Here’s a comic chosen at random from my collection.
The Sixth Gun #11 by Cullen Bunn (writer), Brian Hurtt (illustrator and letterer), Bill Crabtree (colors), Keith Wood (designer), Charlie Chu (editor), and Brian Hurtt (cover)
#11 has our rough and tumble hero, Drake Sinclair, discovering the exact danger that the Six Guns represent, namely, that they can undo creation. Fortunately, Drake possesses four of the Guns. Now if he and his compatriots can only keep them from the unearthly clutches of Marinette of the Dry Arms, a spirit made flesh, which is pretty much the issue. There’s a tiny plot twist that’s carried over from the previous issue regarding the so-called theft of the Guns as well.
One of the best things about this series, think of it as a supernatural western, is Becky Montcrief, who possesses the Sixth Gun. This is a young woman who is thrust into this adventure, and while she stumbles on occasion, she is more than equal to the task of keeping the Guns away from evil hands, and I tend to think of her as more the lead of the book than Drake. In fact, when I began reading this book (based mostly on good friend Travis‘s prompting), I thought I would enjoy Drake more out of the cast, but it was Becky who drew me in and kept me with the book–there was a time in the late twenties of the series (before the “Ghost Dance” arc) that I was going to drop the title, but her struggle with the responsibility of having the Sixth Gun kept me interested.
Props to the artists on this series. You have all the familiar tropes of the Western genre, but there’s the added layer of all the supernatural stuff, and the artists equally paint a convincing picture of a horse as they do a lizard lady.
The end of the series is nigh (issue 44 is releasing in November 2014, and issue 50 is the last, appearing in, I’m guessing, early 2015), but if you haven’t tried this wonderful series, you really should. Go get the trades (or single issues if you can find them) now!
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