This past weekend I had the good fortune of attending C2E2 (Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo). While I was there I bought many things that were on my Wants and Needs list and one book in particular that was seemingly on everyone’s Must Buy Today list: The Sixth Gun Book 1: Cold Dead Fingers TPB by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt. The book was readily available at just about every table selling collected editions, at the Oni Press booth and at Bunn and Hurtt’s table where they were easy to talk to and were eager to sign a copy.

The Sixth Gun comic has become hot property and after reading the first trade it’s easy to see why. It’s a western that puts a much needed spin on good versus bad or should I say, very bad. The series is so new (as of this review it is only on issue #10) so I don’t want to give too much of the plot away but I can tell you that besides being a western, it’s also part supernatural with a mysterious set of six, six shooters and a clouded past associated with these indestructible weapons of evil. The characters are not without fault either and, as we see through flashbacks, have their own demons to deal with. After the first two issues I thought the series was a bit slow and I wasn’t sure what it was all about. But then with issue #3, I couldn’t put it down until the last page of the trade. Even then I am wanting to forgo the collected edition book and go out and catch up with the individual issues. The writing is captivating and the art is fresh with a very nice mix of dark blacks and stunning color. Bunn and Hurtt have worked before on their series The Damned and you can see that not only have they matured their talents but go together like peanut butter and chocolate.

As for the book itself, the comics are pretty much all you get. The only extras are the creator bios with fun Sixth Gun caricatures of Bunn and Hurtt and a prose preview of what the reader can expect from the upcoming second storyline. No hardcover is available or solicited at this time, but I think I’d eventually like to see a double sized trade of the first 12 issues with a nice introduction and sketch pages.

Westerns come and go in comics, movies and TV but it looks like we are in store of another round like we had in the 1990’s thanks to True Grit, Cowboys and Aliens, Justified, The Lone Ranger, Jonah Hex (the comic) and this wonderful book, The Sixth Gun.

The Sixth Gun Book 1: Cold Dead Fingers TPB
Written by Cullen Bunn
Art by Brian Hurtt
$19.99, 176 pages, Oni Press
Collects The Sixth Gun #1-6

Also recommended:
The Damned: Three Days Dead TPB by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt