Tag: Kansas

Project: 100 Westerns: Part Twelve: The Stranger Wore a Gun; Kansas Pacific; Old Henry

Posted on November, 2025 by JS

Hello Westerinos,

Welcome back to Project: 100 Westerns! I’m still scuttling along, watching Western movies from across a hundred years of Hollywood.

I ran short on time this month and only eye-zapped three pictures. Two from 1953, the height of Western mania, and one candidate for the best, most-recently released genre offering.

#44. The Stranger Wore a Gun (1953)

Based on a short story by John W. Cunningham (who also wrote the story in which High Noon is adapted from), this quick-hitter Western is mostly forgettable despite the notable cast.

Fan favorite Randolph Scott plays Jeff, a former spy in the Middle West theater of the Civil War. Becoming disillusioned by William Quantrill’s unsavory actions, he enlists as a regular solider for the Confederacy, and when the fighting’s over he fuck offs to Arizona to reinvent himself. The following plot is frankly, a bore: Jeff (going by “Mark Stone”) seeks redemption for his sordid past and attempts to thwart a criminal businessman in his attempt to rob a local stage coach operation. 

The Stranger Wore a Gun is a morally confused movie that is too flat and conventional to hold this viewer’s attention. The cast keepsit together, Scott, who frankly I haven’t been too impressed with in the handful of his Westerns I’ve watched, is a capable leading man, and the heavies, played by Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine in their baby-face era, approach “interesting”. There’s a hazy romantic thread with Claire Trevor’s character in this too, but it gets sorta hijacked by Joan Weldon’s townie role. 

The quirky element of this film is that it was originally filmed for 3D, so there’s a bunch of jarring shots of actors throwing punches or shooting lead straight toward the camera lens, which his essentially lost in the modern 2D print. The project as a whole serves as a time capsule of both Westerns and the film industry, which is basically true of a lot of the films I’ve reviewed, but hey, I’m trying to be gracious here.  

#45. Kansas Pacific (1953)

Here’s another film from 1953, and another use of William Quantrill as an antagonist, which is at least the fourth time a Project: 100 movie has featured the radical guerrilla fighter. Sort of weird how some names drop from the zeitgeist, right?

This is technically a Western, but also more of a political thriller. A Captain in the Army Corp of Engineers (Sterling Hayden) is sent (undercover) to Kansas to help oversee a railroad that will be instrumental in the inevitable Civil War. Upon arrival, he is tasked not only with the hiring of workers and the logistics of a huge infrastructure project, but must also contend with Southern sympathizers seeking to destroy the railway.

Hayden plays the lead stiffly, which sort of works as he’s a direct military guy with the narrow mission of building a thing quickly and proficiently. The plot ramps steadily, first the Captain needs to survey the thorny situation, recruit and retain railmen, and then tamp down the pro-South saboteurs. There’s some neat maneuvering between the two factions as they attempt to achieve goals without heavily exposing their motives or members. It’s not until the last portion of the movie that we get some (welcomed) explosions and gunplay.

It’s a pretty inane movie, plainly. Director Ray Nazzaro does a fine enough job: the camera work carries this for the most part, but there’s very little for the actors to do, overall.

#46. Old Henry (2021)

“You have no idea the hell storm you’re about to let loose”.

If you’re looking for the best Western released in the last five years, you’ve found it.

Tim Blake Nelson, a top-tier character actor in the modern age, stars as Henry McCarty, a farmer in Oklahoma Territory who lives with his teenaged son. When an injured stranger wanders into their life, Henry is confronted by a trio of lawmen who threaten his homestead , demanding the return of the alleged outlaw.

That’s all I can give you on plot specifics, because wow, this one takes you for a ride.

What immediately leaps out at you from the screen is the effortless way the script relates the intelligence and savvy of its characters to the audience. Henry is a seasoned guy, from his folksy bits of poetic advice, to how he handles a shovel or gun, it’s apparent this guy has been around and is pretty much over all of it. His counterpart, the villainous Sheriff Ketchum (Stephen Dorff), is equally as astute and clever, making for a perfect foil.

Writer/director Potsy Ponciroli achieves all he set out to do, and more. It’s a well-shot movie, featuring dynamic horizons and ferocious bursts of violence. The rolling hills of the Tennessee (posing as Oklahoma) locale makes for a defining setting, and lets the viewer know this tale is far from the dusty valleys of the Southwest, which is mentioned frequently as a place the characters are familiar with.

I had heard this movie was a gem, and it did not disappoint. A testament that you can still make an awesome genre film on a budget.

Be sure to check back in on December 2nd 2025! We’ve got a special holiday Western that I’m itching to show yunz!

 

Westward!

 

~Jamil

Comic Ten: Brotherhood

Posted on September, 2025 by JS

Top o’ the day toadies,

We venture into Autumn with a new chapter of Satterwhite & Fosgrove! If you need to get caught up you find the first three comics: here, here and here.

When we last left the titular duo, Satterwhite was finishing up a double murder investigation in Kansas City, and Fosgrove was chasing a bounty through the woods, but then was left to rot in a giant hole. In this story, we find them reunited, only to be thwarted by a group of thieving bushwhackers.

