Friday, September 26, 2014

Native American Classics

A little while ago, I indulged myself and bought a copy of "Native American Classics" at a resale shop.  It's an issue of Graphic Classics, Volume Twenty-Four.  I haven't picked up any of these I've seen before, but I'd read some collections of Native American stories when I was younger, like "Indian Sleep-Man Tales", and this looked a bit interesting.

It's a handful of stories written in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, by or about Native Americans, and illustrated by contemporary artists.  A wide range of styles and tones makes this very enjoyable for me.

I was quite pleased when I discovered later as I read through it, that it includes a story illustrated by John Findley, of Tex Arcana fame.  It may not be the best-written story in the book, but Mr Findley's work is just terrific.  It isn't hard to recognize as his, once I look at it.  His fine line drawing is enhanced by some really nice coloring, a departure from the Tex Arcana black and white line drawing style I so admire.

Since this was just published in 2013, it's my hope this shows some of the paying work Mr Findley referred to, when he was kind enough to respond to my inquiries about Tex Arcana, that he was too busy to spend time on it.  (indeed, since then he's actually produced a few new Tex Arcana pages, that I referred to earlier this year.)

So I'm pretty happy I came across this.  Mostly since it has Mr Findley's work, but also because I enjoyed most of the other stories.  These Graphic Classics appear to be readily available online, and I may need to seek out "Western Classics" as Mr Findley is referenced to have adapted a story "El Dorado" in the credits (as well as a mention of "best known for his graphic series Tex Arcana, which ran in Heavy Metal magazine ...").  I certainly recommend it.