Saloon Chapter 3 is a comic written by Aaron Williamson with art by Cloves Rodriguez and colors by Jose Ramirez. Whip and Hank arrive at a town in Nevada where Jayson Bengal is rumored to be. This is a gritty Western comic with some of the most notable hallmarks of the Wild West genre like gruff cowboys, strict lawmen, lengthy travels, and bloody gunfights. The main men here are Hank Henderson and Whip Wells. Hank used to run with the Bengal Gang before being beaten and left for dead for wanting to leave. Whip was a married man with a cattle farm until the Bengal Gang took all that away. Also making appearances here are the bounty hunter Ward and Julie the prostitute Julie. This story begins with Hank and Whip riding into Timmkee, Nevada and getting a room. Whip does some looking while Hank nurses his injured shoulder and he manages to locate Jayson Bengal’s horse, which lets them know he’s in town. The violence here is par for the course when it comes to Westerns with the bloody gunshot wounds and some gruesomeness. This moves at a steady pace with the action moments being a bit faster. The tone here is that of your average gritty revenge Western. Tough there are some dramatic undertones this is much more violently intense. The dialogue is all conversational, very direct, and vulgar with that Western talking style complete with old sayings. There are no wordy heavy pages here. This is an entertaining issue with a straightforward story and a considerable amount of violence delivered by tough and angry individuals.

            The art here is a drawn in a somewhat smoothly detailed, watercolor-looking, roughish style with decent lighting and shading. Most of the colors on display here are brownish or dark with the only bright tones coming from blood. While most of this takes place in town there are some outdoor scenes in a forest environment surrounded by mountains. The town of Timmkee has a number of stone buildings and not just the wooden ones you’d normally see in Westerns. Some of places visited include a hotel, a theatre, and various streets around town. Backgrounds just about always show the actual surroundings from the walls to the ground. The expression level here is low as this is a Western with a bunch of tough guys. Anger is the primary emotion with some irritation and fear. Faces have a ranging level of detail from poor to good but most expressions should be simple to decipher. There is some face sameness here due to similar haircuts and facial hair. Revolvers, shotguns, rifles, and knives are the weapons we’ll see. The violence can get a bit gruesome as some of these gunshot wounds are nasty and can lead to a lot of blood. Action scenes tend to have some length and a higher number of panels with a generally smooth flow.

“Is this worth reading?”

Yes, if this is up your alley.

“Would I like this?”

If you like Wild West stories with vengeful leads and opportunistic individuals going up against a criminal gang then this is for you.

“What would this comic’s film rating be?”

R. Violence, blood, gore, gruesomeness.

“Could I get a quote from the comic?”

“I admire your grit. What’s your name, son?”

 

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/saloon2/saloon-3/description

***IN-DEPTH COMIC STATS BELOW***

Probably Contains Spoilers

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Actual Pages(not counting covers and credits): 22

Violent Pages: 12, for 55% 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 – 3

“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 – 4

“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 – 2

“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.”