Tag: westerns

Project: 100 Westerns: Part Eleven: Red Sun; The Ride Back; Outland; Oblivion

Posted on October, 2025 by JS

Whoa Riders,

Ride along in High-Concept Country, we’ve got some more Project: 100 Westerns for yawl!

I typically use this space to tell you I selected movies at random, but this time, I was pretty purposeful in my picks — mash-ups and mindbenders!

Westerns are great fodder for mixed-genre stories. We see it all the time in sci-fi, but it appears in manga/anime, big-budget action, crime television, cartoons and so much more. I thought it might be neat to leap headlong into these types of movies and see how successful they can be through the iterations.

#40. Red Sun (1971)

“Now we’re even, though I’m a little more even than you.”

Sporting a cast of some of the biggest international stars at the time, Red Sun is an ambitious cultural mashup that explores the relationship between two men on different ends of the honor spectrum.

Charles Bronson plays Link, a scoundrel who is only redeemed by the nastiness of his partner, Gauche, played by Alain Delon. The two decide to rob a train teeming with gold, but in the process Gauche betrays Link and leaves him for dead, whilst also stealing a prized samurai sword from a Japanese ambassador. Upon awakening from his brush with death, Link is tasked by the ambassador to accompany his bodyguard Koruda (Toshirƍ Mifune) on the retrieval mission, to which Link reluctantly capitulates.

The cowboy/samurai adventure that ensues is a playful but sufficiently grave affair that uses the central tension of the two leads to keep the plot churning. Link and Koruda maneuver around each other while using their wiles and strengths in entertaining ways, and of course the theme of Mutual (Brotherly) Respect emerges toward the last act. Delon plays a fine baddie, sinister but with enough humanity to make his next action unknown and his beau, Christina (Ursula Andress), slips into the “prostitute with a heart of coal” role very well, too, adding to the turmoil and danger.

Additionally, like any Western worth its salt, the action/fight scenes are well done, as I’d expect from a Bronson-led movie. There’s some neat-o set pieces here, including the bloody final sequence in a burning cane field. The only real knock I have against the movie is the choice of a horde of Indians as the final antagonist. They present more as a force of nature than a group of humans, and there’s a real lack of agency since there are essentially no Native characters in the film.

This movie maybe is a little too cute for some, but I thought it was smart and well-made, and considering the close relationship between the Western and Samurai genres, it makes a lot of sense. I recommend simply on the cast and concept alone.

#41. The Ride Back (1957)

“When you ask questions you gotta wait for answers.”

I’m finding the “two frenemies go on a short trip together” trope to be quite popular in the Western genre. It makes sense, the conditions on the fictional frontier are hazardous and the populace generally untrustworthy. It works in movies like Red Sun and The Deadly Companions, though all three suffer from the same weak-tea “faceless Native” threat to inject danger into the plot.

The Ride Back, written by Antony Ellis (adapted from a Gunsmoke radio show by the same author) and directed by Allen H. Miner, follows a predictable tune but hits the notes hard: Hamish (William Conrad) is a sad-sack lawman tasked with returning accused murderer Kallen (Anthony Quinn) back to the town of Scottsville to stand trial. The two, both on missions of self-preservation, clash routinely, which transforms into reluctant camaraderie in the face of danger.

Despite lots of Spanish (sans subtitles) in the first half, this movie is easy to follow and enjoy. The story points are minimal, but where the film blossoms is in the performances and dialogue. Conrad plays the battered Hamish with a low-simmering intensity, closed-off but increasingly fidgety in the face of complications. Quinn shows off his acumen with a charm and bravado that fills the screen. This is another one of those films that portends the genre’s Revisionist era by switching up conventions and subverting expectations. The “hero” is somewhat pathetic in his determination and his opposite almost has you cheering for more crime. There’s a underlying humor to the adventure, as well, with the two sniping at each other freely.

I liked this cozy movie — a brisk Southwestern trek through the psyche of the Western protagonist/antagonist dynamic.

#42. Outland (1981)

In this Space Western loosely based on 1952’s High Noon, a Marshal assigned to a mining facility on a moon of Jupiter is the lone opposition against the corrupt heads of said facility. Sean Connery stars as W.T. O’Niel, a man trying to find his purpose in a morally depleted world. We’re not told too much about O’Niel, he’s a petty stereotypical cop-dude, but the nuances from Connery’s performance colors the edges of the character well.

As a Sci-fi movie, Outland falls short of “good”, its concepts are too dated and not overly imaginative. This is very much “hard” sci-fi — a work of fiction with firm roots in actual science — which, compared to the tales of aliens and time-travel, is tough to pull off in an entertaining way. As a Western, it barely qualifies, the fantastical cosmic imagery is diametric to the very earthen shots of ground and grass. But as a Sci-fi Western it soars. The isolation, the danger, the lethal indifference of the citizenry and the setting, it’s all there, and done very well.

Connery shines as the curt and direct O’Niel, and he has two great scene partners: the ornery Dr. Lazarus (Frances Sternhagen) and Con-Amalgamated boss Mark Sheppard (Peter Boyle). Lazarus is mostly used to drop exposition and to talk through ideas, but damn are her cutting one-liners golden. Sheppard is the prime antagonist, the figurehead of corporate greed and apathy, and you can almost see this character/actor flourishing as a Bond villain in Connery’s previous cinematic endeavors.

The specter of dystopia and the cruelty of the environs infuse the movie with a sense of dread that is felt in the halls of the mining rig and found in the tired eyes of our characters. I think of this movie existing in the same universe as the Alien franchise, it shares the sooty retro-futuristic look and the themes of a dreary corporate bureaucracy which gobbles up the common man’s soul. Writer/director Peter Hymans massaged a fantastic remake out of a classic Western, and it amounts to one of my favorite Project: 100 viewings.

#43. RiffTrax: Oblivion (1994/2017)

Imagine all the conventions and imagery of a sci-fi movie violently blasted onto the canvas of a quaint horizon depicting a sun setting over the Rockies. That’s Oblivion.

“Ambitious” is a kind way to put it. There is just too, too much going on in this movie which lists least people five under the “Story By” or “Written By” credits, including fame scribe Peter David. I can’t even succinctly relay it here, it’s so jumbled in focus and feel and leans so heavily on the language of its parent genres it feels insincere.

Of course, I expected a bad product when I fired this up because it’s a project by RiffTrax, a Mystery Science Theater 3000 offshoot that roasts poorly assembled movies as they unfold. The boys do not disappoint in their savagery. George Takei never stood a chance!

From the poor acting (you’ll cringe toward infinity from Julie Newmar’s belabored cat noises), to the absurd set design (ceiling fans count as futuristic, right??) there’s fertile ground here to mock. Even more transgressions: random ass side characters with paper-thin personalities, grueling meandering in and around low-budget locales, off-brand Muppets, boring stereotypes, random ass quotes from other movies and the gall to flash a “To Be Continued” message before the end credits.

That said, there’s a nugget or two of a good idea here, but as comic writer Dan Slott has put it: this suffers from “too many mojos”. It’s like a slapdash campfire story where each kid around the circle adds a little bit of their own favorite lore and passes it to the next. Lizard-man banditos? Empath lawmen? Robotic justice-bringers? Focus on one of these ideas and maybe it works. Throw them all in a pot and forget the seasoning? That’s how you fuck up a meal.

We’ve got another new short coming debuting on November 4th, 2025! Please make a return trip at that time, and remember to pass along our comics to likeminded Western fans!

 

Westward!

 

~Jamil

Comic Eleven: First Angry

Posted on October, 2025 by JS

Giddy up gang,

Stories are life experiences filtered though characters and plot and setting. An author’s job is to make shit up in order to relate some truth or idea. While a lot of All-True Outlaw stories are quick shot comics on a specific theme or high-concept flicker, “First Angry” is a gestalt of funky brain-thoughts. Here’s some of what’s smooshed into this 7-page short:

Back in 2023 during a trip to Arizona, all my senses took an adventure as I traveled for the first time from the leafy Appalachian biome to the land of cacti and aridity. It was awesome experience of seeing mountains and vistas and feeling warmth of the winter sun karmically balanced again vicious nosebleeds and acute sinus pressure.

Naturally, I took in the food and art scene as best I could – nature as well! (Saguaro National Park was flat incredible!). I saw a lot of neat stuff at the botanical gardens. One animal I took particular note of was a coyote in the wildlife preserve. I was intrigued by its wary behavior, keeping its distance from humans, pacing the fence line, watching with a sort of relaxed attentiveness. I’d always been intrigued by the animal’s relationship with America’s Native peoples, which led me down the path of researching trickster gods, mythology and creation lore.

I’ve covered the subgenre of Acid Westerns a bit in Project 100, which are pretty niche and are part of a sparse catalogue that shares hazy similarities. Acid Westerns are firmly in the Revisionist category: claustrophobic, dire and occasionally odd. We tried to style “First Angry” in this way, it should give you a sense of dread and worry, with a tinge of Wild West to keep it thematically appropriate. Throw in a lacquer of 1990s counterculture attire and a scofflaw protagonist and you got yourself a stew going.

This meaty mess is emulsified with art by Jordan Kroeger and a lettering confection by Marina Leon. Jordan’s art serves as the perfect medium to channel the vibe of the script. His line work walks a path between realism and fantasy, which is the path walked by Hamish, the main character. His eye toward page design and panel composition hums the story along, keeping things together until it all begins to rumble apart.

