Description

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John Severin's 1950s Western masterpiece, American Eagle, is collected for the first time in a gorgeous hardcover Fantagraphics edition.

In the 1950s, between his legendary EC work and his celebrated Marvel comics, John Severin joined with Mad artist Will Elder and Two-Fisted Tales writer Colin Dawkins to introduce a new level of historical accuracy to the comic-book Western. While Native Americans had generally been vilified or left in the shadows of gun-slinging cowboy heroes, the American Eagle stories featured in Prize Comics Western were built around action-packed tribal intrigues and a heroic Crow warrior.

Collected here for the first time are all of the American Eagle stories drawn by Severin from Prize Comics Western #85-#113. Plus Severin-drawn stories featuring The Fargo Kid, Black Bull and The Lazo Kid. More than 55 exciting, gorgeous, Western tales of bullets vs. arrows, stampedes, tribal warfare, prospectors, buffalo hunters, broken treaties, gun battles, cavalry charges, wagon trains, and warriors on horseback. Thanks to Severin’s famously exacting art, you’ll be able to smell the leather and gunpowder.

With commentary by comics historian Howard Leroy Davis.

About the Author

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John Powers Severin (1921–2012; Will Eisner Hall of Fame, 2003), who had a "realistic" comics style,  specialized in war, western, and humor comics. One of Mad’s founding artists, he worked for with Cracked magazine for forty-five years.

Praise For…

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Viewed with its historical context in mind, this is a great record of a very entertaining, gorgeously illustrated comic book series created by an important cartoonist that would have otherwise been lost to time.
— Boing Boing

The John Severin Westerns fills a considerable gap in the available work of a major artist. ... Fantastic cinematic art from Severin.

— Slings & Arrows

The comics in this oversized collection are seriously some of the best western strips I've ever read. American Eagle is a fascinating character, and while no one will be surprised at how gorgeous this book looks, the real surprise is that much of it — particularly the scripts written by Colin Dawkins — reads incredibly well, too. Terrific supplemental material by Howard Leroy Davis rounds out this monumental volume.

— Four Color Apocalypse