Full transparency: I’m the Director of Publicity for Aethon Books. However, this review is 100% honest, unbiased, and based solely on my reading experience.
TL;DR Review: Strong Western vibe punched up with supernatural weirdness. Deadwood meets Red Dead Redemption in this classic gritty Wild West world.
Synopsis:
Demons. Monsters. Witches. His sacred duty as a Black Badge is to hunt them down.
James Crowley met his mortal end in a hail of gunfire. Now, he finds himself in purgatory, serving the White Throne to avoid falling to hell. Not quite undead, though not alive either, the best he can hope for is to work off his servitude and fade away.
His not-so-sacred duty as a Hand of God? Use his new abilities to hunt down demonic beings that have infiltrated the mortal realm.
The White Throne has sent him to the middle of nowhere: a western town called Dead Acre with a saloon, a moldy church, and little else worth talking about. There isn’t even a sheriff. But the local cobbler has gone missing at the same time as a number of graves were desecrated.
Crowley must follow the clues, all while dealing with a cutthroat gang which treats Dead Acre like they own it, an extraordinary woman who makes it hard to focus, and locals not keen on strangers.
Life isn’t simple for a Demon Hunter.
Dead Acre: Black Badge Vol. 1 (Graphic Novel ) is written by New York Times bestselling author Cullen Bunn and illustrated by Riley Brown.
Review:
I’ll be honest: I’m a sucker for a good Western!
I will forever love that classic Western character, the badass cowboy/outlaw/desperado/gunslinger/lawman with a heart of gold. As we quickly see from the first pages of this story, that’s exactly what James Crowley is beneath all the gruff and grit and the world-weariness.
Once an outlaw, now chosen gunslinger for the White Throne (Heaven), he rides around this very Deadwood-esque corner of the Wild West searching out evildoers and stopping supernatural threats. He exudes an air of being a wanderer and drifter that feels very much ripped from Red Dead Redemption and leans into the Western flavor in full force.
Over the course of the story, we see the bits and pieces of his goodness shine through, making him an anti-hero we absolutely want to root for. The fact that he’s effectively a (mostly) unkillable badass just makes us love him all the more.
I enjoyed Dead Acre immensely when I listened to it back in 2021. Roger Clark’s narration was entirely perfect for this character and world. And reading this graphic novel now, I could almost hear that drawling Western voice playing in my mind. Absolutely dialed up my enjoyment of the graphic novel.
Even though I’d read it years ago, there’s something quite lovely about seeing it all play out in front of me in glorious colors. The battle scenes hit with so much more punch, the emotions were beautifully heightened, and the story’s more poignant moments landed harder. By the end, I felt far more invested in the character and the world than I did when listening years ago.
Dead Acre is my kind of Western: a lot of badassery, plenty of bloodshed, and just enough of the magical to make it feel like proper fantasy. I know it’s only just released today, but already I’m champing at the bit for the next issue of James Crowley’s dark supernatural adventures.
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