You may remember Marina’s work on “Taking a Life” from a few months back. She fulfilled the requirements of the story very, very well – including a tight turnaround. Marina captured the retro vibe in the font choices and made sure things slouched into the psychedelic, when appropriate.

So that’s a bit how a story is assembled over at All-True Outlaw, forcing big ideas into a misshapen vessel and making sure it’s drawn well!

Appreciate your patronage.

Westward!

 

~Jamil

Project: 100 Westerns: Part Ten: Slow West; West of the Pecos; Jonah Hex; Dead Man

Posted on September, 2025 by JS

Dear gunfighters,

Four more movies have been compiled in Project: 100 Westerns!

While in past write-ups I’ve claimed that I don’t really have a methodology of the movie picks, I realized that’s a bit of a lie. While I don’t normally select based on subgenre or the talent in front of or behind the camera, I definitely try to divvy my choices up by decade. I like to get a cross sample of the different eras of Hollywood, and Westerns are a fantastic time capsule for this.

In this group I definitely slanted toward newer releases… Let’s see how it went!

#36. Slow West (2015)

In 1870, a lovesick boy and a bounty hunter travel through Colorado to find the boy’s crush, but the bounty hunter has other plans…

It’s sort of wild this movie has been out for ten years, as it still feels somewhat new to me. Starring Kodi Smit-McPhee and Michael Fassbender, this wandering low-budget Western with a revisionist slant is methodical in its gait. Not a whole lot happens plot-wise, but it somehow feels full and complete nonetheless.

A lot of the drive behind the endeavor is fueled by the interactions between the naive but determined Jay and the wise but jaded Silas. This is hardly the first Western to team up two disparate souls but the reluctant camaraderie between the two provide the plot with enough juice to reach the end goal. The central tension of Silas tracking down Jay’s object of affection, Rose Ross (Caren Pistorius), while the younger man tries to wrangle his emotions is a pretty damn good hook.

While there at lot of aesthetics that feel ripped from Spaghetti Westerns, including wonderful accents and wacky, messy characters, what differentiates this movie from most others is the choice of color palette. There’s sort of this oversaturated thing going on here. The brightness and severe tone of everything are dreamlike and almost nauseating, there’s a certain unnaturalness to it that goes counter to the drab and muted style that the genre is known for. It’s a daring choice but sways well with the mismatched duo of Jay and Silas.

Slow West is a pretty good film, and a quick watch too. It was sort of a critical darling there when it came out but doesn’t get the flowers it deserves as one of the better modern Westerns.

#37. West of the Pecos (1945)

A young Robert Mitchum stars in this Texas-set story about a wealthy man and his daughter moving West and getting caught up in the drama of the frontier. Frankly, the beats of this movie are neither compelling or original. There’s a stagecoach robbery that happens in the beginning and it drives some story movement but really it serves as the branch for the foliage of love to sprout.

There’s a hardy comedic bend to the going-ons here. This Zane Grey adaptation kicks off in Chicago where Colonel Lambreth (Thurston Hall) is convinced by his daughter Rill (Barbara Hale) to move West to ease his deteriorating health. Quickly upon arrival, they are pulled into the life of Pecos Smith (Mitchum), a charming cowboy with a hardened edge. What stirs the drink is that Rill, after being harassed in town, decides to disguise herself as a man which creates a humorously tense relationship with Pecos as she flirtatiously challenges him at every turn. There’s a sort of a queerness to the story that works really well, even by modern sensibilities.

I do want to note here the role of the comical Chito Rafferty, played by Richard Martin. When I was looking up the background on West of the Pecos I discovered Chito appears in over 30 different movies, all played by Martin. The Mexican-Irish sidekick not only appears all over the West and abroad, but in several different time settings. Whenever gripes about comic book movie reboots or re-castings of legacy characters I can now point to the Chito Cinematic Universe as an example of the intelligence of audiences, even way back when.

The movie does a good enough job – it’s got the lightness of a classic Western with a dose of peril to keep the viewer on their toes.

#38. Jonah Hex (2010)

Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich, Will Arnett, Michael Fassbender (again), Michael Shannon, Lance Reddick, Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Yep, this is one of the most squandered casts of all time.

DC Comics’ Jonah Hex is very likely the premiere comic book Western character (and a huge inspiration for the All-True Outlaw comics). Created in the ‘70s, the adventures of the ex-Confederate bounty hunter were catalogued in comics All-Star Western and Weird Western Tales. Later, cementing his appeal, Jonah was catapulted into increasingly odd scenarios, like post-apocalyptic futures and zombie-horror jaunts. The character always has had a slick relationship with the amazing and the occult, but absolutely can excel in more grounded realms too.

This concept was lost on the production team behind Jonah Hex, where nearly every aspect of the movie is dialed up to eleven. In an attempt to invoke the spectacle of the four-colored world, Hex can (somehow) speak to corpses, gunshots propel victims across rooms and explosions rupture from seemingly nowhere. The tropes of the West are overly baroque and severe. It’s like the European Western on Super Soldier Serum. This flick somehow learned the wrong lessons of Wild, Wild West, all while hitting a lot of similar story beats. Probably the most egregious thing, though? It’s set in the South! There’s this underlying post-Civil War commentary that does not land at all.

It’s essentially Red Dead Redemption: The Movie, which coincidentally debuted the same year. The actors move sort of like stiff NPCs, the internal physics are bombastic, and there’s outlandish oddities like an underground fight club featuring a snake-man from “halfway across the world”.

It’s pretty much universally understood to be a very bad movie, and going in knowing that
I actually sort of like it more than I did seeing it for the first time about fifteen years ago. It’s just an absurd piece of art, a twistedly misguided homage to both films and comics, and with generally good performances across the board, you could do worse in the genre.

#39. Dead Man (1995)

“Every night and every morn’, Some to misery are born, Every morn’ and every night, Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night.”

The cult classic Dead Man, directed by Jim Jarmusch, is sort of a herald of the type of Western that would be popular for the next couple decades. Artsy, thoughtful, with a heavy swath of weirdness, it marries the old films of the American frontier with modern technique.

This is where the descriptor labels before the word “Western” gets muddled. The term “Acid Western” applies here, for sure – it’s very likely the epitome of that subgenre. But it also skitters into “neo-Western” territory. From casting choices to soundtrack to literary allusions, it’s a piece that portends the future of filmmaking. There’s a lot to admire here, but also, damn this thing is just a bit full of itself.

Scenes drag on a great deal longer than they need; the tone whips you around like a ride on a bucking bronco; the characters pontificate and monologue just for the sake of filling the air with sound. There’s a lot about Dead Man that I didn’t “get”, which in some ways makes it an fantastic Acid Western, but not a great movie.

Johnny Depp stars as William Blake, a numbers-man from Cleveland who relocates to the West for a job but quickly finds himself in peril when he murders a man in self-defense. He takes a shot to the chest and flees, only to be found by Nobody (Gary Farmer), a sorta-exiled Native brimming with thoughts of wisdom. Nobody informs Blake that the still-lodged bullet will kill him soon enough and the pall of death hangs over Blake in every step and action. The audience is on a ride along toward his inevitable death.

The movie is littered with a heap of good-to-great performances. Most notable is Robert Mitchum, in his final film role, as the town boss, but we also get great (albeit brief) stuff from Billy Bob Thornton, Alfred Molina, Michael Wincott, Crispin Glover and others. Depp is pretty good, as well, though he’s so confused and reactive in this that he’s more a good scene partner for the other actors than a leading man.

Neil Young provides the soundtrack with the very improvisational approach of riffing on his electric guitar, which adds a lot to the overall disjointed, stumbling nature of the whole affair.

I didn’t love this movie, but also think it’s a near must-watch for Western fans. It does a lot with a little, even if it has you checking your watch occasionally.

We’re chugging along like a brand-new locomotive here. Return to our pasture on October 6th, 2025 for a Western comic much in the build of some of these movies we just reviewed.

 

Westward!

 

~Jamil

Project: 100 Westerns: Part Nine: The Deadly Companions; Joshua; Mannaja: A Man Called Blade; News of the World

Posted on August, 2025 by JS

How yah henches?

We’re at the one-third mark in Project: 100 Westerns! It feels like I’ve watched way more than 30-something old(ish) movies since the beginning of the year, but the numbers don’t lie.

Again, the methodology of these picks is basically “vibes” (and maybe a cursory googling). Although we’ve learned by now that Westerns are seedy, dour affairs, this was a particularly shadowy batch of films.

#32. The Deadly Companions (1961)

Sam Peckinpah is considered one of Western’s most influential directors, which is pretty much predicated on his helming of The Wild Bunch, a beloved movie in the genre’s vast catalogue. Peckinpah is known for his brutal depiction of frontier life, one of the flagbearers of the Revisionist age. The Deadly Companions is his first feature as director, and though he reportedly had very little say-so over the film’s script or staging (to the point that he was only allowed to direct the female lead via her brother-in-law), this has Sam’s fingerprints all over it.

Based on an A.S. Fleischman novel, the movie follows Yellowleg (Brian Keith), a scalped former-soldier-turned-criminal, as he enters a Texas(?) town along with his outlaw compatriots, Billy and Turk (Steve Cochran and Chill Wills). Tragedy strikes when Yellowleg accidently kills a young boy during a shootout, and in his subsequent guilt he offers to escort Kit (Maureen O’Hara), the boy’s mother, to an abandoned town to bury him next to his father.

