I had previously read and reviewed RazörFist’s first two novels in his Nightvale series. When I saw that he was doing a crowdfunding campaign for a pulp-inspired western comic, I had to commit.
I recently got my copy, a black-and-white edition of Ghost of the Badlands, with art by George Alexopoulos. As RazörFist is a fan of The Shadow, Franco-Belgium comics (aka bandes dessinées), and Westerns (both American and “spaghetti”), all of which he’s done YouTube videos on, I clearly see the inspirations of these in this title.
Ghost of the Badlands is a noir-western set in the real town of Diablo Canyon, Ariz., in 1896. A lot of bad things are happening to good people, and our mysterious Ghost is taking action. Like the early Shadow novels, here the Ghost is not at the center of the story. Instead, we have a proxy hero.
The Ghost does appear to take action against the bad guys, using a Bergmann 1896 semi-auto pistol. He wears what appears to be a ceramic, full-face mask. Like the early Shadow, we do not know who he really is, or even if he is disguised as someone in the story. Nor do we get his origin. A couple of people tell a tale of the Ghost, but is it true?
Also like The Shadow, the Ghost has his network of agents, which he calls his “missionaries.” They all have a Cross of Lorraine to use as a sign. We meet a few of them in the story. Our proxy hero is Righty Redstone, a former outlaw who has a crisis of conscience and is left for dead by his former associates. He will work to try to save a family marked for death. And in the end, like other western characters, will ride off to an unknown fate — though the Ghost remains.
Will we get further stories of the Ghost? I hope so. As bande dessinées usually appear as annual albums (or graphic novels if you will), we could hopefully see more each year or so. As noted, I got the crowdsource version, which is different in a few ways from what you can get on Amazon. Mine is 9- by 12-inches in size, actually a little larger than my albums from Cinebooks UK. It also has a short Ghost prose story at the end. While I prefer color comics, I did get the black-and-white one as the artwork is detailed enough that I worried the coloring would mute it too much.
If you like westerns, this is one to check out. It is gritty and violent, but in the end, at least for now, good has triumphed. There is clearly a larger story going on that has yet to conclude, hence why we can get further stories in this larger tapestry.
