Bloody Chester

by J.T. Petty, Hilary Florido (Illustrations)

A deliciously gruesome horror tale set in the old west. This isn't John Wayne's heroic old west.

This is the real a filthy, disease-ridden frontier populated by losers, lunatics, and murderers. And when you're a skinny teenager with no family and a name like Chester Kates, your options are limited. It's stand up and fight or roll over and die, so Chester, aka "Lady Kate," is set to fight until it kills him. It isn't much of a life, but it's at least straightforward. Until things go all cockeyed when Chester is hired to ride his horse (also named Chester) to a ghost town and burn it to the ground. Except the ghost town doesn't just boast a tidy collection of mangled it also has three living inhabitants . . . who won't be budged. But Chester's been hired for a job, and he'll be damned if he doesn't burn the town to the last cinder. Thing is, he may just be damned if he does. This horror-Western-mystery graphic novel will send a thrill―and a chill―down your spine. Funny, fascinating, and downright horrible, this is a book that keeps you turning the pages.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Westerns, Historical Fiction, Horror, Fiction, Young Adult

160 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2009

About the author

Besides writing children's books, Petty is also a director and screenwriter for movies and video games. His film Soft for Digging was an Official Selection of the Sundance Film Festival. He received a Game Developers Choice Award for his work on the bestselling video game Splinter Cell. JT lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

[Melissa Chung · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve been hanging onto this graphic novel for about 5 years. Finally pulled it out of the stack of graphic novels sitting on my floor. Giving this one a meh... 3 stars.

Bloody Chester is about a young man who has a reputation. He shows up in a new town where his name has been rumored. So he walked tall for a few weeks until someone spilled the beans on his last name. Now he’s just a punk kid, who gets beaten up a lot. Fitting name.

In this western town the railroad is laying down the main line. Chester is sent on an errand.

Here’s the thing. The illustrations are great. The story... also great. The pale horse Chester rides being named by an Indian... suggests they have had a relationship before. So who’s side is Chester on? What happens at the end? I don’t know!! There was a set up and a somewhat deliverance. I guess he didn’t get the girl.

[Sesana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing, on some levels. The art is decent enough, though some scenes lacked the clarity that more detail would have provided. The story is missing a lot of background. There are lots of things that are hinted at but never developed or explained. I'm not sure if Petty wanted to keep Chester a mysterious figure, but he isn't interesting enough for that to work. Instead of making him a shadowy enigma, he just looks underdeveloped. The ending is strong, but it's very abrupt and it feels unfinished. I suppose Petty was going for a Sorpranos-esque ending, but it's not like that ending was popular. Space probably wasn't a concern. The pages at the end of the book with character sketches and mockups of the final cover would have been better put to use for actual content instead. It does deliver the grim and gritty western flavor that it promises, but that's all.

[Ahmed Gohary · Rating 2 out of 5]

اشتريتها من معرض الكتاب الشيخ زايد ،كنت اعتقد انها قصة يمكن قرائتها للإطفال لكن لم تعجبني ولا تصلح للأطفال بسبب العنف وسلوكيات بطل القصة وهو طفل يشرب الخمر ويمارس حياتة كأي رجل في الغرب الأمريكي القديم

[Seth T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Late last year I decided, nearly out of the blue, that I had a remarkable lack of westerns in my collection and that I might take special pains to remedy that situation. It's not so much that I'm fond of westerns. I'm not overly fond of genre fiction. Though I'll enjoy the occasional sci-fi, superhero, or fantasy tale if it lopes across my path, I don't generally set out to pick up the latest detective thriller, survival horror, or baseball romance. Once upon a time, perhaps, but not so much these days. Still, I do like to maintain a diverse library—more to the end of lending (as a form of comics evangelism) than to satisfy any personal whims of mood or taste.

I think what had spurred me to the decision to seek out more westerns specifically was reading the second volume of Mignola and Arcudi's Witchfinder. Where the first volume is entrenched in the generous gloom of merry old Britain, the next takes the Witchfinder to the Old West, to fight zombies or some such. I didn't actually enjoy it all that well, but it did remind me that I didn't own a single graphic novel western. So the next week, when I saw the cover to Dark Horse's first Milo Manara collection and read that within its pages was held a sumptuous frontier built in the shadow of the Spaghetti Westerns, I was sold. As it turns out, this was a mistake. That single book quenched any desire I had to seek out more westerns.

So when I was given the opportunity to spend time reading Bloody Chester or something else, I chose something else. As it turns out, this was a mistake. Bloody Chester is just a fantastic little book and something that pretty much everyone over fourteen* should check out.

