List Item: Read half of the 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die
Progress: 39/501
Title: Tex
Creator: Gian Luigi Bonelli and Aurelio Galleppini
Years: 1948 onwards
Country: Italy
Before I start on this, it’s worth noting that in the 1001 Comics book it has this comic nestled under 1969. I am guessing that my reference book decided to use the date of when this comic was either first translated into English or was first released in the USA. In any case, having read some of the earlier issues of Tex it falls very much into the trappings of a 1940s comic book.
Tex is the first comic I’ve read that falls into the western genre. What sets this apart from the other western comics on the list is that it’s also a spaghetti western with it being originally written in Italian and being based on American western movies. This might go a long way to explain how the depiction of Native Americans and other non-white races feels progressive by the standards of 1940s America. Sure, it’s still cringeworthy at times with most non-whites being subservient to white people and/or being referred to with weird epithets… but it’s still better than other comics at the time.
When you read Tex you’re presented with exactly what you expect – swashbuckling (or whatever the cowboy version of that word is) adventures with bandits, gunfire and peril. Tex also gets his kit off a lot since he is regularly captured and stripped because, you know, cliffhangers. I point this out not because it’s particularly erotic, but because it becomes hard to differentiate the titular Tex from other characters when he isn’t wearing his trademark yellow shirt.
As a comic book it’s fine, but after a while you see how templated a lot of these stories are. It began to get a bit silly the third time the villain was a masked version of a character that Tex had just met, but Tex was unable to connect the dots. It stands to reason that Tex was not a comic meant to be binged the way I did, but that’s the way it goes.
In the end, Tex is fine to read a bit of but there’s plenty of better comics out there.
Before I Kick 