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Space Western Comics: Cowboys vs. Aliens, Commies, Dinosaurs, & Nazis!
The wild, WILD West!
Spurs Jackson and his Space Vigilantes bravely defended the frontier against Martians, Venusian spies, Meteor Men, moon bats, and of course, Hitler and his space Nazis. Oh, and dinosaurs!
With stories by Walter Gibson, famed creator/writer of The Shadow pulps, and art by John Belfi, Stan Campbell, and Lou Morales, Space Western Comics were one of the weirdest, most fun comics series of the '50s and are collected and restored here, including a "lost" story! Profusely illustrated intro by Eisner-award winning comics historian Craig Yoe. To Arizona . . . and beyond!
Spurs Jackson and his Space Vigilantes bravely defended the frontier against Martians, Venusian spies, Meteor Men, moon bats, and of course, Hitler and his space Nazis. Oh, and dinosaurs!
With stories by Walter Gibson, famed creator/writer of The Shadow pulps, and art by John Belfi, Stan Campbell, and Lou Morales, Space Western Comics were one of the weirdest, most fun comics series of the '50s and are collected and restored here, including a "lost" story! Profusely illustrated intro by Eisner-award winning comics historian Craig Yoe. To Arizona . . . and beyond!
- GenresGraphic Novels
208 pages, Paperback
Published November 5, 2024
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4 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
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November 17, 2024
Looks great !
https://youtu.be/fGmH3PD5SWU
October 11, 2025
Cowboys and Indians, in spaaaace!
These are some genuinely goofy stories combining Westerns and Sci-Fi. Lots of two-fisted six-gun action against all sorts of enemies: robots, Nazis, aliens, dinosaurs, bandits, and even corporate malfeasance. To say that these stories are wildly uneven is an understatement, but the crazy tales these guys conjured up each issue are truly bonkers.
Our main hero is Spurs Jackson, an Arizona cowboy who struck it rich by finding oil on his ranch, so he naturally built a spaceship. Like ya do.
https://i.ibb.co/F4PMhwL2/IMG-9021.jpg
He has a cast of characters helping him out, including ranch hand Hank, and a Native American named Strong Bow. Strong Bow’s characterization is the most inconsistent — in some stories he talks in pidgin English, “Me Indian, you alien, make big fight,” and in other stories he’s educated and erudite. A little racist one month, a capable adventurer the next.
Makes me wonder what kids at the time thought.
[image error]
https://i.ibb.co/dsTXfZj9/IMG-9024.jpg
These stories are so simple and (mostly) unsophisticated that they’re often charming. Sometimes they’re also eye-rollingly naive, but you have to set your expectations to the typical 1950s attitudes and remember these are aimed at 10-year-old boys of that era. Considering that, these accomplish the goal of being fun adventures in the Flash Gordon mold. (And there are a couple Buster Crabbe comics added at the end. Crabbe played both Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers in movie serials before finishing out his acting career portraying a cowboy on TV. So that ties in.)
I’ve been dipping in to this book for a couple months because you can just tear through these stories without appreciating how amazing they are. Or I didn’t want to lose IQ points due to how silly they are. One of those. It’s an interesting look at the entertainment of a bygone era.
[image error]
https://i.ibb.co/fYkfr8Z5/IMG-9019.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/prKyBbvH/IMG-9022.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/PpMmKbY/IMG-9023.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/dsTXfZj9/IMG-9024.jpg
These are some genuinely goofy stories combining Westerns and Sci-Fi. Lots of two-fisted six-gun action against all sorts of enemies: robots, Nazis, aliens, dinosaurs, bandits, and even corporate malfeasance. To say that these stories are wildly uneven is an understatement, but the crazy tales these guys conjured up each issue are truly bonkers.
Our main hero is Spurs Jackson, an Arizona cowboy who struck it rich by finding oil on his ranch, so he naturally built a spaceship. Like ya do.
https://i.ibb.co/F4PMhwL2/IMG-9021.jpg
He has a cast of characters helping him out, including ranch hand Hank, and a Native American named Strong Bow. Strong Bow’s characterization is the most inconsistent — in some stories he talks in pidgin English, “Me Indian, you alien, make big fight,” and in other stories he’s educated and erudite. A little racist one month, a capable adventurer the next.
