Western Wednesday: Hi Yo and Away We Go!

Raise your bottle of redeye to the last Western Wednesday of 2009. It’s been a decent year for the western in the Black Horse Western line, with some pretty big success stories for new and established authors, who pushed the print runs up substantially. Two of my own novels (Dead Man Riding and The Killing Kind) saw acceptance and will see print in 2010, along with the paperback edition of Coyote Deadly, which sold out its hardcover earlier this year. Western comic books such as The Lone Ranger, Jonah Hex and Zorro found a good deal of success and a number of new western movies are in the chute, so the coming year promises to keep the trail blazing. Online, we saw a proliferation of Western blogs and group projects. So I am comfortable crowning 2009 the comeback year of the Western, and it’s up to western fans reading this, as well as us writers, to keep things moving forward.

I think the best way to do that—along with supporting authors’ books, new TV and movie westerns, etc.—is to keep a positive attitude towards the genre and not let the naysayers and grumblers who are always bitching about the death of this or that, the limitations of these or those, get to you. Along with the positive news this year, we saw far too much of that, and it was not productive or helpful. Sure, we need to be able to discuss the pros and cons, but the insecure ramblings of the few is a bitter poison that need not be sipped. What good does negativity do in the long run? Or is it simply easier to complain than actually innovate? Perhaps, for some, that’s the pony they want to ride.

For others, it is not. Instead, it’s now time for those western fans to put their britches into the saddle and ride hell-bent into the new sunrise. The Western is expanding, crossing genre lines and forging into new territory and it must continue to do so. Many readers who have never been exposed to some of the new westerns are unaware of how versatile and exciting the genre can be. My own Westerns include Vampires (The Dark Riders under my own name), and myriad cross-genre and social trappings (under my Lance Howard penname). Probably the best way for new readers to experience the wide variety of the Western is with Express Westerns new A Fistful of Legends short story anthology I have mentioned the past couple of weeks. You’ll find everything in there—social commentary, mystery, romance, action, horror, and maybe even a gunfight or two.

Whatever the case, if 2009 set the Western off on the trail at a healthy trot, 2010 is the year to heel it into full gallop. Won’t you come along for the ride?