One of the fun things about the Western is that people have been subverting the genre for-almost-ever. At least since High Noon turned its tail on white-hatted heroism back in 1952. I don't know about before that (maybe it took the advent of Noir to spur the Western similarly), but at least since Gary Cooper threw his badge in the dirt, the Western has been a place to toy with an established moral ruleset. The Searchers, The Shootist, A Fistful of Dollars (and the rest of Leone's Spaghettis), High Plains Drifter, and The Unforgiven. Each of these worked so well as they did because they played loose with viewer expectations that had been ingrained by social understanding of a mythologized Western. By now, perhaps the only way to subvert the Western is to subvert our expectation of subversion, to play the story as a straight return to an Old Timey Western ethic that perhaps ever only existed in the early days of Hollywood. Bloody Chester doesn't quite do this but does put some effort toward twisting reader expectations.

I think.



I won't come right out and describe the kind of book I thought I'd be reading as I made my way through Bloody Chester's opening pages. The book seems to evoke one kind of story only to leave the reader wondering if that was all in her imagination—I certainly wonder if it was all in mine. Creators Petty and Florido craft their story ably enough that I cannot rightly tell if I was reading signs that they put in place with some measure of intentionality or if my cognizance of the creative zeitgeist caused me to read my own presuppositions into the text. A delicious proposition.

What we're left with is something simpler than what I expected; and yet in that simple story are revealed complexities of character that might have been overwhelmed had the narrative gone in more lurid directions. Which is not to say Bloody Chester isn't lurid—it is. Just not that much so.



Petty's story, like so many latter-day Westerns, butters its bread on the capitalist shenanigans that marked the railroads' journey west. Chester Kates (Bloody Chester to you, or Lady Kate if you prefer) is hired to burn the town of Whale to nothing—to the end of inexpensively paving the way for coming rail. The situation in Whale—mostly deserted—is not what it seems, and unearthing the truth to this mystery and surviving long enough to burn the town comprises the duration of the book.

It's a good story and one well told. Petty writes his characters well, employing a naturalistic kind of ungrammatical dialogue that one might find in a Flannery O'Conner graphic novella, replacing should haves with should ofs. Petty, in concert with Florido, crafts some subtle, rewarding character moments (such as Chester explaining to Caroline the origin of his ruthless-sounding nickname). And there's enough foundation laid that the climax of the book's climax plays out believably enough,** what with foreshadowing and all.

Bloody Chester is, apparently, Hilary Florido's first graphic novel and I'd like to say that it shows just a little bit—but then again I can't quite tell for certain whether the sometimes scrappy look of her figures is by style or by license or by the need to practice more. It's very possibly that the answer lies anywhere within those options. At any rate, the book looks good and with a few small exceptions (like where I couldn't quite tell what someone was holding), she acquits herself marvelously. Her depictions of Caroline are positively adorable and she experiments enough with panel design to keep the book lively.



2012 has been a good year for comics and Bloody Chester adds one more to that tally. It's anyone's guess whether the year will see a major work like an Asterios Polyp (2009) or a Duncan the Wonder Dog (2010) or a Daytripper or Big Questions or Habibi (all 2011). Maybe 2012 won't see anyone's magnum opus—but if smaller, less ambitious books like Bloody Chester keep coming out, this may be one of the best years for comics yet. I get excited just thinking about it.

Notes
* The age, fourteen, was pretty much arrived at arbitrarily. I really just wanted to say that anyone mature enough to appreciate a story told with subtlety should appreciate Bloody Chester.

** Well, save for a skyward-fired shot that takes (to my ballisticsly-uneducated eye) an unnaturally long time to return to the ground. Maybe it takes exactly the right amount of time, but that would surprise me. This possibly-physics-bending instance took me slightly out of story for a moment while I stopped to think about bullets and universal laws and how fast a horse-drawn wagon can travel.

Now you're conjuring images of the conclusion to Chinatown, aren't you?

_____________________
[Review courtesy of Good Ok Bad]

[big reader ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good plot, interesting characters, surprising ending. Could've maybe done with some more pages, as some of the story (the end and the romance) felt a bit rushed and confusing

[Jessica at Book Sake · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC reviewed by Chris for Book Sake.
I was a little confused by this book. The whole time I was reading it I was waiting for something horrific or spooky to happen, but it never really does. With the exception of a few moments it all feels pretty mundane.

Since I was looking forward to something supernatural, it was a bit of a let down. Taken at face value, it’s a decent western. It has that trademark slow build and a cast of screwy characters all haunted by their past.

The art, while good, felt a bit off when compared to the story. The art is open and bright which doesn’t sell the dark, oppressive story. It’s not something that supposed to be for the kids, so I don’t know if it was the right art choice.

The is the second First Second book that has sold me on ‘supernatural’ and not delivered but still delivered an interesting, if small, story. If you are a fan of the western in the vein of ‘Unforgiven’ or ‘True Grit’ this may be right up your alley. Book Rating: 3/5


ARC reviewed by Kole for Book Sake.
This was a very surprising read for me, in a good way. I was expecting an average book that would take me a little bit to get through, but I got a lot more.

The art was great and refreshing from the art that I’ve seen recently, and it was very well written. I noticed that the author had also written for Splinter Cell, and was surprised to see that, considering the two different style. I guess that shows that the author has a really good range.

I was confused with the story in the beginning, but I understand that was the point of the book. I felt like the story had a little bit of a rough start, but after a while I got into it very easily. The characters are great and varied, and you’ll have feelings for them. The ending left a little bit more to be desired but I’m assuming there’s another on the way. I sure hope so, because I definitely want more. Book Rating: 5/5

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jamie Poorman



APA Citation: Petty, J. (2012). Bloody Chester. New York: First Second.


Genre: Western


Format: Print (Softcover, 160 pages; graphic novel)


Awards: ---------


Selection Process: Booklist review, YALSA list of ‘Great Graphic Novels, 2013’


Reader’s beware - this is definitely not a book to judge by it’s cover. Appearing to be a western story, this work is so much more - adventure, horror, romance, and historical fiction all rolled into one short, very visually stimulating work.

Chester Kates, a young man of unspecifed age, appearing to be in his mid to late teens, is alone - penniless and miserable, taunted by others, mistaken for a girl, in the crude, rough wild west town that he is passing through. Offered a job opportunity to burn out a neighboring town to make way for the Union Pacific railroad, Chester accepts and sets off for the supposed-abandoned town of Whale.

Upon arriving at Whale, Chester is surprised to find a few residents of the town still there, among them, Caroline, a young lady who is taking care of her father who is holed up in a mine somewhere in the mountains outside of town. Horror and chaos ensue as Chester learns of a mysterious plague called ‘coyote waits’ that has killed everyone in the town. In a strange, horrifying chain of events, Chester also befriends a local boy whose father, the town priest, is dying - a lingering, terrible death from the plague. The real root of the plague, and it’s ethical repercussions, are revealed when Chester is finally able to make contact with Caroline’s father who reveals that the plague was a figment of the imagination, created when he killed some ‘animals’ and made it look as though they were the first victims of ‘coyote waits’ to protect his treasure from the gold mine. While battling together in an attack of Sioux warriors, the old man admits to Chester that the ‘animals’ he sacrificed to his imaginary plague were in fact Sioux . . .

Recommended for older teens

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bloody Chester was another library find that I honestly picked up because of the cover, and I'm so glad I did. Westerns are usually not a genre I'm ever interested in, but this one is much more than your typical Western plot. Chester Kate is hired to burn down an abandoned town that is supposedly cursed with a mysterious plague, but once he arrives and discovers that the town still has four inhabitants, the plot thickens.

This book doesn't have many totally positive reviews on Goodreads, which I don't understand at all. I completely loved this book; I loved the ending and the characters were all interesting and unique. The plot kept me thinking and I still keep thinking about what happened in this book. I have a lot more I want to say about what happens, but a good amount of that pertains to the ending and I don't want to spoil that (but if you do read this and want to talk about it, feel free to comment below or message me on any of my social media accounts listed below!).

My recommendation is obviously to pick up this book. It's a quick read and it will get you thinking, and it's enjoyable.

This review and others can also be found on my book blog: swimmingthroughliterature.wordpress.com

[Jolyse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Considering the fact that Bloody Chester is a graphic novel that does not belong to a series, giving it less time and fewer pages to tell a whole story, Petty does a pretty good job of delivering an interesting an entertaining western.

You can tell that Bloody Chester was written by a filmmaker, as each frame is set up as meticulously and in the same fashion as a shot from a movie. Each frame has a purpose and moves the story forward in some way while using the same dramatic angles and compositions as a classic Old West Adventure film.

As for the story itself, it's a bit too fast paced for my personal taste but it's well-suited for most young adult readers and perfect for reluctant readers. Petty definitely delivers an interesting and exciting story in not a lot of pages, which definitely requires some prioritization of information plot pieces, and he was able keep it pretty bare bones while still drawing reader investment.

