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Texas History Movies
The history of Texas is so picturesque that there is a natural temptation to tell it in pictures. This was the idea behind the publication of "The Texas History Movies", which were introduced in The Dallas News in the Fall of 1926. The "History Movies" were designed to entertain the reader, adult and juvenile, but soon were drafted by classrooms as an outline for the study of the story of Texas. The series of cartoon strips begins with the Spanish occupation of the New World and continues through Texas' reconstruction following the Civil War. The authors of the series directed every effort to keeping the stories humorous, human, vivid and real. Thus the pictures themselves tell the story and not the printed captions, which serve in the fashion of cinema subtitles. Nor have the authors scrupled to use slang, colloquialism, modernisms, and deliberate anachronisms to project, what they believed to be, the spirit of an episode.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1926
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 29, 2025
Wow! I have only seen mediocre reviews and people criticizing it. Mainly the comic book author Jack Jackson wrote New Texas History Movies to make up this old version being racist according to him. Even though he loved it. Most people just took his word for it and did all in their power to avoid reading the old version and instead bought his new version. Yet reading it now I can see it was a smart sales tactic based on a lie. This uses no swearword and when Anglo-Saxon call Mexican's swearwords they for example shout "Tamale eaters!". It's all very childish and child friendly. The drawings and words are child friendly while Jack Jackson's books are not. The language he uses is heavy on racist swearwords and his drawings maybe even depicting stronger caricatures despite him being "the progressive voice making up for past racism".
This book calls American Indians brave at times and even threats thieves and pirates fairly. Of the "xenophobia" we have an old American Indian meet a young White boy, Sam Houston, on page 133. He says "Where you come from, pale face?" and the boy responds "Across the river. I like you, red face". The American Indians are describes as friendly on this page. The terms they use to describe each other have gone out of style today, but the book has a clear way to describe the past. These people met each other in conflict or cultural misunderstanding all the time. The terms used here are to define cultural barriers and are friendly terms. Sam Houston loved American Indians so much he later ran away from home and grew up in their culture learning their language and rituals and started wearing their clothes as a senator and governor.
This is absolutely a must-read and I have seldom seen a comic with this many details and this much history.
Back then comic books didn't really exist. Even in the 1990's history comic books weren't a thing and you couldn't really buy them anywhere as you either bought comics with superheroes or history books. So in 1926, before basically all comic books you know, this was written in singular stories they called movies. As what else could it be? Yet it's formatted and written as a comic book and is the oldest comic book I've read so far. The quality is high, history detailed, drawings really good, text is clear and to the point. The characters fun and the humor and gags on point. This is top-tier all the way better than most you'll find written today. I don't even have a note on the history for once as I couldn't find any bias. All groups had plenty of stories and all groups threated fairly as founders of Texas. I did find a few missing things. Seguin is not mention as a factor at all. Why? The Alamo fight is narrowed down to a few panels and we see no digging or going door to door as this is all very rushed. Each story has a few pages so obviously we can't see how the battle took place step by step. A lot of stuff is skipped this way, but the main points are mentioned. I do recommend reading newer Texas history books too there are quite a few today.
One thing I should point out is that all pages have a text in the middle explaining the story. This text often just reuses dialogue so you read each story twice per page. Overall it may feel like it lacks details as it explains so much and so many people. Yet I can't see how you would add more details into it without making it 400 pages long.
This book calls American Indians brave at times and even threats thieves and pirates fairly. Of the "xenophobia" we have an old American Indian meet a young White boy, Sam Houston, on page 133. He says "Where you come from, pale face?" and the boy responds "Across the river. I like you, red face". The American Indians are describes as friendly on this page. The terms they use to describe each other have gone out of style today, but the book has a clear way to describe the past. These people met each other in conflict or cultural misunderstanding all the time. The terms used here are to define cultural barriers and are friendly terms. Sam Houston loved American Indians so much he later ran away from home and grew up in their culture learning their language and rituals and started wearing their clothes as a senator and governor.
