Jonah Hex

A few weeks ago I went to the comic book convention at the Pennsylvania Hotel and came across a trade paperback collecting early issues of DC's 70s Jonah Hex comic, many from DC's western anthology title Weird Western Tales and a couple from the 1977-1985 Jonah Hex comic. I have a bunch of issues of Jonah Hex and Weird Western Tales sitting in a box and reading the trade paperback made me pull out my collection. Those hold up very well.

A good Western comic, Jonah Hex tells the story of a Confederate soldier who is hideously scarred (the answer to how he became scarred is in issues 7 and 8 of the Jonah hex comic and I don't have those issues) and becomes a gunfighter in the old west with a plethora of recurring characters including the father of his late Civil War friend, who believes Jonah was a traitor to the Confederacy and led to the death of son and will stop at nothing to exact vengeance on Jonah Hex. This isn't a super hero comic. Those out there who might think that super hero comics are beneath them but like a good story could do a lot worse than to try the Jonah Hex comic.

There was a movie released last year that was supposed to be a big summer film but flopped, based on and titled Jonah Hex. i didn't see that movie yet but will soon. Anyway that trade paperback featuring those early issues was one of the best $8 I've spent in a long time. I only hope DC puts out more volumes like that one collecting more of those issues as they have actually gotten quite expensive. I might shell out some money soon for certain key issues like 45, where Jonah gets married and issue 92, which is the last issue from 1985.

Interestingly enough DC cancelled Jonah Hex and replaced it with a series called HEX where he is taken by some dimensional vortex to a Mad Max-type setting in the future. I collected all 18 issues of that series back in the late '80s and I plan to dig them out of my parents' basement when I go back to Connecticut in a few weeks and reread them. I am aware that there is a more recent Jonah Hex comic that I believe is currently running but I haven't read those issues yet.

Lulu.com

I have been researching possibilities for becoming a published author (samples of my work are posted in earlier blogs). There is the normal and probably most common method of publishing by finding a good agent. Then there is another possibility, that of self-publishing. Those of you out there who are writers would do well to check out lulu.com. When I have some expenses taken care of that I need to get taken care of, I will likely shell out some cash and have some copies of my books published. I have a book by someone else that was published by lulu and the quality of the printing job is very good.