[Maxine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bloody Chester is a graphic novel set in the old west.Chester Kates is a skinny young cowboy with a name just ripe for bullying and very little hope. Given his limited options, when he is offered a job to ride into a town destroyed by a strange plague and burn it down, he jumps at it. Unfortunately, the town isn't quite as deserted as it's supposed to be and rounding up the survivors won't be easy.

Not surprising given the title, Bloody Chester is very violent and very bloody. It is also a lot of fun. But be warned - along with the no-holds- barred take-no-prisoners attitude of the old west, Petty also recreates the rather colourful language and, worse, the easy racism that flourished during the period. Given the latter, I would suggest that parents may not want to let their young teens read it.

[Zachary Osteen]

The book starts off with a boy named Chester and he was not treated very well and made fun of a lot. He ended up getting hired for a job to burn a town that was infected with a disease to the ground. There was a little bit of mishaps that happened at the town that may or may not have changed his mind.

The book “bloody Chester” was a good book because the writing and the layout was easy for me to read. I think that it also had good in depth pictures to describe the way it was explaining things in words to match the summary.the book has plenty of imagery in it because Chester and other characters are always comparing so it give you an image which make it very interesting to read.

[P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strange personal note: If that drunk artist I semi-dated in college lived in the old west, he'd be Chester.

I liked how the story didn't give us the usual ending. It chose to keep its own mysteries and ambiguities. Chester stayed true to his own law. I have a feeling that although this is a quick read, and somewhat confusing, the mind will keep going back to it.

[Mmsilve1asu.Edu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very interesting an entirely different from anything that I have ever read in the past. The story follows a boy that comes off as very lost in the world as he doesn't seem to have a set direction. The beginning of this was both interesting and confusing as it shows how the main character got the nicknames "Bloody Chester" and "Lady Kate" which by name alone, scares anyone that comes into contact with him. He doesn't have a family or place to stay which is what seems to evoke him to keep fighting and mostly getting beat up. When he is hired to take his horse on a journey to burn down a disease-ridden town that was supposed to be empty, he instead finds three people there that end up interfering with this plan. He does what he can to survive, but sometimes that just isn't good enough. Other things need to be done first before trying to burn the town down.
This book almost seems like something that wouldn't be appropriate to teach with certain ages because of the amount of foul language and gruesome details within it. As a creative writing major, something I focused on more so than the teaching aspect was the form of this book. This book is illustrated well in it's comic-form. Usually as a creative writing major, I have always been told to make sure my words can do all the talking for me but then discovered something of the opposite with this book as the illustrations take care of the talking more instead. Having the book formatted as such made me as a reader really try to focus on what was going on in the picture rather than solely with the dialogue. The story is portrayed more so visually than it is with the use of words. Mostly consisting of illustrations, this book is helpful in painting a picture of exactly what is going on. I think in a few cases throughout this book, especially in the beginning, there were times that the pictures came off as a confusing since they didn't seem to represent accurately exactly what might have been going on in some scenes. I do, however, think that the cover helps to explain a lot after revisiting it once you have finished reading the story. I also think that this book could have been set up a bit better if the structure and formatting of it included a bit of narration rather than just relying on the pictures to take care of the narrations. In the areas where I wasn't able to understand exactly what was going on in a particular scene, I found that maybe some of the illustrations may have not been so necessary or as important as others. Overall, it was an interesting and fairly quick read. Just make sure that you are prepared for the violence and mystery that not only comes with the nearly-abandoned town but seems to follow "Lady Kates".

[Brynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Old West is a dangerous place. Dust coating blood spilt over the smallest infraction against one man from another. Simple misunderstandings escalating to bar brawls. Superstitions turning flesh and bone in the cruel light of truth. Chester Kates must face it all.
Known as Bloody Chester and Lady Kate, the young man has lived in the underbelly of the Old West long enough to know the only way out is to fight hard as hell, and when the mayor offers him forty bucks and a revolver to see a ghost town set ablaze, he's aiming to accept. But the ghosts that inhabit the town are not the spirits of the undead, but something perhaps alltogether more dangerous.
This graphic novel is a compelling ride start to finish. It hits every note of the Old West in gritty detail, and unravels the mystery at a delightfully stuttering pace. The artstyle matches the tone step for step, complimenting the feel of each panel and unfolding eerie scenes through images alone. People who love westerns and mysteries alike are sure to enjoy this piece as they follow Chester as he confronts damnation itself to see his job through.