Makes me wonder what kids at the time thought.
[image error]
https://i.ibb.co/dsTXfZj9/IMG-9024.jpg
These stories are so simple and (mostly) unsophisticated that they’re often charming. Sometimes they’re also eye-rollingly naive, but you have to set your expectations to the typical 1950s attitudes and remember these are aimed at 10-year-old boys of that era. Considering that, these accomplish the goal of being fun adventures in the Flash Gordon mold. (And there are a couple Buster Crabbe comics added at the end. Crabbe played both Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers in movie serials before finishing out his acting career portraying a cowboy on TV. So that ties in.)
I’ve been dipping in to this book for a couple months because you can just tear through these stories without appreciating how amazing they are. Or I didn’t want to lose IQ points due to how silly they are. One of those. It’s an interesting look at the entertainment of a bygone era.
[image error]
https://i.ibb.co/fYkfr8Z5/IMG-9019.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/prKyBbvH/IMG-9022.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/PpMmKbY/IMG-9023.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/dsTXfZj9/IMG-9024.jpg
Read
December 11, 2024Dark Horse certainly has been spoiling old-time comics lovers with their amazing reproductions of the best of 1950’s and 1960’s comics. Their line of EC titles are must-haves. You would not think it could get any better. Well it just did thanks to their release of SPACE WESTERN COMICS. This offers exact reproductions of issues 40-45 of Space Western Comics. It also includes issue 46 of Cowboy Western Comics, which is what Space Western evolved into.
These comics were published by Charlton, which became a big name in comics for many decades. They may not have been as high profile as some of the other publishers, but their titles such as Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Fightin’ Five, Battlefield Action, Fightin’ Air Force, and hundreds of other titles were staples of that company. Space Western Comics were so wild and wacky, that you had to love them for their ingenuity. Where else could you find comics that had cowboys from the wild west fighting Martians and dinosaurs and Nazis all the time? Spurs Jackson was the cowboy who stared down so many menaces from the sky including aliens, and giant insects, plus moon bats, Meteor men, and more challenges on Earth than you could throw the proverbial stick at. There are even a couple of Buster Crabbe stories that are reproduced, that are as much fun as all the others. Charlton did have some competent writers and talented artists who were part of the company, that produced comics that were as in-demand as found from the major companies. One of the stories from issue 40 was written by Walter B. Gibson, who was most famous for creating the legendary radio series The Shadow. We really didn’t know a lot about the writers who were hired by Charlton, as they didn’t get credit inside the pages of the comics. Craig Yoe gives us an overview of some of them, and shows why Charlton hung around so long before they were eventually swallowed up by DC in the 1970’s.
If you love comics, you will more than enjoy this book. It’s campy, crazy at times, with silly dialogue, but definitely a book you should definitely check out for the comic nostalgia value.
These comics were published by Charlton, which became a big name in comics for many decades. They may not have been as high profile as some of the other publishers, but their titles such as Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Fightin’ Five, Battlefield Action, Fightin’ Air Force, and hundreds of other titles were staples of that company. Space Western Comics were so wild and wacky, that you had to love them for their ingenuity. Where else could you find comics that had cowboys from the wild west fighting Martians and dinosaurs and Nazis all the time? Spurs Jackson was the cowboy who stared down so many menaces from the sky including aliens, and giant insects, plus moon bats, Meteor men, and more challenges on Earth than you could throw the proverbial stick at. There are even a couple of Buster Crabbe stories that are reproduced, that are as much fun as all the others. Charlton did have some competent writers and talented artists who were part of the company, that produced comics that were as in-demand as found from the major companies. One of the stories from issue 40 was written by Walter B. Gibson, who was most famous for creating the legendary radio series The Shadow. We really didn’t know a lot about the writers who were hired by Charlton, as they didn’t get credit inside the pages of the comics. Craig Yoe gives us an overview of some of them, and shows why Charlton hung around so long before they were eventually swallowed up by DC in the 1970’s.
If you love comics, you will more than enjoy this book. It’s campy, crazy at times, with silly dialogue, but definitely a book you should definitely check out for the comic nostalgia value.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews