Deadlands: Dead Man’s Hand

by Jeffrey J. Mariotte (Aritist), David Gallaher (Writer), Jimmy Palmiotti (Writer)

Deadlands is the award winning, world-famous, original WEIRD WESTERN role-playing game from Pinnacle Entertainment that blends westerns, horror, and steam-punk into a rich world filled with mysticism, magic, supernatural evil, and gunslingers! This collection of comics based on the game contains “The Devil’s Six Gun,” “Massacre at Red Wing,” “Death Was Silent,” “Black Water,” “Vengeful,” and “What a Man’s Got To Do.”

Genres: Horror, Graphic Novels, Weird West, Comics

124 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Also writes as Jeff Mariotte

Jeffrey J. Mariotte is the bestselling, award-winning author of more than 70 novels, including the Cody Cavanaugh western series, historical western epic Blood and Gold: The Legend of Joaquin Murrieta (with Peter Murrieta), thrillers Empty Rooms and The Devil's Bait, supernatural thrillers Season of the Wolf, Missing White Girl, River Runs Red, and Cold Black Hearts, horror epic The Slab, and the Dark Vengeance teen horror quartet. With wife and writing partner Marsheila (Marcy) Rockwell, he wrote the sf/horror/thriller 7 SYKOS and Mafia III: Plain of Jars, the authorized prequel to the bestselling video game. His most recent release is the short story collection Byrd's Luck & Other Stories, comprising five "traditional" Western tales and five horror-Western stories, two of them brand-new for this edition.

He also writes occasional nonfiction, short fiction (some of which is collected in Nine Frights), and comic books, including the long-running horror/Western comic book series Desperadoes and graphic novels Fade to Black and Zombie Cop. With Marsheila Rockwell, he has published several short stories and is working on more. He has worked in virtually every aspect of the book business, as a writer, editor, marketing executive, and bookseller.

Learn more at www.jeffmariotte.com, and follow him at https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyJMari... and @JeffMariotte on Twitter.

Also writes as Jeff Mariotte

Reviews

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a huge Weird Western fan, as well as an author of Weird Western novels, so maybe I'm biased, but I LOVE these types of books. This graphic novel contains several short stories set in the Deadlands universe, which is basically the Weird West. The stories vary but all are good: A six gun made to kill the devil. A Native American girl with the power to slow time. A weird western version of Invaders of the Body Snatchers (probably my favorite story in the collection.) Also, very nice art that fits the stories well. If anyone plays the Deadlands game, there's a few resource pages included as a bonus. Speaking of bonuses, an excerpt from Jonathan Maberry's upcoming Deadlands novel is included as well, and I will most likely be reading that one when it's released.

If there's any negatives, it's that some of these stories seem to lead into future stories, but it's not like any truly end on a cliffhanger. I just has assumed they would be more self contained.

If you are a fan of the Weird Western genre, pick this one up.

[Jennifer Juffer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not being familiar with the game or having even heard of it before opening, I ordered the book to read a few favorite writers.
Short stories are pretty interesting when they have a begging, middle and end.

I can briefly summarize that all of these stories are very entertaining. I wanted to read about every single character and have each story go on and on...

I can also write that if you’re an individual who doesn’t like loose ends... it’s not a book for you.

Every single one leaves everything up in the air.

These are stories that introduce the characters. They are written to bring them more vividly to life.
Being of that purpose, the book is a huge success!

The art and the stories are riveting and extremely well thought out and executed.

[Kurt Lorenz · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Ron Marz western version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was cool, but everything else was a bit unimaginative.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a mixed bag of stories, some that I liked better than others. The world is interesting and I hope more volumes will be released soon.

[Stanley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This books collects six individual stories under one roof including a budding young scientist learning how to harness the destructive power of ghost rock, A special woman with a daily 10 second ability to slow down time, and a very special bounty hunter among others.

Having read a number of Deadlands stories over the years from source books to the short story series, this trade paperback fits right in with the high quality I would expect from the series.

I've always wondered how outsiders would react to Deadlands stories, but I would surely suggest them to see if they were interested.

Also, for fans of the role playing game, there are a couple of pages of material in the back to incorporate people, places, and items from the stories into your own Deadlands campaign.

[Lewis Manalo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is horribly uneven. The compilation volume is worth reading for the excellent "The Devil's Six Gun" and "Death Was Silent," but a couple of the other stories are simply horrible, hack jobs told and illustrated without any relish, barely stacked with enough tropes to qualify them as "weird Westerns."