[Sam Larsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Petty, J.T., Florido, Hilary. Bloody Chester. First Second. 2012. 160 pages.
Hilarious, colorful, horror. These are all words that could describe the landscape of Petty and Florido’s creation of Bloody Chester. Teenage main character Chester Cates is contracted by a sinister man from the railroad company to clear a town in order for building to continue, but he comes upon a ghost town of evil proportions. A book that plays on the traditional western, without getting too deep or complex, the beautiful artwork and intriguing story contained in its pages are sure to catch young and old readers’ attentions. Graphic novels like these may be an effective method to get young interested in reading, as it almost has a more comic book feel, but also attracts interest in books in general. While there are illustrations, again, beautifully done, the reader must draw his own conclusions and paint their own picture in order to get the whole story.

[Bruce Gargoyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ten Second Synopsis:
After finding himself in jail, Chester Kates is given a ticket to freedom - provided he completes the job of burning the town of Whale to the ground first. When Chester arrives in Whale it is apparent that something sinister has happened to the inhabitants.

This was an interesting little read with some unexpected twists. Not being a huge fan of Westerns generally, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the setting. ThEre is a fair bit of violence and casual racism (that is related to the period of history in which the book is set and not gratuitous) so if you aren't into reading that kind of stuff you might not enjoy this. Overall this was a quick foray into a half-medical, half-paranormal mystery with a surprise ending.

[Louise Gunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the twist, it's not something you commonly read.

However, I felt that the whole story was lacking with proper background. The needed details at the moment was sure explained, but that's it. We're not going to get a deeper past or anything. Just that and a few context clues that you need for later in reading.

The ending was the understanding. And it happened too quick, just like that the story ends. We don't see more of what'll happen to them. What'll happen to Shane's deal.

I enjoyed reading a different genre anyway, 3 out of 5!

[John Watts · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really good story line, deeper than the artwork would suggest. The story is dark, funny, and unpredictable at times - a guy is paid to burn down a town, when he gets there he realises plague (‘Coyote Waits’) has killed most of the town, save a woman, and a young kid and has dad, but Chester soon realises not all is as it seems..........

[Macy Welch · Rating 1 out of 5]

I never really understand what's going on in The book no matter how many times I read it, it needs more details and it kind of feels like a mystery because I have no idea what's going on. It feels like this is a second book to a series or something because there is no beginning or ending. I didn't really know who chester was or what was going on in the beginning and even in the end, it leaves me with more questions than answers. I hate leaving low reviews for books, but this is probably the lowest I've ever rated a book.

[Diayll · Rating 2 out of 5]

Originally Reviewed by Diayll(me):Mother/Gamer/Writer
Parent Rating: 1 out of 5 Controllers
Regular Rating: 2 out of 5 Controllers
Review Source: NetGalley


This review is going to be atypical from any review I have previously written. I am going to do 2 quick rundown reviews of this book because it definitely sparked something in me I can’t release until everyone hears it. One review will be from a parent’s perspective and the other as an adult reader. I hope this helps someone make an informed decision about the types of books we let our children read and the types of books we read as adults.



Parents Perspective:

Well, it’s rare that I write a negative review. I’m not even sure this review is entirely negative, maybe it’s a tad bit cynical, but I feel it has to be said. Blood Chester is one of those graphic novels you get completely excited for and then, all of a sudden it takes a turn you don’t expect leaving your mouth half open in a “WTF” expression. Yes, that happened to me at one point in Bloody Chester. I literally had to stop, and reread the same passage ten times to make sure I read it right. Want to know what I’m talking about?

Here take a look (warning graphic language below):

From Page 20: “The problem is, you want to build a train, you gotta rustle a whole herd of NIG*ERS, CHINAMEN, and IRISH. Any one of them animals you can work till they die.”

Maybe I am being a little sensitive. Maybe I should take it in the context that it was written, I mean the story does take place during the “old west”. However, given the fact this book is suggested to be RECOMMENDED for TEENS ages 14-18 (aka young adults), I find this type of language UNACCEPTABLE! And this is not the only thing I found disturbing about Bloody Chester. It’s riddled with strong (and by that I mean the “F” word and other various curse words) in just about every other frame. Even “GodD#$%” is in there. How can a graphic novel or any book for that matter be considered young adult with that much cursing? Clearly this book should be labeled as Adult by Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and the Book Depository. Just because there is no sexual content does not mean it’s not an Adult book. I would never, let my fifteen year old sister read this book. Even though I consider her to be mature for her age, I do draw the line on some things and this happens to be one of them. We grew up in a small, predominately white southern town and this type of language is nothing new to either of us. However, why should I subject her to racial slurs and foul language when I don’t have to? I’m sure she gets enough of that on TV.