That general plot creates immediate tautness in the movie, with the added danger that Billy is revving to assault Kit at the first available moment. The ugliness of a Peckinpah Western is woven in from the first thread, and initially you have a hard time feeling good about any of these characters, though you certainly sympathize with them.

The general quality of the movie’s print, as well as some glaring technical mistakes, mar the interesting premise. The visual and audio qualities are shoddy, to say the least, and demonstrate the learning curve of a first time director. Good luck seeing anything during the scenes shot at night or inside caves!

Keith and O’Hara save this from being a disaster though. Despite a sagging second act that basically wanders in the wilderness, the two offer very good performances as a couple of despondent souls in need of any glimmer of hope. Yellowleg and Kit trauma-bond a little too fast, but at the same time these two fuck-ups make a believable couple.

In the end, an enjoyable film about joylessness, I guess.

#33. Joshua (1976)

Ah, so the quality of this movie makes The Deadly Companions look like celluloid gold.

Alternately titled Black Rider, Joshua the Black Rider, or Revenge, this tale is super straightforward and without frills: Joshua is a soldier returning from war, but when arriving at the homestead in which his mother works, he finds she’s been murdered by a roving sect of assholes.

Blaxploitation movie stalwart Fred Williamson wrote and stars in Joshua, and does a fine enough job moving through the story like the hardened killer he’s supposed to be. Josh rarely speaks, and explains his actions even less. He’s driven by revenge and misses his momma, and that’s all we really know about him. This type of character can work, and even thrive, in the Western setting, but when the world around the silent mercenary type is devoid of richness and texture, it makes the shortcomings of the main character’s whole deal all the more glaring.

It doesn’t help that this is one visually fuzzy movie, and it’s brimming with some of the worst acting I’ve seen yet during Project: 100. The movie’s pack of villains are cartoonish, freakishly rotten and stupid, and just about anyone with a speaking line sounds like they’re in 5th grade reading a book report about something they barely skimmed. Additionally, the movie’s score is like this New Wave inspired twangy thing that just doesn’t know when to fade out.

I wouldn’t say this was an absolute struggle to get through, it’s got enough action and violence to offset the bland parts, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone outside of Williamson fans. The most interesting part may have come at the very end, when Joshua decides to kill the homesteader’s abducted wife (who is literally nameless) after the movie sorta indicated he was on a rescue mission. It reinforces the central conceit that this guy is hollowed out by wartime murdering, and has almost nothing left to live for.

#34. Mannaja: The Man Called Blade (1977)

 

“For twenty years, my only dream was to face you down and kill you for what you did to my father. And you know, you are not worth the brass of my seven petty cartridges.”

A crafty and properly violent Italian Western, this one follows the same verve as Joshua, but to better affect.

Maurizio Merli plays the mercenary Mannaja, a standard gunfighter type that we’ve seen in dozens of these films. He’s smooth, handsome, rugged and has little time for your bullshit. Using his preferred weapon of a tomahawk, he’ll slice through you to get what he wants.

Ultimately, Mannaja is driven by a mission of personal vengeance and the occasion for this story is that he finally finds McGowan (Philippe Leroy), the businessman who killed his father and stole his land. The plot turns when the now old man commissions the merc to rescue his daughter from a turncoat foreman, which then turns out very badly for Mannaja. This development helps evolve a fairly trope-heavy movie into something a little different in its final act.

There’s a nice balance of Spaghetti trappings and originality here. The action you would expect is all here — prolonged gunfights and powerful explosions and brutal fistfights — but also thoughtful dialogue and nonphysical obstacles for our protagonist to overcome. The rotation of villains is also engaging, as Mannaja deals with several different calibers of baddie. Right on the good/bad fulcrum is the soundtrack, which is anchored on an interesting ballad by Oliver Onions, but is then repeated like five different times during the course of the 90-min affair.

The flavor of Mannaja: A Man Called Blade is quite spicy. Merli does his job transitioning from one badass mannaja into periled antihero, and expected elements of a hearty Western are all there. The movie won’t blow you away, but fine enough for a lazy watch.

#35. News of the World (2020)

After all the rough edits, blurry visuals and ear affronts, I needed to cleanse the palette with a modern production and an A-lister star.

Set in Texas during Reconstruction, this movie about loss and reclamation is beautifully shot, and smartly paced, literally and figuratively. Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks) is a former Confederate turned newsreader, a job that makes him sort of a precursor to late night show hosts. The drama begins when he comes across a twice-orphaned girl in the woods, a child abducted from a German couple then raised by native for six years. The story follows Kidd as he shepherds her back to her only living relatives near his hometown of San Antonio.

You can really tell the script is based off of a book (by Paulette Jiles), its choice of narrative flow and switching locales is novelistic. Kidd and Johanna (Helena Zengel) encounter many dangers, from abductors to militias to dust storms, and through those trials we discover their respective unhealed wounds. There’s a lot of The Deadly Companions in the spirit of this story, two damaged individuals on a journey, but executed better in nearly every way. Turns out, a huge budget helps!

Hanks is Hanks, just simply very good as the main beast pulling the wagon. Zengel shines as his primary scene partner, playing a complicated part of a child of two worlds entering a third. Also I just love how this movie looks, as well. The set pieces and costuming is top-notch.

Debuting during a pandemic year certainly hurt this movie’s distribution, as I rarely see it mentioned in discussions about quality contemporary Westerns, but it’s up there.

I think in the next installment, I’m going to at least try to pick something lighter…if that’s even possible in the Western world!

Check back on Sept 1st, 2025 for a new Satterwhite & Fosgrove comic!đŸ”đŸ€ 

 

Westward!

 

~Jamil

Project: 100 Westerns: Part Eight: Last of the Wild Horses; Stars in My Crown; Shanghai Noon; China 9, Liberty 37

Posted on July, 2025 by JS

Salutations street-toughs,

Welcome back to Project: 100 Westerns!  We’re approaching the one-third mark in my endeavor to watch 100 Westerns, and I’m starting to get a little more adventurous in my picks. This quartet might be the most dissimilar group I’ve tackled yet.

Read on, loyal reader!

#28. Last of the Wild Horses – MST3K Version (1948/1994)

“Here’s where the sepia tone really pays off.”

Since we slid a bit in Sci-fi with this month’s release of Glistening Scar (by Dan Lauer, Amal Desai and myself) I thought it apt to rope in one of my all-time favorite TV shows: Mystery Science Theater 3000.

If you’re not in the know, MST3K stars the literal captive audience of a normal human dude and a pair of robots, documenting their mockery of a real-life bad movie. The features very often tilt toward science-fiction realms, but not always, as is the case of Last of the Wild Horses.

It’s a sloggy movie, gray as hell with terrible audio quality. It follows Duke (James Ellison), a bandit on the path to reform after his recruitment onto a horse farm. There’s a romance with the farmer’s daughter somewhere in there, and a smattering of frontier (in)justice, for good measure. This is a paint-by-numbers Western in just about every way. Except the palette is gray, light-gray, almost white, storm cloud and ash.

For fans of the show, this episode is famous for a Star Trek inspired switcheroo: in a multiversal accident, the series’ villains, Dr. Forrester and his sidekick TV’s Frank (aka The Mads) are the ones in the theater mocking the film through the first segment. It’s a treat for the aficionados, and a hidden gem in the deep catalogue of “experiments” constituting the show’s run.

In terms of the movie inside the TV show, I think one needs the MST3K enhancements to get through this piece of cinema. As Crow complains about halfway through: “The movie’s just starting to mosey now! The pace is rough sledding, and this viewer can only handle so many transition shots of people walking someplace before the scene even bothers to start.

#29. Stars in My Crown (1950)

This is labeled Western but is more of a “Southern”. It slants way more toward “historical piece” than “adventure story”.

For the creative conglomerates that produced a film like this, something like Stars in My Crown are the tales of their (great-)grandparents, the happenings still in the living memory of their elders. And indeed, it’s based off of a novel by Joe David Brown, inspired by the memory of his preacher grandfather.

The movie sort of starts out like a traditional Western: a parson named Josiah Gray (Joel McCrea) saunters into the town of Walesburg, Tennessee and immediately enters the local saloon to give a sermon. When the unruly patrons scoff at this attempt, Gray pulls out two handguns and continues to preach at gunpoint. This sets up the parson as a no-nonsense type with a bit of a jagged edge, but honestly, this aura of gruffness dissipates quickly through the first act. Guns and power play only a small part in this story.

Rather, the film revolves around the challenges of Gray to bring more morality and kindness to Walesburg. The slow building A-plot concerns freed slave Uncle “Famous” (Juano Hernandez) as he fends off a wealthy mine owner looking to obtain his land; the B-plot turns on an outbreak of “slow fever” that pits the parson and the town doctor (James Mitchell) against each other in an ideological spat.

The story overall is a bit Pollyanna, but pleasant and put together well. Gray continuously inspires the town through his good nature and the adherence to his values and teachings, and the final scene or two are quite charming and earned. It also gets a few bonus points for one of the best character names I’ve ever seen – Chloroform Wiggins.

#30. Shanghai Noon (2000)

 

There’s a large bracket of folks who were raised during the Age of (Cable) TV, which I would loosely define from the 1960s until about a decade ago. For these watchers, certain movies or programs seem to be stalwarts of the medium. The reruns were constant, and the stuff that played repeatedly become ingrained into the cultural zeitgeist.

Shanghai Noon certainly fits into that category, for me, at least. This movie appeared in the scrollable channel guide a whole lot in my teen years, but to be honest, I’m not entirely sure I ever really watched it front-to-back. It was definitely one of those movies you sort of flip on and play in the background until you find something better to do.

