Lady Gunfighter: Condemnation #1 (Chapter 2) is a comic written by Brian Pulido & Mike MacLean with illustrations by Joel Gomez and colors by Hedwin Zaldivar. After years of searching Eliza is once again face-to-face with Jebidiah Kane. This is a supernatural Western with heavy drama, rampant bloodshed, with themes of justice and revenge. The leading lady here is Eliza, she is a short-tempered and cold gunslinger who is out for revenge against a man named Jebidiah Kane. She has a demonic/spiritual gun that shoots bullets that can be directed after firing. With her is Pike, a Black ex-Union soldier who Eliza saved from both being burned by the KKK and a hanging. This story picks up where the last one left off with Eliza and Pike facing off with Jebidiah Kane after he’s flanked them. They don’t waste their time with words and immediately get to blasting but Eliza’s special bullets are redirected by Jebidiah’s. He mocks her and tells her that if she can’t control her temper she can’t control the bullets. This takes place in 1876 in Arizona and has all the charm and ambiance of the Wild West. The violence here is very bloody with a number of gruesome attacks that lead to gore. This moves at a steady pace with some slower expository sections and speedier gunfights. This has the tone of your average Western but with strong supernatural undertones. Most of the high intensity moments are due to violence but there are some dramatic ones as well. The dialogue is spoken with a Western accent with quick-witted remarks and substantial amount of narration from Eliza. There aren’t any word-heavy pages but more than a few get close. This is a thrilling sequel issue that expounds on multiple characters especially its leading lady while providing us with bloody Wild West-style combat and spiritual, dramatic, and firearm-related lore.
The art here is a drawn in a detailed, somewhat sharp-edged style that is reminiscent of comics from the 70’s or 80’s with focused lighting and shading. The color palette here is very Western with an overabundance of tans and browns with reds and blacks being prominent as well. True to the genre, for the scenery there are long stretches of dry and rocky terrain with high mountains, caves, and sparse greenery. These characters do a lot of traveling but the primary locations are an abandoned town, the San Cortez Mission, and a dangerous town called Hell’s Canyon. The backgrounds consistently show the actual surroundings which adds to the atmosphere and gives life to the different areas. The expression level here is a tick below average as most of these characters are hardened and like to maintain a tough, unflinching exterior. Anger, rage, and irritation are the main emotions here with sinister happiness and rare moments of sadness. The detail in the faces ranges from decent to average with the strongest feature being the eyes; most of the different expressions shown are easy to decipher. There is some face sameness among the women. Firearms are the overwhelming weapon of choice from revolvers to Gatling guns though you will see a number of blades. Just about every attack leads to blood with a few gruesome moments that lead to heavy gore. The action scenes appear in lengthy bursts, have a generally unconfusing flow, and have a good balance of large and small panels.
“Is this worth reading?”
Yes.
“Would I like this?”
If you like supernatural Westerns stories that star a woman gunslinger out for revenge with heavy violence, tragic drama, frequent bloodshed then this is for you.
“What would this comic’s film rating be?”
R. Blood, violence, gruesomeness, gore.
“Could I get a quote from the comic?”
“But as you say, sometimes prayer is not enough.”
Coffin Launch Link: https://coffinlaunch.com/pages/lady-gunfighter-condemnation
***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***
Probably Contains Spoilers
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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 48
Violent Pages: 28, for 58% of the comic
Sexy Pages: 0, for 0% of the comic
**The levels below aren’t necessarily maintained throughout the whole comic, but they were definitely reached**
Violence Level – 5
“Wasn’t no tussling at all.”
“Sometimes you gotta hit somebody.”
“I’m getting charged with how many counts of assault?”
“This was a tournament arc.”
“All my life I had to fight.”
Gore Level – 5
“The only thing leaking out your face is tears.”
“Looks like somebody spilled some ketchup.”
“Might need to soak that up with a bath towel.”
“That isn’t supposed to be outside the body.”
“This is a slaughterhouse.”
Death Level – 4
“And everybody lived happily ever after.”
“We might have gone to a couple funerals.”
“It just LOOKS like a serial killer was here.”
“Yeah this was a tragedy.”
“Think Gettysburg.”
Porn Level – 1
“Everybody kept their clothes on.”
“I guess it was too hot for a bra.”
“Sometimes you got to let everything air out.”
“This is like late night Cinemax in the early 2000’s.”
“Oh. This is porn.”
