Looking For a Good Book

I’m actually a bit of a Western literature geek.  I’m not entirely sure why… but if I want some simple escapism, something fun, adenturous, but that doesn’t take a lot of thought or energy on my part, a western novel is where I  might look.

And of course there’s The Lone Ranger … kind of the symbol of the wild west.  I’ve listened to more than a few Lone Ranger radio shows, remember re-runs of the television show, and have a couple of the original ’30’s novels on my bookshelf.  And I enjoy graphic novels.

Yet, overall, I’m a little ambivilent toward this graphic novel.

There’s nothing wrong with it.  The art is nice.  The story-telling is fine.  But I think what leaves me less than raving about this is that there’s not much that is new here.  For someone such as myself, I don’t know what there is about this graphic novel set that makes me want to read it.  There’s no point to this story other than that it’s a ‘new’ medium.  Perhaps, to the younger reader, for whom this is a first foray in to the legend of The Lone Ranger, this would be very attractive.

I say “not much that’s new” because there is a different, perhaps more ‘realistic’ take on the Indian/Native American, Tonto, which I found moderately intriguing.  If the rest of the Omnibus series were available to me, I’d likely read through them to follow this (Tonto) storyline, but it didn’t grab me enough to go purchase the series.

I appluad the effort to get a western in to the graphic novel market.  Perhaps this will get more readers to open up to the western genre.  But for me, it didn’t quite work.

Looking for a good book?  If you’re interested in westerns, The Lone Ranger legend, and/or graphic novels, this could be just what you’re looking for.

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The Lone Ranger Omnibus, Vol.1 

author: Brett Matthews

illustrator: Sergio Cariello and Paul Pope

publisher: Dynamite Entertainment

ISBN: 1606903527

paperback, 632 pages