DEAD WEST is a pulp comic tale of reanimation and revenge penned by Rick Spears and inked by Rob G.

A young Indian named Little Cub rides away from the blazing inferno that once was his tribe’s village. Since westward-moving immigrant cowboys are to blame, the young Indian decides to avenge his family’s death with some wicked hoodoo voodoo, first killing his horse and then performing seppuku in the graveyard at the outskirts of a small western town.

Dead West (2005)

Dead folks start popping up from the ground like crazy (some in full garb, top hats and bonnets included). A hard-boiled cowboy protagonist tries his best to protect the town inhabitants with little success.

Dead West is short on words and heavy on narrowly penciled hash lines, sharply emphasizing broad motions, blood spatters, and the sloughing of rotted flesh with a level of harsh contrast that makes the wild west look as grimy as it should. The pencil style is so fast and loose in moments of glorious gore, the reader tends to finish the ambiguous flash of blood and guts with his/her own imaginings.

Expect the most expected of western subplots, thank Sweet Zombie Jesus the addition of living deadites works brilliantly with the old cowboy conventions.

I give it:

• 3 burning corpses
• 2 legless torsos
• 1 undead pimp who pops out the grave wearing a top hat