Any serious writer knows that reading is a huge component of the craft. It spurs you on, either through inspiration or envy, and it draws you in, into new worlds and fresh concepts. Reading is the thread in which the writer weaves their tapestries.

I’ve read, and continue to read, a healthy stack of books in preparation for writing All-True – specifically Satterwhite & Fosgrove – and have gleaned a lot of nuggets of truth and myth from those experiences. What’s interesting is how these details make their way into the story.

Many books, fiction and non, are part of the Satterwhite & Fosgrove elixir. They may not come to the forefront of plot and character, but they’re found in the filigree of every page and panel. Like, when reading about the history of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, there are so many interesting factoids on Allan Pinkerton’s successful PI business and its transformation into an army for private capital. The books on forensic science and violent crime helped develop how deductive reasoning may have gone down 150 years ago. Ruminations on the spy novel and its role in American literature help guide the story along the track from mystery to resolution. Writings on Jesse James, his life, his family and the political world he was born into provide depth and authenticity to this period piece. Rereading the Aeneid helped guide the ideas behind the central adventure of the story, as well as tether the comic’s themes to the past. And of course, several comic books, from Jonah Hex to Stray Bullets to Suicide Squad not only contributed plot ideas, but also a visual coda. Not a lot of the above is prudent to the adventure tale of two detectives in the West, but we’ve tried to squeeze it into the nooks of the story.

I would be remiss not to gush about the rest of the team on this comic. Mauro, already equipped with vast talent, seems to improve with each chapter. He navigated these text-heavy pages wonderfully, and there’s a fight scene towards the end that is basically perfect. The wordier segments were astutely handled by Nikki; only a few lines of my precious dialogue were cut. Editor extraordinaire Claire has been a guiding voice since the first script, and her suggestions on how to think and rethink these characters and their motives shows up subtly all over the place, even outside of the comic page. Overall, I am blessed to have such insanely skilled collaborators on my longest, and most complex, story.

If you have any suggestions on further readings on the Old West and its people, feel free to hit me up! My “To Be Read” pile is massive but I’m always looking for new entries.

 

Westward!

 

~Jamil

Comic Five: Trees to Gold

Posted on April, 2025 by JS

My dear dastardlies,

When I started to build the idea of All-True Outlaw a prime goal was to adhere to the short form.

As a writer, especially one looking to breakthrough in the comics game, it is crucially important to finish the project one starts. To give the reader something digestible and complete. Anyone familiar with the medium of comics, or even the trade of storytelling, knows a novice can get mired in the allure of the epic tale. Worldbuilding is a fascinating and cathartic experience, and nearly every writer wants to create a place that a reader can get lost inside of. However, the likelihood of completing a grandiose, lengthy epic in comics is pretty unlikely. So, it’s vital to make sure what you’re doing, and what you’re trying to say, is coherently digestible. In so many ways, short comics are the way to go.

So naturally, upon completing the script for “Satterwhite & Fosgrove”, I pretty much immediately plotted the next handful of stories about these characters and where they would go next. I’m smart!

As you may remember from the first story, two Pinkerton agents were discovered by another bounty hunter in the uncultivated lands of rural Missouri. After some exposition drops detailing the duos’ chase for the notorious outlaw Jesse James, the three private detectives engage in a violent altercation, resulting in the death of the bounty hunter, which allows Kip Satterwhite and Robert Fosgrove to escape with a “map” stolen from a wealthy Confederate family.

This next comic, “Trees to Gold” follows Fosgrove as he chases a suspected criminal into the Kansan forest. It’s based, partly, on “Billy and the Bear”, a story my grandmother Josephine used to tell me as a child. Mauro Bueno once again draws this comic, and damn, he absolutely kills it at every turn. This is a dark story, from look to mood to actions, and Mauro executes the detective noir elements with adept skill and brains. Whether it be hushed stalking, or loud battles with beasts, every page is a brilliant example of the capabilities of comics and the collaboration process.

We also welcome back Nikki Powers on this story, and I can’t say enough about her efforts in lettering this piece. I have a tendency to go easy on dialogue in some portions of a story, and then backlog those precious words and sentences in another place. While that’s effective for the tension of plot and pacing, it can be burdensome on a letterer to make the talky parts work as they should. Nikki takes care of it, though, ensuring the ideas get across when I get too verbose in the word balloon area.

Editor Claire Napier continues to help mold the overarching Satterwhite & Fosgrove story, as well. From script clarity to the punching up of themes, her contributions are hidden but true. Risks are taken in “Trees to Gold” — something sinister is revealed at the end of this tale, and Claire has helped guide my vision and make sure Mauro and Nikki know exactly what should go on the page and where. I appreciate her astute eye and ear.

I am very eager for you all to read this story, which I consider one of the best things I’ve ever written. While we crafted it to be consumable and poignant in its current form, the plotlines, character moments and themes presented here will extend into more Satterwhite & Fosgrove stories, hopefully culminating in a satisfying longform piece.

If you enjoy what we’re doing here please be sure to follow us on the socials (Instagram, Bluesky and Facebook) and please forward the comics to anyone you think may be interested. Every share, like, comment and emoji extends reach and will spurn more art and more story.

Nice talking at you again! Be well.

Westward!

~Jamil