As a parent I strongly recommend, no I urge you not to let your kids read Bloody Chester. It’s violent, gruesome, has racial innuendos, and a ton of language I can’t see anyone letting a fourteen year old read.


Parents Grade:
1 out of 5 Controllers




Adult Perspective:

Now, as an adult who generally loves violent and gruesome stories, Bloody Chester does not disappoint. It’s the tale of Chester, aka Lady Kate, and his misadventures. When I first started reading this graphic novel, it seemed as though Chester was having a really, really bad day. Every time he turned around he was getting pounded in the face by some guys’ large fist. I did feel sorry for him at one point because there was no clear indication on why he was the barer of such misery. It just seemed to be the thing to do in this old western town. It wasn’t until Chester is given the task of burning an entire town to the ground that he has the chance to redeem himself. And like a moth to a flame, I found myself rooting for Chester and hoping he would do the right thing.

Without giving away the plot, Chester does something at the very end of the story that made me cringe. Two wrongs don’t make a right. I feel that every decision Chester made was just wrong, wrong, and wrong. Maybe Petty didn’t want us to like Chester. Maybe he wanted us to hate his guts. Whatever the case and whatever the reason, by the end of the story I loathed Chester with a passion. I guess he did what he felt was best to save himself, but he obviously is amoral and has no feelings or compassion for others. I found him to be very unfeeling, unlikeable, and I couldn’t relate to him at all. Is it bad to wish death on a character? Because that’s exactly how I felt.


With all that being said, if I reviewed Bloody Chester based on the actual story, I’d probably rate it high. I enjoyed the weird and crazy side characters and the idea of some plague killing people and making them look like mutilated zombie corpses. The art style reminded me of Sunday morning comics you’d read in the newspaper. But again, I can’t review this book without looking at the whole package, and for me, Bloody Chester fell flat on so many levels.


Overall if you are looking for an entertaining read this summer and you enjoy a lot of cursing and characters you might grow to hate, then Bloody Chester might be for you. But for everyone else, try reading Crawl to Me or This Haunted World.

My Rating
2 out of 5 Controllers

[Marissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow and strange, but that ending made it even worse! It would have been a 3 star, but the abrupt and pointless ending was frustrating. I did appreciate the "reveal" or understanding at the end, but I hated the last two pages. At least it was short.

[David Lipely · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting, original, and yet shallow story... with a few fun spots to entertain.
It’s an okay read but the story never seems to go forward at all...

[Charles Vinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s a good questionable book like you don’t what’s going on in the first place then it transforms to what you know what is going on

[Soteralzobooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[SofiaHof · Rating 5 out of 5]

I GASPED

[Tim Lewis]

Read the review and others like it on my blog:
Tim's Book Reviews

Premise: Chester Kates is a scrawny loner with no family in a town full of losers. When he is given the job of burning down the ghost town of Whale to make way for the railroad, he accepts it. The only problem is that there are still a few people living there.

A mysterious illness has taken over Whale, and only three people remain alive: the priest and his son, and Caroline. All Chester has to do to complete his mission is to get them to leave and set the buildings on fire. The real problem is convincing them to do so. The priest assumes he is infected with the strange plague and will not leave, and his son will not leave his father. Caroline will not leave the town until her father comes back from his claim in the mine, which gives Chester yet another challenge to complete his mission.

Chester grows fond of Caroline and has nothing to lose in finding her father or in confronting the supposedly infected priest. There are figures in white that haunt Whale, and the infected dead bodies around town are a chilling warning to keep out. As Chester tries to complete his task, he also begins to learn the cause of the plague and must make terrible decisions for how to bring about redemption for Whale.

Themes: The theme of redemption becomes clearer with every page, as Chester seeks to redeem Whale of its pestilence, as the residents seek redemption for themselves, and as Chester unwittingly encounters it through his decisions.

In this period of time where racism was prevalent, where other races are considered “animals” by some people in society, Bloody Chester tackles this topic subtly as a matter of fact thing in everyday life, which is then brought to the forefront for everyone to face.

There is also a bit of romance in Bloody Chester, though it plays more of a supporting storyline to keep Chester on task, while also providing some conflict in his quest to burn Whale to the ground. He must convince Caroline to leave, though now that he cares for her it makes the means for doing so more difficult.

Pros: The art is consistently beautiful and molds the characters well. The climax of the story is moving, leading to a resolution that, while crushing for all of Chester’s goals, was the right thing to do in spite of his goals. Redemption is brought to everything simultaneously, including Chester himself. As I read Bloody Chester I didn’t know what to think of it, but when I reached the end I was surprised at the impact it had in getting me to think.

