny. If a writer or artists wants to make a comic that is entirely dead baby jokes it is their right to do so but hopefully they won't have to think to hard when they are wondering why their sales are so low. I will still read Giant Days as I really enjoy the relationship of the charaters and the adventures they get into and the kinds of issues they usually deal with and I don't think the story was intentionally inapproprite or offensive, It was simply a poorly conceived plot device used to tell a story.

Find out more about Giant Days here.