This a collection of two different stories by Jack Jackson. Both of them are about Texas History, and are really well done. They would fit in perfectly with Luke's discussion on educational comics.
Jack Jackson was part of of the underground comic movement, and was one of the founders of Last Gasp Press. His art is very much of the underground vein and invokes a lot of Crumb to me. How those guys could spend so much time on cross-hatching for shading just always blows my mind. It always came off as quite a beating to do, in my mind.
The first part, Los Tejanos, tells the story of the Mexican who sided with the "Texians" when they rebelled against Mexico back in the 1830s. Focusing mostly Juan Nepomuceno Seguin. He was a hero during the war, and achieved a decent stature, but he was soon a man without a country. The Texans didn't trust him because he was Mexican, and Mexico was obviously weary of him because he aided Texas in the rebellion. His story was very common for the Los Tejanos who helped their white comrades. A lot of the history about him has been wiped away from the history books, and that is just sad.
I was taken with the art from the first panel on:
One of the things that did turn me off is that everyone looks pissed off. I did see two people smiling when I went back through the story, so there is that. It is very interesting reading the journey Seguin goes through from hero, to scapegoat, to fugitive, etc, etc.
The other part of this book is Lost Cause, which can have several meanings to the title. It deals with Reconstruction-era Texas and the loss of slaves. It also mainly gets into the Taylor-Sutton Feud, of which famed gunfighter John Wesley Hardin was a part of. (As an aside I always remember those Jack Palance Time-Life commercials as the gunfighter who once shot a man in his sleep for snoring). It was originally advertised as a Hardin book, but he doesn't even make an appearance until about a 1/3 of the way through.
This story caused quite a stir when it was originally published back in 1998 for the language it used. Jackson used quite a bit of racially charged language, because he wanted to be true to the era. He said in an interview reprinted in the back (which I agree with) that it would have lost some of its punch if he had gone the politically correct route. Jackson also mused about the irony of the praise he got for his depictions of Mexican in Los Tejanos and the crap he got in Lost Cause. The interview in the back was his response to a scalding review from his own hometown paper in Austin, that Gary Groth conducted in The Comics Journal.
Something that startled me was the amount of research Jackson put into the these stories. He details pretty extensively what he used as references. Including use pictures of known military figures of Lost Cause, and drawing heavily on John Wesley Hardin's autobiography. It was very rare to get that from a gunfighter for certain.
I give this my highest recommendation for sure. It came out in late 2012, so it should be okay for this years Cappies.
If you want something besides superheroes, get this. If you like historical comics, get this. If you like black and white comics, get this. If you are human, get this.
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