I have a fondness for western comics, a genre that is rarely explored these days and even more rarely explored without a horror tinge. Though I'm really wishing for more historical western fiction along the lines of Ostrander's masterful The Kents, I've also come to appreciate the western/horror blend as depicted in Desperadoes, Along the Canadian and now, Western Tales of Terror. This is an anthology book, which means that almost as a rule all of the stories won't appeal to any single reader, and it also means there's a tendency for the stories to be a little short, but this is a pretty good opening issue with a couple real strong tales. The talent ranges from up-and-comers to outright newbies to bigger names from IDW and Image, and although every story isn't to my taste, the general strength of the issue is clear.
Western Tales of Terror is being produced by a new company and by an editor-in-chief whose name I'm not familiar with, but it's clear that these guys aren't just the usual indie anthology new guys deciding to "put up a barn and put on a show." The familiar talent here includes Dan Taylor (of Hero Happy Hour), Chuck BB (of IDW's Secret Skull), Benito Cereno (of Image's Tales From the Bully Pulpit), Steve Niles (of... everything) and Tony Moore (of The Walking Dead, providing another stellar cover here). Which is not to say that the tyro talent have anything to be ashamed of. Indeed, my favorite story in the volume is the first part of "Phineas' Gold" by Joshua Hale Fialkov, Porter McDonald and Scott A. Keating, none of whom I've read before.
To my mind, a common failing of many anthologies is that they encourage or perhaps even demand short stories, and all too often, those short stories don't really have enough room to resonate. That's true of a few stories here, which are set up and done so fast that they don't really have time to set in the readers' minds. With horror, which I would argue benefits from a more slow pace (see also Uzumaki), this kind of thing can be deadly, although the western side of the genre can generally survive quick and dirty characterization and plots. There are arguments for and against the super-short story in this issue.
The best of the short stories are the ones that are more or less fables told in a western setting, with larger-than-life messages about pride, greed and other human foibles. "13" by Dan Taylor and Chuck BB is a quick and dirty tale of an arrogant gunfighter and his comeuppance, and while it doesn't carry a big horrific punch because of its fast pace, it gets its point across and has a nice touch of Twilight Zone-esque irony to it that makes for an enjoyable read. Ditto for Fialkov and Keating's "Quicksand," which is not entirely unpredictable but surprisingly satisfying. I wasn't as wild about Niles and Stakal on "Reckon This," as it featured the same kind of scratchy, hard-to-read artwork that I associate with Ashley Wood and Ben Templesmith, which isn't generally my cup of tea, and had a story that kind of fizzled rather than having a good deal of punch. It certainly wasn't a bad story, and the creators are both talented, it just wasn't my cup of tea.
"The Deserter" by Jay Busbee and Jared Bivens is another tale that didn't quite click with me. The idea is strong, showing the deception of a man who abandons his wife and his duty and gets his comeuppance, but Bivens' look at the wicked life of the deserter doesn't really convey the full wickedness of what he's doing, and thus the punishment he gets seems more gruesome than well-deserved. Then there's "Ghost Town" by Benito Cereno and Nate Bellegarde, which has the odd distinction of being both my second favorite and one of my least favorite of the stories in the volume. It is my second favorite because I love the idea of a trio of magic slinging exorcists ridding the old west of its ghosts and because Bellegarde's artwork is slick, stylish and features some very clever storytelling. It's my least favorite because at three pages, we're left to infer a lot of what's going on, and it seems like a premise that is much richer than just a three-page tale. The story is just getting interesting when it ends!
But my favorite tale is one that actually breaks one of the rules by running two parts instead of being self-contained in the issue. This is a minor sticking point for me as well, as I generally don't like serialized tales in the pages of multi-story anthologies, but Fialkov, McDonald and Keating deliver a good solid helping of the story in this issue, and I'm certainly curious to see the rest, so I can't complain too much that I didn't get to see the end here. "Phineas' Gold" has colorful characters, a bank robbery and a getaway and a cave with mystical portent, which means it hits the Western Tales of Terror theme square on, probably better than any tale in the book, and it also seems to have a little more room to breathe, which I quite liked. In addition, while Keating's art on "Quicksand" is solid, his work on "Phineas' Gold" is even better, reminding me in all the right ways of Tony Moore, John McCrea and Charlie Adlard. 7/10