Honestly, I forgot the reason a station would put a movie like this into heavy rotation is because it’s actually pretty good.

In the current age of Western, where the current offerings slant generally into either “low-budget” or “arthouse” we need more movies like Shanghai Noon. The movie follows the buddy flick formula, teaming two oddballs on a mission full of action and humor. We have Owen Wilson’s Roy O’Bannon – who we discover in the last minute is also somehow Wyatt Earp – a womanizing thief recently expelled from his own gang, and Jackie Chan’s Chon Wang – a play on “John Wayne” – a Chinese Imperial Guard on a mission to save an abducted princess (Lucy Liu). This plot and casting is pretty obviously trying to catch and harness the magic of Chan’s mega hit Rush Hour, and it comes very close to achieving that vibe.

The movie plays off of a lot of the Western tropes for comedic effect, but stops short of satire or parody. It’s an absurd movie, and the tonal quality is just right, for the most part. There are amazing comedic sequences (of note is the scene where Roy and Chon get blitzed in bathtubs) and Chan’s action choreography injects a super fun element into a fairly average series of plot churns.

This is a good popcorn flick, and it almost makes me want to take back what I’ve said previously about the Comedy Western’s effectiveness. There’s a lesson here about what tenor and inspiration this subgenre should take on, and generally the Western needs more high concept ideas and a more high-flying atmosphere if it wants to attract mainstream audiences again.

#31. China 9, Liberty 37 (1978)

“I need you tonight, and I hate you for it.”

No, you’re not reading the score of an odd football matchup. This methodical Western (with a heavy tint of love story) is led by Fabio Testi and directed by Monte Hellman. It was released in 1978 under the title Amore piombo e furore (“Love, Lead, and Fury”) but didn’t reach the US until 1984.

Basic plot rundown: Mere minutes before his scheduled hanging, gunfighter Clay Drumm is tasked by a railroad company to kill a man whose property they covet. After spending a few days with Matt (Warren Oates) and his wife Catherine (Jenny Agutter), Clay decides against murder
but does engage in an affair with the wife, which leads to the pair fleeing a scorned Matt and his clan. Bullets fly, the damsel changes hands a couple times and the guy on the horse tries to save the day.

The movie leans heavily on extended takes, cheesecake/beefcake and a lively soundtrack. The flavor of the Italian-Spanish Western is as thick as Testi’s accent. It takes a long, long while for the audience to feel the friction of the plot. Maybe a third of the movie is spent introducing us to the characters and their surroundings, and in formulaic fashion, the last third pops with gunfire and sex. What normally keeps a movie like that afloat is either compelling camera work or inspired repartee, neither which isn’t exactly crackling in this. The dubbing and audio is a speck slipshod, as well. I try not to watch with captions but this time I just had to.

The romance at the heart works via the effort of Testi and Agutter. The atmosphere of syrupy lust is sometimes too thick, the attraction between Clayton and Catherine is prominent and immediate. It’s not until much later in the film, after danger has entwined them even further, that you feel their genuine connection and a fear for their romantic future.

I liked China 9, Liberty 37 more than the other Hellman (Ride in a Whirlwind) and Testi (Dead Men Ride) films I’ve previously reviewed for this column. It has a jumbled morality and a bare plot but the steady quality provides enough juice to get you to the ending credits.

Good movie! Though, I would still like to see The People’s Republic of China and Liberty University play football.

This was maybe my smoothest group so far. Nothing felt like a chore.

We have a new comic release on Aug 4th, 2025! A revenge story gone wrong!

And remember to follow on the social accounts: Instagram, Bluesky, X and Facebook! Every like, comment and share helps us exponentially.

Westward!

 

~Jamil

Project: 100 Westerns: Part Seven: Black Patch; Hombre; Noose for a Gunman; Quantum Cowboys

Posted on June, 2025 by JS

Hi homesteaders,

This is another post for Project: 100 Westerns, where I watch anything under the genre umbrella and tell if you rocked or sucked. I’m fixin’ to watch 100 Westerns, no matter how long it takes me.

In this group of four, I took in a trio of movies from the heyday of Western filmmaking, and one that is very modern, both in production date, subject matter and technique.

#24. Black Patch (1957)

In a different era of Hollywood, there was no blueprint. Nowadays, the blueprint is coda.

What I’m cleverly trying to say is: things are way, way too formulaic now. Studios are taking few chances on anything “new”, while still trying to catch and retain “flashy”. This doesn’t just manifest in the bevy of franchises that hit the screens each year, but in the way these stories are told, as well.

Black Patch isn’t a great movie, but at least it’s interesting in structure and pace. There’s an element of it that feels novelistic, with its squishy characters wrestling with real consequences. We’re quickly introduced to “Black Patch” (George Montgomery) nicknamed so for the garb he wears over his eye lost in war, but in a previous life he was known as Clay Morgan. That past saunters into his present when his old Army pal, Hank (Leo Gordon — also the script writer!), enters the town with Clay’s former flame, Helen (Diana Brewster), as his wife. There’s another hitch – both men have new careers. Clay is a town marshal, and Hank a thief.

This stirs the drink well, and leads to some interesting plot dynamics that had me guessing until the very end. Side character Carl (also known as Flytrap), whom I previously known as Marv from High School Big Shot (a classic Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode) ascends from goofy side character to interesting menace, which helps kick the story along, even as other elements sputter by the end.

I liked this one, it’s got a different speed and plenty of pathos, even if it could have been a deal better in the third act.

#25. Hombre (1967)

Dr. Favor:
“That’s something you’ll learn about white people. They stick together.”

Hombre:
“They’d better.”

This is very likely the best film I’ve seen yet in Project: 100.

“Methodical” is the one word descriptor, applying to both pace and lead character. “Hombre” (nĂ©e John Russell) is a smooth bro, calm in words and gait, and really doesn’t have time for any of your bullshit.

To dub this one of Paul Newman’s best performances would be a spicy take, his legendary filmography stands tall, but considering I’ve never heard of this film I’m going to say it’s an underrated entry in his catalogue of roles. Hombre is not a man pleased with the general nature of the “white world”, having been raised by Apache Indians from a young age, however when his adoptive (Caucasian) father dies and leaves him a piece of land, he ventures back into civilization.

Hombre surprisingly sells the boarding house property, catching the mild ire of acting landlord Jessie (Diane Cilento). They both catch the next stagecoach out of town and a bulk of the story is then told on the desert road. We get an interesting mix of characters in the horse-drawn vehicle, a host of personalities that clash and sway together extremely well from the jump. Also on board are a young couple unsatisfied with their time in the West, an affable Mexican driver, a doctor and his young(er) wife and a gruff, obliquely dangerous feller played by the always fabulous Richard Boone.

When this group of strangers find themselves in sudden danger, Hombre is compelled, reluctantly, to step up and lead them out of the desert. The most capable of the clan is hardly the most affable, and it leads to a lot of snappy dialogue with plenty of snips. The movie’s script is fantastic, and I’m curious how much dialogue is pulled straight from the 1961 Elmore Leonard book it was adapted from.

It’s got the blood and brawn of a standard Western flick, with some heart and guts to go along with it. A really good movie that boasts a blend of styles from the dying Tradition age and the forthcoming Revisionist era.

#26. Noose for a Gunman (1960)

The Steve Fisher short story “The Fastest Gun” was adapted into film three times over nine years. This is the second such attempt.

It’s fascinating that this movie was made within a decade of Hombre, the two films are so stylistically different it was jarring watching them so close together. That’s one of the neat things about this Western watching venture – witnessing the evolution of Hollywood and the medium of film. Whereas Paul Newman’s movie was “methodical”, Noose for a Gunman is plainly “stiff”. The actors spit out their lines like regimen, the action is tight, the personalities are narrow and direct. Early Westerns had this idyllic vibe that later iterations seemed to have shunned completely. Purposely so.

Jim Davis plays Case Britton, a hired gun who returns to his hometown of Rock Valley five years after murdering the sons of its biggest rancher and benefactor. Rock Valley balks at his sudden appearance, some even call for his immediate arrest and hanging, but Case still has friends in town, and is determined to meet his future bride, Della (Lyn Thomas), when she arrives via stagecoach.

Case deals with antagonism on many sides, from the rancher, Avery (Barton McLane),  to his hired muscle Link Roy (Leo Gordon, again) and gang leader Cantrell (Ted de Corsia), this keeps the movie churning and interesting enough to grab this watcher, but right around the time Case becomes the town’s new marshal, I sort of checked out a bit. I do give credit to the climax however, which provides a bit of fun gunplay and the impressive choice to allow Della to play the hero in a tense moment.

I’m curious as to how the other two films adapted “The Fastest Gun”, it’s got the bones of a decent, though super formulaic story, but I didn’t see much to brag about in Noose for a Gunman.

#27. Quantum Cowboys (2022)

One of those “what the hell did I just watch?” movies.

A metafictional Western that uses several animation styles as well as live-action, Quantum Cowboys challenges the viewer to keep up, even as it scuttles ahead at warp speed. It’s the brainchild of Geoff Marslett, and commendable in its subject matter and technique, but at times I found it a little too wonky and unfocused to be a winner in the genre.

The movie oscillates between several viewpoints, from the co-lead cowboy types, to a narrator akin to Utau the Watcher, and a voyeuristic film crew seemingly manipulating some events. As you may glean from the title, there is an element of time travel in the plot (and themes!) and heady ideas about memory and reality are poured onto the audience within the first few minutes.

