About a generation ago, Westerns in all of their forms were as well known to kids as video games are today. There were John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Gary Cooper, Alan Ladd, et al. on the big screen. There was Rawhide, Have Gun, Will Travel, The Westerner, Maverick, etc. on television. And they all appeared in comic books at some time or the other over the years.
Those were high times for the resale values of many Western collectibles: autographs, costumes, cap guns, Big Little Books, records, pulps, radio and cereal premiums. The sky was the limit, because the fans were an enormous army of kids who wanted to be cowboys. The phenomenon produced a large library of Western comics – many of which reached lofty price levels over the last fifty years. But now that leaves the question: Is there a future in Western Comics? Will they ever be investment-worthy again?
Cowboy-themed comics were in their heyday during the Golden Age. The dominance of superheroes mostly supplanted them in the 1960s, especially during the Marvel explosion. But in the 70s, there was a resurgence of westerns. All-Star Western, Jonah Hex, Weird western Tales, Kid Colt Outlaw, Gunslinger, The Mighty Marvel Western, Wyatt Earp, Bravados, Western Team-up, Western Gunfighters, Rawhide Kid, Red Wolf, Gunhawks and The Outlaw Kid were some of the popular titles during the Bronze Age. But after that period those names started to become more and more obscure.
Nowadays, how many people own Westerns in their collections? How many are being sold and bought? How many are left in decent condition (from any age)? How many collectors are going to spend time and money gambling on the genre? Probably not many.
How many are out there with great art, covers, characters, stories and scarcity? Quite a few, is the likely answer.
IF interest ever picked up there would be a mad scramble for those forgotten gems. BUT interest may or may not ever materialize. There have been movies on a regular basis/ hit shows like Deadwood/ new modern additions to the genre (such as Loveless and Jonah Hex) but there are too few young readers to discover Westerns at this point in comics’ history.
The only hope for these may be a wave of evidence proving that there are many issues that are rare or scarce in grade (which worked for the Neal Adams covers in Tomahawk). Other than that, a Jonah Hex movie followed by Marvel-produced movies based on their Western properties (Two-Gun Kid, Kid Colt, etc) may provide the desired result. Actually, that may be a way for Marvel to capitalize on their characters without saturating the movie industry with superhero movies. Ironically, the production of Blade was so successful that it ushered in the current spandex wave in Hollywood. Maybe now, they can work that magic in reverse.
Neal Adams’ Tomahawk auctions on ebay Kid Colt auctions on ebay Western comics auctions on ebay
