Joe R. Lansdale - Two Gun-Mojo

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Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo

 written by Joe R. Lansdale, artwork by Timothy Truman (DC Vertigo, 1993, 5 issue mini-series)

When Joe R. Lansdale began writing for DC Comics, Jonah Hex was one of those forgotten characters. Created as a western fiction character in All-Star Western #10 in 1972 (by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga), Hex found his calling when the book was re-named as Weird Western Tales with #12. Hex was successful enough to get his own series which lasted 92 issues, written by Michael Fleisher.

Considering how tame those western comics from Marvel and DC were at the time, Jonah Hex with his disfigured face and the profession of a bounty hunter had an edge. Also he fit well into the Weird Western genre. Thanks to the usual machinations of the bigger DC universe – and the cancellation of his series – he had one last hurrah as a post-apocalyptic warrior, in what is seen by most critics as a truly misguided concept.

In 1993 Joe R. Lansdale who by the time had written some memorable horror stories and novels, put the character back to where he belongs: the old west. If one has read some of Lansdale's Weird Western tales tales you have a pretty good idea how he would write Hex. Being a Vertigo book for "mature" readers, the comic doesn't hold back on the violence. There is also a lot of black humour.

Lansdale wrote three Hex tales, in writer and artist Timothy Truman he found a gifted partner for putting his vision on the page. The books remained in print as of today. They even managed to provoke a lawsuit with the second series Riders of the Worm and Such which parodied Country & Western music when not fighting against Lovecraftian worms. Johnny and Edgar Winter filed a law suit, claiming, amongst other things, defamation: two characters named the Autumn Brothers in the series strongly resemble the Winters. They lost.

In 2005 Jonah Hex got a new series, written this time by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti with interior art by varying artists, which reached 70 issues before the next DC re-boot killed it. Come to think of it, the violent and gory series had some resemblance with the work of the Piccadilly Cowboys and is surprisingly entertaining for a neo-western.

There even was a movie in 2010 which was a commercial failure.