Ridin' out with Jonah Hex

I had a flat tire the other day... actually my wife did, but it was in my van... so the next morning I took it to the shop to get a new tire put on. I knew I would have a bit of a wait at the tire place, so I grabbed something off my bedside table to read. It was a little digest sized comic I've had laying around for years (4 and 7/8 by 6 and 3/4 inch size). I honestly can't tell you where I got it - it's just always been around - in a desk drawer, on a table top, under my dresser - it just always seemed to be there, and I never wanted to toss it. It isn't in great shape, but something made me hang onto it. I guess I figured one day I'd get around to reading it - and one day came this week.

It's a collection of western stories called JONAH HEX AND OTHER WESTERN TALES, and this is issue 3. It is edited by Ross Andru, whose name conjures up images of spider-man for me, as I remember reading many an issue of the webhead illustrated by Ross. But this time Ross put together a book of gunslingers, not webslingers, three of which featured the fiesty Jonah Hex (plus a one page strip featuring Hex, too). The other 5 stories were a random assortment of western tales.

These are all reprints from other books, and it's interesting to me that DC ever put these out to begin with. It cost 95 cents at the time of purchase, which was 1980. I can't imagine there was a big following of westerns in 1980, especially in this format. Wonder if they were sold in bookstores? After a bit of investigation I see that there were only three issues of this book released, so apparantly this is the final issue. The Jonah Hex stories in this book are:

Killers Die Alone from Weird Western Tales #14
Face Off with the Gallagher Brothers from Weird Western Tales #26
Hanging Woman from Weird Western Tales #17
Frontier Justice one page strip

I've always enjoyed a good western from time to time, and these stories somehow seemed appropriate as my iron horse was down and out and needed a new shoe. Thought I'd share the first story from that collection with you folks, as I enjoyed it quite a bit. Adios, amigos! Giddyup!