The basic gist: Frank (Kiowa Gordon) and Bruno (John Way) are a pair of friends who get wrapped up in temporal hijinks, and bump into a host of weirdos, including a lady drifter-type played by Lily Gladstone. It takes a long while for the plot to adjoin the puzzle pieces, but the psychedelic, cartoony cinematography kept me into it as I waited for the story to cohere.

The third act delivers some payoff, but also falls victim to the tropes of time travel stories, and then sort of just ends without a direct resolution. There’s a notation that this is the first part of a larger story, though given how off-the-wall the themes and editing are, I almost feel like the abrupt final moments were an intentional troll.

Lots of points for ambition here, and I could even be convinced to watch it again.

An interesting bunch, to say the least. I’m realizing now I maybe should have group some of these thematically. It certainly would have been easier to write!

Please return July 7th, 2025 for a brand new All-True Outlaw comic! That’s eight in eight months, if you’re countin’!

Westward!

 

~Jamil

Project: 100 Westerns: Part Six: Organ Trail; Dead Men Ride; The Fighting Westerner; The Magnificent Seven

Posted on May, 2025 by JS

Ciao cowpokes,

We’re six deep into Project: 100 Westerns! If you’re just joining us, I’m gonna watch 100 Westerns and provide a mini review on each.

This edition features a couple of newer entries, as well a super old one, and a fourth that’s slotted right betwixt those two eras.

#20. Organ Trail (2023)

Playing off of Xillennial nostalgia, The Organ Trail harkens back to the age when schools had computer labs with rows of bulky monitors and noisy printers. Many of us in a certain age bracket remember the popularity and fun of the classic PC game, The Oregon Trail, where the player would take on the task of navigating the famous passage in a digital world, including shooting pixelated game, forging rivers, buying digital goods and avoiding dysentery. This movie lures in a certain age bracket on title alone. 

Set in 1870s Montana, Organ Trail is presented as a “horror” but probably slots better into “thriller”, despite the promotional vibe of the poster, tagline and trailer. There is sufficient violence, and does have some slasher movie vibes, especially toward the end, but frankly, the plot swerves and vibrates so much that its more defined by its unsteady nature than the antagonistic elements. 

The movie relies heavily on sudden developments and shocking turns, so I am hesitant to get too much into the specific details. I will give kudos for the ambition in the writing, it certainly honors the brutal nature depicted in many Westerns and punches it up to 11. This volatility helps define the tone, but also is detriment when it comes to a cohesive story arc. The shifting concentration and drastic plot maneuvers are like a sugar high – they entertain for a moment and then you crash as you reorient to the new situation/characters/danger. 

I’ve said before: We’re in a bit of a hidden renaissance of Westerns, with a trove of D-list actors starring in low-budget affairs that are relegated to streaming services like Tubi and Plex. Many are not good, about the quality of a Lifetime movie, and Organ Trail sort of slots into that feel, but overall it’s got a fairly good production quality and actor pool. 

What mars the effort are some absolutely unbelievable sequences that break immersion. Despite the inherent historical elements of Westerns, I do not expect them to adhere to reality at all times, but some of the things that happen in the movie will take you out of it. In one scene, a villain fires his gun straight into the air as a warning, only for the bullets (all of ‘em) to zoom down and strike his body with extreme force. There is some debate about the fatal velocity of bullets shot into the sky, but the depiction of this scene is insane. In the next segment, the protagonist jumps into a frozen river and comes out mostly unscathed several minutes later. In a moment during the final act, one antagonist draws his guns within a foot of another baddie, only for them to be wrestled away and used against him. These little moments of poor choreography and wonky physics salt away most of the good will the movie generates.

All in all, it’s a fine snowy Western, has a few good performances and does just enough to keep the audience engaged until the very end. I’m not sure I liked it, but you could do a lot worse in the age of the Streaming Western. 

#21 Dead Men Ride (1971)

“We are all at fault, we old ones even more.”

This Italian-Spanish Western wastes no time setting up its main character and central premise: escaped prisoner Roy (Fabio Testi) stumbles across a small mining community and decides to ride into town to confront their exploiter, a wealthy man by the name of Redfield (Eduardo Fajardo). As the plot unwinds, we gain context on what drives Roy to take up this hero’s task, and there are some surprising layers to this at-times brutal film. 

All in all, this is a straightforward and competent movie. t’s not super ambitious, but possesses enough action and swerve to propel the viewer through the hour-and-a-half minute runtime. A lot of the tension in the movie relies on the actors’ long stares and a solid soundtrack, but that works in the realm of spaghetti. In typical European fashion, the drama of the whole thing is enhanced through intense standoffs and baroque masculinity – Roy is the typical gunslinger type, short on words but extremely capable with a gun or blade, and his bent toward justice frames the rest of the character’s motivations. The ridiculously good looking Testi helps shift the film along, and the side actors do their job as well. 

If you’re looking for something that apes the Sergio Leone style, this is it. 

#22. The Fighting Westerner (1935)

When this movie, based on an unfinished Zane Grey book, originally released in 1935 it was titled Rocky Mountain Mystery, which is more appropriate for the atmosphere it evokes. The 1930s were the heyday of the hardboiled detective story, and The Fighting Westerner (retitled upon rerelease in the ‘50s) is a murder mystery set in the rural mountainland. Randolph Scott, who would go on to be one of the stalwarts of the Western genre, plays Larry Sutton, a mining engineer tasked to replace his disgraced brother-in-law at a radium mine. Upon arrival, he meets a host of furtive characters, from the mine-owner’s children, to the housekeeper and a Chinese servant, and all become suspects in the string of murders at the estate.

The movie straddles the Western genre line in interesting ways. Larry has a Southern drawl, and looks the part, but doesn’t immediately come across as an avenger of justice. The actual law, Deputy Tex Murdock (Chic Sale) is the hillbilly side character type, almost played for laughs but not quite. The setting is obliquely modern, there are cars and telephones, but apparently rustic as well. There’s a cloaked killer roaming the household, and a big reveal in the final act, just like some of the more spooky PI tales of the era. It’s a fascinating mashup of genres before that was really even a thing, and I’m here for it.

Given the movie was produced 90 years ago, it doesn’t completely hold up to the modern eye. Some of the acting is rough, and there’s naturally some dated stances toward certain groups and concepts. Still, it builds the tension well, including through the pounding of mining equipment that portends an ominous ending for anyone on the wrong side of it.

#23. The Magnificent Seven (2016)

A remake of a remake, that’s what this is, and it ain’t too bad.

Westerns are tricky endeavors nowadays. Ask Kevin Costner. While there’s an appetite for the genre, its popularity is a whisper of what it once was. You need serious star power to get asses in seats for these movies, which is why all those stream darlings titled “Guns and Whiskey” and starring a niche country music star and a bunch of dayplayers are so low budget.

The Magnificent Seven 2.0 boasts a very strong cast, headlined by Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt and further supported by Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio and Peter Sarsgaard, among others. The original, and its inspiration, Seven Samurai, basically popularized the “dream team” format, where a hyper capable guy recruits other super skilled individuals for a seemingly insurmountable task. The 2016 version hits those beats very well, giving us a diverse and fun group that make the movie worth watching. Aside from a few key differences, the plot of “badass dudes protect a small town from a megalomaniac” is intact and executed well. There’s nothing really mind-blowing about this script, its steeped in homage and convention. When you consider that the Nic Pizzolatto, creator of True Detective, co-wrote it, that’s sort of amazing.

Where the movie sings is in visual quality. It’s just well-made, from shot quality to stunts, set detail and editing. Director Antoine Fuqua delivers a strong product, balancing the talented cast against a wagon-full of action. There’s an interesting swirl of Golden Age heroism, the sensationalization of the Euro Western and modern day action movie methodology, and he mixes it well.

I doubt this movie would blow the hat off of any standard Western fan, and it’s not better than the original, but 2016’s The Magnificent Seven is easily one of the better genre offerings of the last decade.

I’m going to be honest, watching (old) movies for the purposes of review is tougher than it looks. I spent nearly a decade as a critic for comic, TV and movies, but most of the films I wrote about were things I saw in a theater, so I was forced to sit and watch. Having the power of pause is dangerous thing!

Please return June 2nd, 2025 for the newest All-True Outlaw comic drop. I’m proud of all my babies, but this next one is particularly special.

Westward!

 

~Jamil

Project: 100 Westerns: Part Five: Chino; The Westerner; Wagons East!; The King and Four Queens

Posted on April, 2025 by JS

Ayy All-Truers,

Welcome to the fifth go-around of Project: 100 Westerns, in which I will watch 100 Westerns and provide thoughts on them. By now, if you’re doing any type of quick math, you can see I’m woefully short of hitting the one year goal. Whoopsie, that’s life! 😎

On to the next four movies:

#16. Chino (1973)

“What a man says and what a man does doesn’t always end up being the same thing.”

In this Charles Bronson-led film, a horse tamer living in solitude has his life upended when a young man named Jamie (Vincent Van Patten), and later, a woman named Catherine (Jill Ireland), intrude on his daily dealings, eventually forcing him into situations that rattle his uncomplicated existence. 

