WHY JONAH HEX?

When I was a kid there were three kinds of comics that wound up in the 12 books for a dollar bin at my local bookstore. Horror comics, romance comics and westerns. At my very young and easily influenced age of 12, I was always looking for the biggest bang for my buck and would pick up a western and horror title here and there to give them a look. Most of the western titles were pretty much 50’s type western stories about the lone gunman or misunderstanding storylines and did not hold my attention. That was the case until one day I picked up a title called JONAH HEX and on the cover was this ugly deformed horror show with a gun shooting up the bad guys and I was hooked. A book about a misunderstood bounty hunter was just what the doctor ordered for this Brooklyn kid. You have to understand, a western to someone growing up off Flatbush avenue Brooklyn was like reading science fiction. At less than a dime each, it was not long before I found every single issue of his title and the ones that came before it called ALL STAR WESTERN.

So, jump to about 30 plus years later, and I am working up at DC comics and after pitching some original material like Resistance and 21 Down with my writing partner Justin Gray, I got to asking then editor Dan Didio about maybe dusting off the Jonah Hex and giving us a shot at the character. Dan told me he would love to, but they had promised the series to Brian Azzarello since he was one of their hottest writers at the time and they were waiting to see what he would bring in to the character. I totally understood and put the book and character out of my mind, waiting myself to see what Brian might do.

Months passed without a single word about Hex, Brian or anything and then it was announced that brain would be writing his own creator owned western called LOVELESS, an amazing book you should check out. Well, with seeing that, I made the call to Dan Didio and asked about maybe giving Jonah to Justin and I and he said sure…that we should send a pitch. Well, while I was on the phone with him, we already had one put together and I dropped it in his e mail and the rest is comic book history, sort of.

The series originally was going to be an ongoing series with one artist on the book, and at the time, the artist of our choice was Mark Texeria…yes, the same guy that drew the sci-fi Hex book at least 10 years before. Mark and I are High School friends and he is just amazing in very way. A true Powerhouse of an artist. I knew his Hex would be nothing short of brilliant. Well, DC approved mark and we got to writing, but hit a snag- Mark was not a fan of drawing horses and lets us know this clearly, and just like that, we needed to find another artist. Side note here, it is many years later and I talked Mark into drawing a one-shot team up book with Jonah and Yosemite Sam. I kid you not, it was so much fun. Fun in that really strange worlds colliding way.

So, before we even start, we lose our artist and then the comic gods spoke and we were lucky enough to snag Luke Ross and his photographic storytelling style which was perfect for the title.  Luke drew an amazing Jonah, a mix of Clint Eastwood and Jonah and every page was better than the last, except he either burned out or wanted to move on, but we lost him after a few issues and that’s when the new pitch was gonna be made to DC. Something that doesn’t make us dependent on one single artist. You see, we wanted to write this title forever.

Well, our new pitch to DC Comics was to make the book done in one stories like the original series back in the 70’s.  The idea was that we were to get a different artist on each issue so we can have stories done way in advance and hire about 6 artists all at the same time and as they come in finished them we just publish them. No depending on one person and no worrying about contunity. The way it was done many years ago.  Well, not only was this popular, but because of the timing and open ended schedule, we got some real Powerhouse artists to come on and visit the series like Jordi Bernet, Darwyn Cooke, Eduardo Risso, J.H.Williams, and so many more. 70 issues worth and hardly a stinker in the bunch. As well, we were one of the only series that came out the first week of the month for the entire run. nothing you get an award for, but we did get a call from the EIC letting us know about our wonderful record. All of this is fresh in my mind and why I am writing this is because this year, 2022, the character turns 50 years old, so I figured I go down my own memory lane with this in celebration.

Looking back, it was a fun run that spawned a movie that we had nothing to do with, obviously and hopefully like myself as a young boy, got some new people interested in westerns for the first time. What is nice about being on this planet so liong is that everything old is new again and fingers crossed Jonah will stop by again and let Justin and I have another shot, because honestly, we have a ton of stories we haven’t told yet and would love to one day. My biggest wish at this point is that we get a HBO + series on the screen one day and they adapt our done-in-one issues right from the comics.

Yeah, I like to dream big.

Jimmy