Hi Ho Silver! The Lone Ranger is Back!

The following originally ran in the Weekly Planet 10/3/18.

Pulp characters are making a comeback. Recent years have seen comebacks for Dick Tracy, The Shadow, Green Hornet… Now is a great time to be a torrid adventurer of yesteryear. If you were a cad with a unique style who had his own radio drama, long-running serial, or beloved newspaper strip, now might be the time to call your agent. And finally here to claim his moment in the sun is the LONE RANGER.

After a lengthy absence from the public consciousness (beyond the parodic “Lone Rearranger” on Between the Lions), the Lone Ranger received a, shall we say, divisive film adaptation that did not exactly catapult him back to his former heights. What followed was many more years of dormancy… until now. This week LONE RANGER #1 rides his mighty steed onto comic shelves everywhere.

And who was that masked man who saved us from a world without the Lone Ranger? Why, it’s rising comics superstar Mark Russell! He of the incredible Flintstones comic series that earned multiple awards and shattered the minds of many readers. He of the superb and heartrending Snagglepuss. He of the Lex Luthor/Porky Pig epic, of Judge Dredd: Under Seige, of the imminent Second Coming from Vertigo. To play it completely straight with you, Russell is one of my absolute favorite voices in comics today. He’s unique, profound, and consistently a blast to read. His pitch perfect sense of humor helps his tendencies toward the existential or the uncomfortable go down smooth. Mark Russell is so good he can get me to read, write about, and ride the hype train for a Lone Ranger comic book.

The artist on THE LONE RANGER is Bob Q, a modern master of classic characters. He’s made a name for himself taking those larger than life characters from the halcyon days of yore and rendering them into modern comics. He brought freshness to the street-level stories of The Spirit and The Green Hornet. He turned James Bond: Origin into a pulse-pounding, expressive, character-centric page turner. If there’s an artist better-suited for THE LONE RANGER than Bob Q, I certainly haven’ seen them.

THE LONE RANGER in 2018 is a longshot proposition to be sure, but I’d encourage all of you to take a chance on a stellar creative team, who are sure to bring real life and relevancy to an iconic character. THE LONE RANGER #1 is on stands now and I think you should check it out.