Cons: Some of the artwork choices were odd, such as putting in words to explain an action, which reminds me of the campy original Batman series. I don’t know if it was intended, but if it was, then it doesn’t seem to fit with the intentions of the novel. I wish it was a bit longer with more back story behind some of the characters, especially Caroline. It is also somewhat foul and gruesome, not recommended for children.

Recommendations: For a story that is seemingly dark and soulless, Bloody Chester has an unexpected amount of heart. With curious artwork that sometimes doesn’t quite fit the tone of the story, it manages to lighten the mood of this dark tale into one of redemption for the lost souls. Bloody Chester is not recommended for children or young teens due to its language and sometimes gory images. There is some racism fitting for the time period that some may find offensive. In these days where political correctness reigns, I only fear that people will miss out on a good story by choosing not to read it for this single reason. Certain characters are offensive, not the story or the author. When it comes down to it, Bloody Chester is actually quite the opposite from racist. It is a story of honor and righting past wrongs.

[Christa Seeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review originally posted at More Than Just Magic

This is my first First Second graphic novel! I love finding new, smaller graphic novel publishers. It adds some great diversity to the field and their amazing collection has me adding a pile of great sounding books to my TBR. Seriously, if you haven’t heard of them yet, then check them out, they have great stuff for all ages and interests.

So now that I’ve said my piece about the publisher, let’s move onto the book itself, Bloody Chester. I saw this title on NetGalley as was immediately attracted to it’s eye catching cover. A quick scan of the synopsis let me know I was headed into Western territory – a genre that’s not unfamiliar to me, but it’s not a regular undertaking for me. But once I started reading, I found Bloody Chester surprisingly easy to get into, even for one not the most comfortable with the genre. Though it is no doubt a Western, Bloody Chester does not go over the top shoving in tropes or archetypes It just focuses on some solid characters and a simple story. Something all great stories are made of. I was also immediately put at ease by the artwork. Simple but distinctive. It kind of made me think this is what Jeff Lemire’s comics would look like if he wrote Westerns.

Once you look past the setting, you’re really dealing with the adventure of one boy – Chester Kates. Our “hero.” He’s a scrappy, skinny kid, who gets in a lot of fights but at the end of the day is determined to survive. He takes on the unpleasant job of burning town a ghost town called Whale because people believe it’s haunted/cursed. Chester is an interesting character. He’s not a bad kid by any means, but he at times has some questionable ethics. I wanted to like him, and for the most part I did. And I liked seeing him struggle between the choice of finishing the job or just making a run for it. Especially when faced with the threat of a disease called Coyote Waits.


Though there are many things I love about Bloody Chester, I ultimately felt like there were some things missing from this story. It kind of just…ends. You feel as though you’ve been left hanging. I also thought more could have been done at the beginning to set the stage. For example, I thought the reader might have better served with some more information about Chester. It was almost as if we were thrown into the story when it was already 15% in. Simplicity is often a good thing, but too much simplicity left this reader wanting more.

Recommendation: A fun, quick graphic read. Good for those who want to step outside their comfort zone a little without going too crazy, or committing too much time.

[Online Eccentric Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/

Bloody Chester is an atmospheric old Western graphic novel with a spooky set up and young anti-hero protagonist. The artwork is oddly cartoony, playing against the gritty and horror-filled story of a loser. This is not a story of redemption and the authors really buck cliches of the modern novel. I was reminded a lot of True Grit - no sappy ending, just the harsh realities of the American frontier.

Chester, nicknamed Bloody Chester, is a hapless young teen drunk and loser existing on the outskirts of the town he just blew into. Willing to let himself get beat silly as long as there is a meal and whiskey in it in the end, eventually he finds himself in jail and with a proposition. The railroad is coming to the neighboring ghost town and the sheriff wants it burned to the ground to ease a superstitious fear that would keep railroad slaves from working the area. Chester is given a shave, a gun, and some food and heads out to the town of Whale to set to his pyrotechnic work. But what he finds is a place full of death and superstition, disease and insanity. Where the craziest people of all are actually the sane ones. What he finds is coyote waits.

The author goes for the down and gritty - using graphic language, racist stereotypes, and the bitter ugliness of waking up with vomit on oneself. Chester is a thoroughly unlikeable character, weak, craven, and without conviction. But he's smart enough to do what he needs to in order to survive - and doing so is killing the boy each and every time. On the surface, this is a simple tale of mystery with a bit of horror and possibly supernatural thrown in. It's also a character study of how we fool ourselves and survival vs subsistence. Each of the characters that Chester meets seem simple on the onset but upon several reads, their character complexities and foibles manifest. There's no one in the book as an aside - each have something to say about life and the overall arc.