This is absolutely a must-read and I have seldom seen a comic with this many details and this much history.
Back then comic books didn't really exist. Even in the 1990's history comic books weren't a thing and you couldn't really buy them anywhere as you either bought comics with superheroes or history books. So in 1926, before basically all comic books you know, this was written in singular stories they called movies. As what else could it be? Yet it's formatted and written as a comic book and is the oldest comic book I've read so far. The quality is high, history detailed, drawings really good, text is clear and to the point. The characters fun and the humor and gags on point. This is top-tier all the way better than most you'll find written today. I don't even have a note on the history for once as I couldn't find any bias. All groups had plenty of stories and all groups threated fairly as founders of Texas. I did find a few missing things. Seguin is not mention as a factor at all. Why? The Alamo fight is narrowed down to a few panels and we see no digging or going door to door as this is all very rushed. Each story has a few pages so obviously we can't see how the battle took place step by step. A lot of stuff is skipped this way, but the main points are mentioned. I do recommend reading newer Texas history books too there are quite a few today.
One thing I should point out is that all pages have a text in the middle explaining the story. This text often just reuses dialogue so you read each story twice per page. Overall it may feel like it lacks details as it explains so much and so many people. Yet I can't see how you would add more details into it without making it 400 pages long.
April 23, 2021
Whenever you're reading a picture book, you have to realize its primary audience is babies. With that in mind, Texas History Movies is a pretty good book for babies. It focuses mostly on action and adventure. The art style is pretty good. It is absolutely not funny at all. I don't think any student of Texas history will learn anything new from this book (or laugh), but it can be used as a Texas action 'refresher.'
January 1, 2009
This is a collection that many Texans remember from their youth with great fondness. Many of the reasons that educators and librarians now champion the use of graphic novels as educational aids now were anticipated by this series from the late 1920s. Through the use of combined drawing, text and humor the early history of the state came alive and was made memorable.
While the approach is up-to-date for the early twenty-first century, the sensibility is early twentieth century when it comes to stereotypical representations of ethnic groups. This was a time when Jim Crow Laws were being put into effect and membership in the Ku Klux Klan was at a high point. African Americans are coarsely depicted as ignorant, slow-witted watermelon eaters (page 43,panel 5), even when they are fighting for Texas liberty (page 121, panel 4) the term Greaser is a synonym for Mexican (page 159, panel 1), and Native Americans are considered duplicitous by nature. For example, on page 205, panel 1 Texas President Sam Houston proposes a way to deceive a political rival by saying, “We’ll have to work an old Indian Trick.” The summary page of the volume (217) concludes, “Texas was first found by the conquistadores of Spain (panel 1) and “Later it lured the hardy Anglo-Saxon colonist.” In fairness it should be noted that Mexicans refer to Anglo-Texans as “Gringoes” (page 190, panel 4) and there are a number of very scruffy looking representatives of the “hardy” Anglo-Saxons in the book (page 74, panel 4 and page 89, panel 3).
While the approach is up-to-date for the early twenty-first century, the sensibility is early twentieth century when it comes to stereotypical representations of ethnic groups. This was a time when Jim Crow Laws were being put into effect and membership in the Ku Klux Klan was at a high point. African Americans are coarsely depicted as ignorant, slow-witted watermelon eaters (page 43,panel 5), even when they are fighting for Texas liberty (page 121, panel 4) the term Greaser is a synonym for Mexican (page 159, panel 1), and Native Americans are considered duplicitous by nature. For example, on page 205, panel 1 Texas President Sam Houston proposes a way to deceive a political rival by saying, “We’ll have to work an old Indian Trick.” The summary page of the volume (217) concludes, “Texas was first found by the conquistadores of Spain (panel 1) and “Later it lured the hardy Anglo-Saxon colonist.” In fairness it should be noted that Mexicans refer to Anglo-Texans as “Gringoes” (page 190, panel 4) and there are a number of very scruffy looking representatives of the “hardy” Anglo-Saxons in the book (page 74, panel 4 and page 89, panel 3).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews