Comic Strip Review: High Moon: Bullet Holes and Bite Marks written by David Gallaher, art by Steve Ellis
It is summer 1890, and there have been 100 days since the town of Blest, Texas has seen rain. Drought is bad enough, but cattle have been going missing, and now a little girl as well. The sheriff’s been out of town for a while pursuing leads, leaving his daughter to try to keep a lid on things, which the girl’s disappearance is not helping. Hey, bounty hunter Matthew MacGregor’s in town. He’s looking for a specific outlaw, but maybe if we promise to help him look for that outlaw, MacGregor will help look for Margaret?
MacGregor’s a surly fellow with dark secrets, so his help is begrudging at first. But as events unfold, it turns out this case is very much up his alley. Blest has its own bloody history which has come back to haunt it, in addition to that outlaw being present.
Some months later, a train robbery results in unusual loot, and the robbers are soon the victims of something…unnatural. Conroy MacGregor has come to the town in search of forgiveness, but as long as he’s here, he might as well deal with the lethal forces that have been unleashed with the aid of two brothers feuding over a woman. As if that wasn’t complicated enough, Tristan MacGregor has also arrived, a special envoy from Nikolai Tesla, and he knows there’s no “Conroy” in the family.
This horror western webcomic ran from 2007-2010 on the late lamented Zuda website, and is now a series of three landscape-oriented trade paperbacks with attractive slipcovers.
We are most assuredly in the Weird West here, with werewolves, hoodoo and men wearing electric armor. Most of the scenes take place at night or in shadowy places, which sometimes makes it difficult to tell what’s going on during the more complicated parts of the plotline. In particular I got confused between two older gentlemen with similar mustaches.
The second story is better than the first, as the writer didn’t seem to like his initial protagonist and there’s little development.
The art is good when it’s not too murky.
Worth looking up if like me you missed out on Zuda altogether.