I think if you read this quickly and as a surface read, you're going to expect some supernatural shenanigans and then an ending to the story that frustrates as a result. If you read this several times and a bit more carefully, however, the ending makes perfect sense and really shows the thought put into the story. I can't help but feel that a more serious illustrative style might have been more interesting - the artwork is well done but leads the reader down a path of light skimming rather than pondering the story. I'm sure the editor appreciated that counterbalance but sometimes juxtaposing opposites like that neutralize each other's strengths.

That said, the story is easy to follow and well worth the read. I enjoyed this stand alone original story and really appreciated what the story brought to the graphic novel format.

[Dani Shuping · Rating 3 out of 5]

ARC provided by NetGalley

Do you like westerns and cowboys and indians? I mean the John Wayne version of the old west? Well then this story...isn’t that. This story is different (and better). It’s the story of outlaws, mining, death, and love, but more than that it’s the story of Bloody Chester--an outlaw assigned to do a horrible job for money. he has to go and burn down a town so that the train can buy the place and build through it, but the town isn’t empty. And there’s a curse that surrounds the town and kills all almost all that are in it. And Chester maybe next on it’s list.

I know it’s going to sound weird/picky, but the one thing that I didn’t really like about the artwork is the font choice. It just felt too stiff, too formal, too computerized, compared to the evocative images in the rest of the art. And while it doesn’t seem like a big thing, it made it hard for me at times to focus on the story. I really did enjoy the rest of the artwork, as it reminds me in some ways of old style woodcuts, colored in and brought to life. The violent and dark lines capture the gritty feel of the story and the minimalistic use of backgrounds at just the right moments, such as during the fight scenes, add extra tension to the scenes. I think my favorite scenes though, are the shots of just the prairie and outdoor life, such as on page 24, where we see the sun setting on a wind blown grass prairie, with a horse and rider heading off into the distance. It’s the type of page that I just want to linger on for a bit longer to take it all in.

While I don’t normally like westerns/horror type stories I really did enjoy this story. It’s one that keeps you guessing to the end with wondering and waiting for what really is going on and how it would be resolved. Although the ending my leave some feeling slightly off balanced since it isn’t all neatly polished and wrapped up, I like that we don’t know what happens next. That we can imagine what happens next on our own. My favorite aspect of this story though is the titular character of Bloody Chester. I like that there’s a bit of a mystery to him, that there’s more to him than meets the eye, and that he attempts to treat the living and the dead with a bit of respect. It’s just such a great character, one that I didn’t see coming, and I really like that he’s a different than what I expected.

If you like horror and you like the old west or if you just like something different then this story is for you. I look forward to seeing what the author produces next. 3 out of 5 stars.

[Jennifer Bacall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not usually attracted to stories set in the old west and I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy this title as much as I did. From page 11 I knew that this was not your typical graphic novel aimed at older teens; "Only been here a month, but I've already seen you take more beating's than a whore's bed." The book opens with Chester being bludgeoned while defending himself after being teased about his nickname. During his imprisonment the sheriff offers him a job. He wants him to go to a town named Whale and burn every building to the ground. Chester learns that Whale has been overtaken by a plague and that there are still a few residents struggling to survive. He also hears of ghosts, Indian attacks and the threat of the railroad destroying what is left of the town.

Through the story we are exposed to the disgusting racism of the time; "The problem is, you want to build a train, you gotta rustle a whole herd of niggers, Chinamen, and Irish. Any one of them animals you can work til they die." The racism is an unfortunate truth of the time. It comes off as ugly, obviously not approved of by Chester and is confronted in a huge plot twist towards the end of the book. One of my favorite facets of the writing is that things are foreshadowed and tension is built up yet many facets of the story remain mysterious and allow the readers to come to their own conclusions.

The illustrations in the book are dead on. They gravitate from gruesome to beautiful, from humorous to frightening. Some of my favorite frames have a manga look with extreme eye expression and extra line work around the characters faces. The colors are muted blues and earth-tones which blend beautifully with the story. At the back of the book is a sketchbook section that shows the origins of the characters and the cover.

I loved this book. Smart, shocking, gross and beautiful it is marketed for ages 14-18 but should be read only by mature readers in that age bracket and above. Any adult fan of graphic novels would also get a lot out of this excellent new release.