Gunland vol 1 by Captain Artiglio

Welcome to a wild world of dinosaurs, outlaws with fun nicknames, and magic.  The Doolin brothers, Duke and Dan, are just trying to get back to their loot but they’ve got robotic cops after them.  Their other brother, Dave, just wants to find a quiet place to raise a girl he rescued.  The Doolin father, “Death”, gifted each of his sons with a skull of a vampiric race, rumored to have magic capabilities.  One grants a brother immortality, another skull grants the power to open portals to another dimension.  This portal magic can be manipulated and used to decapitate adversaries.  Dave and Dan leave the young girl with a friend, another outlaw and bounty hunter named “Symphony”, while they try to recover the third magic skull.  Dave and Dan are captured, and an execution date is set for three months time. Meanwhile, Symphony teaches the girl how to shoot and how to protect herself.  This all comes in handy when bounty hunters come after her, and she has to flee the city.  All the attention garners some anger from another outlaw, “The Cherub of Golgotha”, who is upset that she is becoming more notorious than he, the previously most notorious child outlaw.

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This is a fun story that asks for you to suspend all disbelief as disparate elements come together in one world - dinosaurs, the Wild West, advanced technology, and magic, to name a few.  I could have used just a touch more world building - what “valley” do they all keep referring to? Is this earth or a different planet? how are there dinosaurs here? As this is volume one, maybe some answers will come out in future volumes.  I'd also like to see how some of how outlaws get their nicknames.  I can assume that "Death" got his name because of how deadly he is, but what about the rest of them? The art is cartoony and brightly colored. The dinosaurs are interesting and seem to be modeled after real creatures, but they hall have different names. The one thing that bugged me is that the girl looks like a chimp, and the only clue as to why is in the publisher's description, a mention of the band Gorillaz. 

There is some cussing, including the use of the F-word, and some violence with the frequent gun battles, and gore when people are shot (brains are often splattered).  The publisher rates this for ages 16 and up.

Sara's Rating: 7/10
Suitability Level: Grades 10-12

This review was made possible with an advanced reader copy from the publisher through Edelweiss.  This graphic novel will be on sale July 28, 2020.

Tags: Rating: 7/10,  Suitability: High School, Comicbooks, Science Fiction, Western,