Aside from a couple of awesome fights with above-average choreography (Bronson could move, man), and the obligatory shootout at the end, this is one sleepy, listless movie. Based on the novel The Valdez Horses (also the title presented at the start of the English version of this film) by Lee Hoffman, the events that take place center on the everyday happenings of a man and his lonely horse breeding operation. The plot opens with Jamie wandering in and squeaking his way into a job as ranch hand, and the viewer (this one, at least) understands the story to be that of an uneasy alliance between a hardened man and bright-eyed boy. The two acclimate with each other quickly, Chino delivering the hard lessons and Jamie teaching the elder man how to enjoy life again. 

This dynamic carries the movie part of the way, but is mostly forgotten once Catherine enters the picture. The sister of the nefarious town boss, Maral, she adheres to Chino despite his gruff demeanor and seemingly apathetic posture. It’s pretty typical Western stuff from there, but there’s a certain chemistry that doesn’t quite manifest despite the script, actors and soundtrack trying to make it work. It seems that the romance element may have been punched up a little because of Bronson and Ireland’s real life vows. 

The one-two punch of Jamie and Catherine feel like they were thrown by different people at different times of the day. Their presence in the story represent similar themes to the title character but since the two don’t really interact, nor have similar plot concerns, they work against each other, ultimately. 

Eventually, Maral’s ire reaches an action point and he threatens Chino to stay away from his sister, then to eventually leave town, or else. Being a man of hard principles and honor, Chino initially balks at this idea, his ardent independence not allowing him to be bullied, but once he sees the violence on the horizon, and his inability to deter it, he, surprisingly, decides to free his horses, shoo Jamie away and burn his cabin to ash. It’s a bit of a reversal of what we’d expect from the genre, but slots right into the “revisionist” era. The West is not a place of justice and hard virtue, but rather chaos and compromise. Chino flees while still drawing breath and preserves the lives of the two people who matter most to him. It’s a bold ending, but sad and more than a little muddled. 

All in all, the movie is OK. No idea how it’s rated PG with the flashes of horse cock, and a rape-y sort of first hook-up between Chino and Catherine, but it’s got an appeal in the somber, relaxed mood it gives off. I just wish the focus was a little tighter, there’s something the film is trying to say but voices it in a hoarse (hah) whisper.

#17. The Westerner (1940)

“By Gobs!”

Within the first ten minutes of this movie, Walter Brennan will have you clenching your jaw and shaking your head.

Playing the infamous “Judge” Roy Bean, the self-appointed “law” of small-town Texas, Brennan presents the audience with an immediately unlikable, yet inexplicably endearing, antagonist. Bean is a nasty guy, causing damage under the guise of righteousness and shared values, yet he hits the notes of common man charisma you’d expect from the endearing hick-ish sidekick. Before we even meet the main character, Bean is already sentencing a man to hang for mere acts of survival and self-preservation. His power and sway are apparent, and it makes for an insurmountable problem from the jump.

When Cole Harden (possibly the most Western name ever?) is dragged into Vinegaroon for alleged horse theft, Bean is quick with his gun-gavel and sentences the stranger to death under the guise of peacekeeping and moral tenacity. He cares not for evidence or doubt, but rather works to maintain a contrived status quo. Most notably, he’s cheered every step of the way by a village of cronies and goons. 

He of the Type Strong and Silent, Gary Cooper, plays Cole with a directness that bounces off of Brennan really well. He’s the standard drifter type – nothing holding him down to any place or purpose, but his sense of justice peeks out every once in a while. Understanding that he’s down to his last verbal bullets, Cole coerces Bean into a friendship over the shared admiration of (real-life) starlet Lillie Langtry, which unfolds a whole other set of plot dramatics. 

One thing I find interesting about films of yesteryear is the sort of disjointed talent and production levels in any given picture. Like, you can feel Hollywood learning and evolving as it goes along. Specific to this film, Walter Brennan is so good that the acting abilities of others, or lack thereof, become glaring. Cooper is fine, he always sort of plays it straight, retreating into an everyman style that obviously worked for him over a long career, but some of the day player types are perpetrators of over or underacting. It doesn’t detract from the film too much, however. 

A few other things work against the movie, as a whole. The depiction of Roy Bean is fun but does not align too ardently to the real life man. I certainly think a pastiche would have been an adequate replacement. While the plot has some good turns (i.e. the push/pull of the relationship between the two leads) the central conflict of homesteaders vs cattlemen is a big whatever. The final scene too, which sort of lionizes the villain in a way that’s unearned, feels off kilter and driven by a misplaced nostalgia of the West and its imperfect ways. 

Still, I’m sort of surprised this movie isn’t talked about a little more with other classics of the era. In my view, Brennan’s Oscar-winning performance makes it an essential part of the early-Western catalogue.

#18. Wagons East! (1994)

 

Last month, I watched Almost Heroes, the Chris Farley-driven explorer comedy set during the 1800s. When I browsing Prime for that movie, Wagons East! was suggested right along with it, and I softly marveled at the similarities between the two. Beyond the similar setting, both starred comedic giants in their final acting role, featured foppish co-leads, and are generally considered failures, both financially and critically. 

That said, this movie has a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. I know that review aggregators isn’t gospel, but jeez, its a deal better than Almost Heroes. 

Richard Lewis stars as Phil, a former war doc who, with others, are flat exhausted by the West and the turmoil it brings. He, along with other characters played by (the Doctor) Robert Picardo and (Dr. Cox) John C. McGinley, decide to take the unconventional route of going against the flow of traffic and returning to civilization. The move is presented as ironic, which it is in the context of Western films, but you have to think that sort of thing happened all the time.

The group hires the drunken and disheveled James Harlow (John Candy) to lead them back to Saint Louis. That’s sort of contrived impetus for the plot, I’m not saying the roads are clearly marked but you’d think going back to civilization wouldn’t require a whole ass guide. Predictably, Harlow, much like Bartholomew Hunt from Almost Heroes, is far from a competent leader and hijinks ensue. 

The movie suffers from a lot of the same ills of it’s cousin-movie. The jokes are often too stupid to solicit more than a chuckle and it deals too heavily in tropes and typecasts to be considered daring. Still, it works way better than its counterpart, actually attempting to deliver on character arcs and even giving us a capable antagonist or two to impede the protagonists from time to time. 

I didn’t hate Wagons East!, it’s got a good cast and is earnest in it’s attempt to entertain, but given that Candy died in the throes of production there’s a wisp of melancholy in the cinematic ether. Fire this one up if you’re bored and looking for some that mid-90s vibe, but be warned of the tinge of sadness it may produce between the quips and arrows.

#19. The King and Four Queens (1956)

 

I love the way “thirst” manifests itself in older movies.

This film could be alternately titled “Down Bad Ranch” with its plotline of a charming older man sauntering into a remote homestead with four man-deprived widows all vying for his attention. Clark Gable is Dan Kehoe, a wandering con man who discovers via town gossip that a huge sum of gold is buried somewhere on the McDade property. Apparently, the four McDade brothers secured the treasure from a robbery, but rumor and conjecture claims three were killed in the resulting skirmish with the law, with one escaping and now MIA. 

As an unknown McDade sibling is possibly still alive, the four wives of the brothers (played by Eleanor Parker, Jean Willes, Barbara Nichols & Sara Shane) are sort of in a Schrödinger’s Widow situation — any of them could still be married and thus are obligated to wait around until the missing brother returns. Thus, the harsh and protective Ma McDade (Jo Van Fleet) is immediately skeptical of Kehoe when he wanders onto the estate, and keeps a steady eye on his movements throughout the film. 

The King and Four Queens does that typical Golden Age Western thing where the roguish lead is presented as a dashing black knight, rather than the antihero-with-a-redemption-sidecar type. Even though we’re told Kehoe is a bit of a thief and swindler, nothing negative comes about from that lifestyle, and Gable plays him like an imperfectly perfect gentleman. This lack of consequence prevents actual drama from happening in the film, and the thin plot reflects that. A huge portion of this movie is cute banter and some physicality between Kehoe and each of the sisters, but ultimately a lot of that positioning and intrigue goes nowhere.

There’s a sense something is missing from this film, and according to IMDb, scenes with the missing McDade brother were cut from the final version. The viewer feels that omission, the script alludes to that dangling mystery more than a few times yet decides to resolve it with an alternate turn during the final moments. An additional antagonist would have pushed the tension greatly but instead this venture sort of meanders and ends abruptly. 

What we get is in the end is a lighthearted movie that feels like a minor missed opportunity. The performances are adequate and it’s shot well enough, however the lesson I take from this one is that it’s pretty hard to make a great movie, even if many of the components work on their own.

Four more movies down! I’m enjoying myself and learning a good bit about the Western genre and the movie-making machine.

Check back on May 5th, 2025 as we premiere another All-True comic, a must-see for fans of the steed.

Westward!

 

~Jamil

Project: 100 Westerns: Part Four: Gunless; Ride in a Whirlwind; Dark Command; Almost Heroes

Posted on March, 2025 by JS

Oi Outlawians,

This is the fourth installment of Project: 100 Westerns. I’m angling to watch 100 Westerns this year, and if you’re keeping count, you can see I’m way behind! đŸ˜”

Here’s the next batch of movies, selected on whim and vibes:

#12. Gunless (2010)

Movie poster for Gunless. The Montana Kid, played by Paul Gross, in profile

Way, WAY back in the day, a teenage me used to riffle through IMDB like I was a card shark with a fresh deck. This was back when the Internet Movie Database was one of the more complete and robust sources of information on the nascent web, and as I was introduced to more and more classic and mature films, I was enamored with the resource IMDB offered. I mention this because IMDB also has pages for movies in pre-production, and that’s how I first came across Gunless. This was before 2005, and for whatever reason, a Canadian Western where the gunslinger is not revered like he is just south seemed like a concept that could work. I took a mental note to check that movie out, then like most teen things, it faded into the mist of memory – however every few years I’d think “I wonder why they never made that Canadian Western about the displaced outlaw?” then subsequently would forget about it again.

