The Big Book of the Weird Wild West: How the West Was Really Won!

by John Whalen

Comic book stories by top creators about the strangest histories of the American frontier west This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1563893614
• ISBN13: 9781563893612
• Release Date: August 1998
• Publisher: DC Comics
• Length: 191 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.5" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

Old West done up strange...but true!

A fine collection of the stranger part of the history of the Old West. Good cartooning, & absorbing reading. There is a sub-genre of Westerns, growing in strength, called the Weird West. Anybody who likes this book would enjoy--Daisy Kutter: The Last Train Or The Riot at Bucksnort and Other Western Tales (The Works of Robert E. Howard)

Entertaining and Informative

This collection of black and white entertaining comic-style renderings of vignettes about the West is really well put together. Most of the stories concern actual events from the times of Manifest Destiny to Turner's "End of the Frontier", though there are few ghost/supernatural stories set in a western setting for the reader looking for items of a "weird" bent. Note: Everything included in the collection is backed with bibliographic citations. Thus this collection with judicious use could be used as a supplement to a study of American History.

NOT LIKE A JOHN WAYNE MOVIE...

One of the many "Big Books" from Factoid Press, this volume delivers up a multitude of disturbing, humorous, and crazy tales from the West of yesteryear. Cleverly (and sometimes graphically) illustrated, this book would probably not be a good read for anybody who believes that the Old West was John Wayne-esque, where the good guy always won the duel and got the lady. The real West was more like a spaghetti western, where even the good guys were cut from a dubious cloth. Included in this volume are the stories of the ill-fated Donner Party (who were forced to dine on one another), Six Gun Slade (whose treatment of his opponent was surely an inspiration on Quentin Tarantino), Liver-Eatin' Johnson (the name says it all), Cowboys vs. UFO's, the slaying of a prehistoric bird in Arizona, and many, many others. Perhaps most amazing was how frequently people crossed the line from outlaw to lawman- it's almost as if being a murderer or train robber was a necessary prerequisite for a law enforcement job! The role of blacks, women, and homosexuals is discussed with refreshing frankness, and the clash between Anglo, Spanish, and Indian cultures is addressed as well. This book is entertaining and educational at the same time, and highly recommended to anybody with the slightest interest in what went on in the real Old West.

Wild, Wild West?

Paradox press adds another "Big Book Of..." that shares the same flavour of it's "brothers". A wide style of illustration helps the feel of this book, as do the wide array of "tales" culled from the period. Nice that they included several not-so-well-known tales. Note: this is NOT a refrence guide, but an rather enjoyable read.

This is the REAL "Wild, Wild West!"

You won't find Will Smith in this bizarre yet hilarious collection of true (and possibly true) tales from the dark side of the Western frontier. This entry in the now-legendary Big Book series meets the high stanards set by the others -- but be warned. This is one of the more violent Big Books. Not for kids. But if you enjoy rough and tumble true tales of killers, cannibals and crazies this book'll show you what the West was really like.