Hi there

It’s my pleasure to announce the release of, Redrawing the Western: A History of American Comics and the Mythic West, published by the University of Texas Press.

Redrawing the Western charts a history of the Western genre in American comics from the late 1800s through the 1970s and beyond. Encompassing the core years in which the genre was forged and prospered in a range of popular media, William Grady engages with several key historical timeframes, from the origins of the Western in the nineteenth-century illustrated press; through fin de siècle anxieties with the closing of the frontier, and the centrality of cowboy adventure across the interwar, postwar, and high Cold War years; to the revisions of the genre in the wake of the Vietnam War and the Western’s continued vitality in contemporary comics storytelling.

In its study of stories about vengeance, conquest, and justice on the contested frontier, Redrawing the Western highlights how the “simplistic” conflicts common in Western adventure comics could disguise highly political undercurrents, providing young readers with new ways to think about the contemporaneous social and political milieu. Besides tracing the history, forms, and politics of American Western comics in and around the twentieth century, Grady offers an original reassessment of the important role of comics in the development of the Western genre, ranking them alongside popular fiction and film in the process.

If anyone had any questions or wanted more information, please don’t hesitate to get in touch off-list (williamebgrady@gmail.com).

In addition, my publisher (and me for that matter!) is keen to have the book reviewed in an American Studies journal, so if you were interested in reviewing a copy you are welcome to contact Joel Pinckney directly (jpinckney@utpress.utexas.edu).

Best wishes

Will