So, I was pretty surprised to see Gunless show up across my screen when combing the apps for a weekend Western viewing. I didn’t think it existed!

The movie centers on “The Montana Kid” (Paul Gross), a man who drifts into a very small Canadian town and quickly discovers the residents don’t care about nor understand the Wild West way of doing things. He’s a spectacle to these common folk, and while rife with that famed Canadian politeness, their interactions with him border on scoffing. The Montana Kid, also known as Sean, is dismayed by the lack of urgent violence, and spends most of the movie adjusting to his new atmosphere. 

I’ve written before that the Western Comedy doesn’t work as well as filmmakers and audiences might like. There’s a tonal tension between the savagery of the West and humor that does not square under most circumstances, especially under the scope of time and changing tastes. Gunless, though, I think hits the mark and is a legitimately funny and entertaining flick. The use and role of violence is the humor, and it satirizes the Western genre without veering into territories of parody. 

Gross plays the fish out of water role very well, alternating between the gruff ne’er-do-well and confused newcomer through just about every scene. When he tries to settle disputes through threat or intimidation the townspeople put him in his place with a quip or a shrug, which totally throws him off his game. The subtext is a gentle needling of American tastes, views and values, and it’s done in a brotherly, amusing sort of way that gets the idea across while not making it the totality of the piece. 

I really enjoyed the movie, it’s pretty low budget but you don’t notice that too much between the plot movements and the capable cast. I definitely recommend it, probably one of the better “modern” Westerns I’ve seen. It gets points for originality and execution!

#13. Ride in a Whirlwind (1966)

Movie poster for Ride in a Whirlwind. Nicholson up top, a posse on horseback on the bottom.

 

“They’ve seen their last sunrise.”

Before he was the coolest guy in Hollywood, and one of the world’s most accomplished actors, Jack Nicholson was sort of a writer-producer in the movie game. A sputtering start to his career gave rise to his work behind the camera, and Ride in the Whirlwind is placed in this era, released just a few years before Easy Rider.

Filmed back-to-back with the more notable The Shooting, this movie is like when you buy bulk at Costco or Sam’s Club: “hey if we’re already here may as well stock up”. Featuring basically the same cast, crew, locale and director (Monte Hellman), it’s also considered an “acid Western”, which I feel like is one of the haziest labels in the entire genre. 

In 1966, the revisionist Western was just emerging from the studio machine, and its close cousin the acid Western was budding at the same time. Like most long-running genres, when the people who grew up watching a certain type of media begin working in that same arena, they will often try to break down and invert the conventions and commonalities in order to challenge audiences. Ride in the Whirlwind, light on some of the more trippy elements that sometimes define acid Western, is certainly oriented to do that. This is a movie that does nothing to glorify the western frontier. It’s closed off and claustrophobic, violence is random and without honor and by the end there’s no one to really root for. In the era it debuted, it likely felt more grave and important than it would today. I can respect that.

With that said, I didn’t find this movie too engaging or poignant. It’s a poor man’s The Ox-Bow Incident. The plot: A set of three cowboys run into a gang of outlaws, a mob mistakenly groups them all into one bad sect, and the cowboys commit crimes in their increasingly desperate attempt to escape. The down mood of the film is understandable in what it’s trying to do, de-romanticize the Western and condemn mob justice, but the characters, scenery, dialogue and action are pretty bland. This may jive with the acid Western coda however it does little for the movie as a standalone piece. This is clearly a low-budget project, yet the old adage of “desperation breeding innovation” didn’t seem to stick here. 

I gave this a pretty low score on the All-True letterboxd, but it’s not overly offensive in quality if you’re looking for a Nicholson fix.

#14. Dark Command (1940)

Movie poster for Dark Command. Drawings of actors John Wayne, Claire Trevor and Walter Pidgeon populate the image.

 

“You’re fighting for the host of darkness and the devil’s riding beside you.”

You might describe my view on John Wayne as agnostic.

Never really had a high or low opinion of the Western genre’s most recognizable actor. He’s good to great in some stuff, average to whatever in other projects. It seems nostalgia is the main driver when it comes to Wayne opinions, and well, he was before my time. 

The title of Dark Command is what caught my eye first. I knew it to be a sort of historical piece on the Civil War-era Middle West region, and I kind of stayed away from it because, uh, the quality and tone of a movie about the happenings in and around Kansas during this period depend greatly on the script and direction. I mean that’s the case with every movie, but this one wades into some murky territory. 

Dark Command follows Bob Seton (Wayne) and “Doc” (Gabby Hayes) as they enter Lawrence, Kansas. The two have a bit of a scam operation going, Bob picks fights with mouthy jerks and Doc pulls whatever teeth may be loosened. When they enter Lawrence, they make the acquaintance of schoolteacher William Cantrell (Walter Pidgeon), a surrogate for the real-life William Quantrill, a notorious guerilla fighter that was so aggressive and brutal in his tactics that the Confederacy decommissioned him following the events depicted in this movie. 

The portrayal of Cantrell/Quantrill is fairly benign, presenting us with an intelligent man frustrated with his station and angered that a cowpoke like Bob can win a Marshal position that he coveted. Cantrell also is eager for the affections of Mary McCloud (Claire Trevor), the daughter of Lawrence’s banker, which Bob is also in competition for. Seeing no other path for his ambition, Cantrell turns toward a sinister path, attacking and stealing from both sides of the conflict, then using stolen Confederate uniforms to pose as legitimate soldiers in order to pilfer more good and influence. 

Despite all this action by the movie’s antagonist, Wayne’s Bob is the primary focus. Wayne plays the undereducated and overly earnest Texan with bravado and charm. There’s a certain “aw shucks” quality to the character that is backed by a large stature and a heavy fist. He is at his most charming when in the presence of Mary, fumbling over words and smiling a little too much, and glowers at the appropriate times too, like when he softly confronts Cantrell about his extracurricular activities outside of the town. 

An interesting component to the film are some of the tidbits and footnotes to the production. This marks the first time that Wayne and Raoul Walsh worked together since when the director discovered him in 1929; this film is second reunion for Wayne and Trevor after co-starring in the previous year’s Stagecoach; and this is the only time that Wayne and Roy Rogers (who plays Mary’s brother Fletch) worked together in their storied careers. Also (as posted on reddit recently) there is a really ambitious stunt involving horses diving off a cliff. It stands out in a movie from this era, if only because you’ll ask “hey, are those beasts OK
?”

Despite some anachronisms, the plot of this film hides many folds, and the characters ebb together adequately. Overall, a pretty good Golden Age offering.

#15. Almost Heroes (1998)

Movie poster for Almost Heroes. Actors Chris Fairley and Matthew Perry stand near a sign post indicating all the danger of the frontier

 

Screamed lines, indecipherable shouting, fidgety physicality – in his final role, we got Farley at his most Farley.

A Comedy Western set in 1804, the movie centers on the previously unknown counterparts to explorers Lewis & Clark as they attempt to beat the famous expedition to the Pacific Ocean. Leslie Edwards (Matthew Perry) is a milksop-y aristocrat who enlists supposedly seasoned tracker and guide Bartholomew Hunt (Chris Farley) to help with the mission in exchange for riches and glory. 

Imma be frank with you, this movie, despite its premise, cast, director and setting, is pretty poor. It’s fiercely goofy in the way a lot of 90s comedies are, but not misses the tonal mark unlike other Farley hits like Beverly Hills Ninja or Tommy Boy. The jokes are shallow and gross, there’s too much reliance on Hunt’s ineptitude as a source of humor and a real lack of surprises or ingenuity in plot turns keeps the viewer from getting too engaged. Also, the movie just sort of dissipates into what we’re forced to consider an ending – it almost feels like the studio felt like there would be a sequel. 

So yeah, it’s not bad-bad, but it’s not good-bad either. 

This is Christopher Guest’s weakest turn as a director, and despite some legitimate acting chops in the names of Perry, Farley, Eugene Levy, Bokeem Woodbine, Kevin Dunn, etc. no one can really save this effort. 

That said, you can do worse in frittering away 90 minutes. There’s a few scraps of meat on this bone, and I chuckled at parts. Still, Almost Heroes is probably best left to those who greatly enjoy the works of Perry and/or Farley.

Another batch of movies in the bag!

On April 7th, 2025, we debut our newest short comic. Be sure to mosey back for a looksee.

Westward!

 

~Jamil

Project: 100 Westerns: Part Three: God Forgives…I Don’t!, The Drover’s Wife, Hidalgo; Robbers’ Roost

Posted on February, 2025 by JS

Wattup western-fans,

You’re reading the 3rd entry in Project: 100 Westerns. I’m angling to watch 100 Westerns in 2025.

As a reminder, I’m picking these movies with no criteria in mind. Just whatever seems Western enough. I’m always up for suggestions, especially if they’re unheralded or plain weird!

#8. God Forgives…I Don’t! (1969)

Movie poster for God Forgives...I Don't. The main character hangs upsidedown, another image shows him throwing dynamite

People mill about on a sunny train platform, speaking in excited voices and offering friendly gestures. A train pulls to the busy station. Onboard are corpses, a bloody heap of dead passengers. One man jostles himself back to consciousness and skitters off into the hills over a cacophony of screams. 

