September 5, 2011

Apache Junction, Western comic strip album by Peter Nuyten

Filed under: Comics by Branko Collin @ 9:23 am

During my student days I helped publish a comics fanzine called Iris, and our ‘thing’ was that we enjoyed making mainstream European comics.

That is why it is doubly satisfying to be holding Peter Nuyten’s Western comic Apache Junction in my hands. Peter was a contributor to Iris back in the day, and Apache Junction is as traditionally European as it gets.

The Western takes place around 1875 and follows a US Army messenger, at a time when Apache tribes refuse to be locked up in reservations and engage the federal government in guerilla war fare. The messenger gets wounded in a knife fight and needs to seek refuge at a lonely farm.

Holly Moors has this to say about Apache Junction: “Nuyten seems to want to combine the exciting stories of Jean Giraud and the engaged, critical attitude of Hans Kresse. He is a bit too wordy in the first part of the album, and could use a good, tight script writer. That way he can focus on the art, where he doesn’t quite yet reach Giraud’s level, though he is getting there. […] Still, I have finished the album in one go, and will certainly read the second part, because this is definitely an artist to keep an eye on.”

Me, I felt the story got progressively better, and I cannot wait for the second part.

Apache Junction (part 1, 2011) is published by Silvester and cost 16,95 euro in hard cover format. More reviews (in Dutch) after the link.

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