Iron West » (New Edition)

Preston Struck is an incompetent outlaw with a heart of fool's gold. He discovers an army of metal men bent on destroying central California. While Struck avoids any form of heroism, he gets a little help from a magical old shaman and his sidekick Sasquatch. Struck is going to need all the help he can get because he's deputized just as the mechanical men have taken over the railroad and are mutating the train into a giant demonic iron monster.

VOYA

Preston Struck has been charming and conning his way through the Old West since he was a boy. His witty escapes from the law are legendary, but when he runs from the double barrel of a bounty hunter into the multiple barrels of a horde of technological killers wakened by greedy miners, the end of his legend might be near. Hounded by fate, a wise-cracking Indian sage, and-worse-a new sense of responsibility, Struck finds himself running toward danger for the first time in his life. TenNapel is honing a style and voice that combines the modern and the mythic into a mixture that is fast-paced even as it is surprisingly touching. In Creature Tech (Top Shelf, 2002/Graphically Speaking, VOYA August 2003) and Tommysaurus Rex (Image, 2004/VOYA December 2005), he developed a tone that balanced nicely between deadpan and sentimental. In this book, Struck is witty in the face of adversity, and even the background characters get good lines. For example, when Struck wakes in the shabby home of a Mi-Wuk shaman to discover his wounds gone, Two Rivers tells his guest, "The Great Spirit healed you. I just like to sing and twirl the feather around for self-expression." The sheriff chasing Struck is noble but flawed, trusting but not stupid. Even TenNapel's risky use of Indian stereotypes is rescued by the author's continual jibes at those stereotypes. By switching between traditional black-and-white illustrations and panels of negative relief, TenNapel also manages to keep his monochromatic format from becoming stale. This finely balanced piece of work is polished with style.