That’s how God Forgives
I Don’t! opens. A surreal and ugly scene setting the foundation for a series of plot mysteries and subsequent violence. Don’t think too hard on if or how the conductor is still alive (as the train did stop at a station, I’ll assume that was not automated back in the 1800s), just immerse yourself in the Spaghetti Western goodness. 

The first of eighteen films co-starring Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer, this tale of debauchery and crime won’t blow your hair back, but does just enough to keep you engaged throughout. It’s the typical Italian Western, the good guys are cool and gaudy, the villains gross and unpredictable. While the picture quality is a little bit rough, the competent direction by Giuseppe Colizzi gives the endeavor enough spine to hold it upright. 

The story has some intrigue. It starts with a slow-boiling poker game that bubbles over into a peculiar gun duel between Hill’s lead character, Cat Stevens (oh baby, it’s a wild world!), and prime antagonist Bill San Antonio (Frank Wolff). The two men are acquainted and even supposedly a touch friendly, but Bill is adamant they should duel in a burning building and instructs his men to let Cat, also referred to as “Pretty Face”, go without harm if he wins. After some hijinks regarding stolen treasure, Cat is told by another former gang partner, “Jackass” (Spencer), that Bill is likely alive and the mastermind behind the train massacre/robbery from the opening scene. 

No one particularly likable possesses much screen time in this film. It’s bandit-on-bandit violence, and we sort of root for the intense-eyed Pretty Face through obligation. He’s a smug guy, played with a little too much bravado by Hill (who won the role the day before filming), but tonally the movie makes that work. I think this was supposed to be a little bit of a comedy, too. 

The movie is just good enough that I’m actually interested in its follow-ups: Ace High and Boot Hill, which conveniently aren’t available on the streaming platform I used to watch God Forgives
I Don’t! You gotta love our new media landscape. 

#9. The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson (2021)

Movie poster for The Drover's Wife. Molly Johnson faces toward the viewer holding a long gun

I needed a small break from the Westerns of yore and sought something a little more contemporary. After some perusing, I landed on this Australian Western released in 2021.

(A short aside but has anyone noticed how many low budget Westerns have been made in the last few years? They’re all over the streaming apps. Someone’s chasing that Yellowstone money!)

I came away deeply impressed by this cleanly shot movie adapted from a 130 year old short story by Harry Lawson. It follows Molly Johnson (Leah Purcell), a woman living in the Snowy Mountains with her children, as she deals with new visitors and the threat they bring to her family. She’s a hard woman made by hard times, and through her actions the plot unfolds in intriguing ways. 

I totally get it if you don’t consider Australian-set movies to be a traditional Western. I recently wrote about what I consider to be firmly inside the genre and what sits on its outer edge, and I can appreciate placing this type of story outside the “actual Western” category, but man, this has all the trappings of a standard Old West tale. Rugged landscapes, nascent civilization, earnest lawmen, widespread savagery, native struggles; you could easily swap out American people, places and lingo and it would feel right at home in settings like Texas, Montana or Oregon. 

The film mostly concerns itself with the hardships of women in the 19th century and their continuous fight for justice in a time when justice is only starting to be a concept evenly applied. It’s not a happy story, by any means, but certainly an undertold one. The family history of Molly and her relationship with the land and its people is poignant. The themes and messages embedded in the plot don’t hit you over the head too hard, but definitely make sure you know what’s what by the end. 

Leah Purcell, also the writer and director, is very good in The Drover’s Wife, demonstrating steely resolve as Molly. She rarely opens up or even emotes, but her determination to protect her pack is apparent in every stern line and gun blast. Aborigine outlaw Yadaka (Rob Collins), provides an incredible counterbalance to her, offering bits of reflective positivity and crucial context to her tale, and the local sergeant (Sam Reid) and his wife (Jessica Elise De Gouw) round out the cast nicely. 

Mostly though, I have to give kudos to Purcell for shooting a really pretty flick, particularly the slow exposure shots of the sky and celestial bodies. It really is a complete product, and I think it is worth a watch if you’re like me and enjoy a modern look at the olden days.  

I also got to learn the term “sparrow’s fart”, which is neat!

#10. Hidalgo (2004)

Movie poster for Hidalgo. On the top, a headshot of actor Viggo Mortensen; on the bottom, Viggo and the titular horse ride across the desert

“Underrated” is a tough word to apply. 

“Underrated to whom?” is the follow-up question. With the modern media landscape, it’s uncommon for a piece of recent art to go underseen or undervalued. There’s a fan group for just about anything, and most artistic efforts are met with at least a little fanfare. “Underrated” is subjective, for the most part. 

So I ask, how the hell does Hidalgo only have a 46% rating on Rotten Tomatoes??

I first saw this movie about 15-20 years ago when I was just getting into the Western genre. Viggo Mortensen as a cowboy in an exotic locale? Sign me up. I remember thinking then it was a fabulous film – high adventure, interesting characters, gorgeous settings and a plot with enough turns to keep you on your toes throughout. In so many ways, it seemed to be a complete work. 

Since then, I’ve rarely, if ever, seen this movie suggested, heralded or even mentioned. When I fired it up last week, I was halfway expecting it to not hold up to the modern eye. Its ambition in regards to story and subject matter, a tale of culture shock and identity, seemed ready to step in quicksand. I thought it likely that this movie aged like camel’s milk.  From attitudes to tech, a lot has changed in twenty years.

Let me say then: Hidalgo fucking slaps.

The story follows Frank Hopkins (Mortensen), a Wild West show performer and accomplished longrider, as he and his horse Hidalgo are whisked across the world to compete in a race across Saudi Arabia’s “Ocean of Fire”. Frank is reluctant to participate, but the promise of a huge payday compels the generally listless and dejected man to give it a shot, despite Hidalgo’s age and decline as a racer. 

Director Joe Johnston has an impressive track record of helming films with spectacle and action. I would hold up the quality of Hidalgo to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer or the first (MCU) Captain America movie. The tonal pitch of these all hit the sweet spot of danger, humor and poignancy in a way that appeals to wide audiences, and Hidalgo might have the most to say. Frank Hopkins is a talented man, and his skills put him in peril and helps him escape as well. His rustic sensibilities clash with the haughty hierarchy of the Arab world, but the humanity we all share is demonstrated, too. This movie does an amazing job of keeping the antagonism hidden and shifting, many elements seem pitted against Frank, and it takes several story beats to discern where his allies lie, and what they offer. 

It’s curious that this movie is not more popular or known. Some of that I think is from the atmosphere around its debut. In the opening we’re told: “Based on the life of Frank T. Hopkins” and Disney marketed this as a true story. Upon scrutiny, it is likely that much of the story is exaggerated, and many claims the real life Hopkins made about his exploits seem dubious.  Additionally, consider the year this debuted. There was a clear shift in attitude toward the Arab world during this time, and that likely had a chilling effect when it comes to Western (both the Old West and Western society) moviegoers. I think these two factors hurt the perception of this movie, even now.

I was half-expecting a clunky story full of dated stereotypes and techniques, rather I found a thoughtful, inspired script executed by a seasoned filmmaker and stocked with a talented cast, all the way down to the beast that plays the titular horse. I love the pink/orange wide shots of the desert, the hostile environment and creeping savagery of the setting. One of my fave Westerns of the modern age, and maybe one of the best horse-centric films ever made. Truly underrated.

#11. Robbers’ Roost (1955)

Movie poster for Robbers' Roost. The movies villain holds a gun while shouting. On the bottom of the poster the film's hero holds onto a damsel.

First off, don’t read the description of this movie, it gives away part of the end!

Robbers’ Roost, starring George Montgomery and Richard Boone, is the second attempt at adapting a Zane Grey novel of the same name. It’s decidedly Good, but the opening and closing are both clunky/choppy in a way that bars it from regions of Great. 

Our hero is an apparent wanderer named “Tex” (Montgomery) who is offered a job by Hays (Boone), a local rustler, to join his gang and work as ranch hands for “Bull” Herrick (Bruce Bennett), a disabled man with about 6000 head of cattle. When Tex, Hays and the rest show up to the ranch, they discover their rival gang, led by Heesman (Peter Graves), is there too, employed by Herrick to do the same job of projecting the herd. Apparently, Herrick believes the two groups will watch each other and cancel out the tomfoolery. 

Now, this doesn’t seem too intelligent to me, but hey, that’s the plot opener. Herrick does seem like a desperate man, so his attempt at employing criminals may make sense in that context.

Things complicate when his sister Helen (Sylvia Findley) comes to town to convince him to sell the property and get medical treatment for his spinal injury. Her presence stirs drama at the ranch, several men lust for her and others leap to protect her honor. Tex, a self-described “woman-hater”, is assigned to chaperone Helen, and they form a bond that borders on romantic. Naturally, Hays and Heesman plot to betray Herrick and steal the cattle and in the fray, Helen is also abducted, which pushes Tex into reluctant hero mode. 

If you can get past the disjointed choreography of the final showdown, Robbers’ Roost is an astute and flavorful Western. The performances carry it most of the way. Montgomery is a convincing justice-seeker type, and Boone is masterful as the smiley rogue.

Part Three of Project: One Hundred Westerns is complete, it’s sorta a struggle to actually fire these movies up (there is so much to watch these days!) but it’s almost always an enlightening experience when I do.

Be sure to check in March 3rd, 2025 for our newest short comic.

Westward!

 

~Jamil