Jack Jackson, who is credited with creating what many consider the first
underground comic, God Nose, also cartooned a legacy of historical graphic
novels that has never been equaled.
Jack Jackson was a Texan, and in the
1970s he began writing and drawing short historical comics about Texas history.
He then went on to produce six graphic novels chronicling 19th century Western
history focusing on his beloved Texas and the Plains Indians. Fantagraphics is
proud to bring his graphic histories back into print in a series of three
volumes, each reprinting two of his long narratives. The first volume features
Los Tejanos, which Fantagraphics published as a solo book in 1981, and Lost
Cause (1998) — chronicling Texas history before and after the Civil War.
Los Tejanos is the story of the Texas-Mexican conflict between 1835 and 1875 as
seen through the eyes of tejano Juan Seguín (literally a Texan of
Mexican, as distinct from Anglo, heritage). It is through Seguín that
Jackson humanizes Texas' fight for independence and provides a human scale for
this vast and complex story. Lost Cause documents the violent reaction to
Reconstruction by Texans. The tensions caused by Reconstruction are told through
the Taylor-Sutton feud, which raged across South Texas, embracing two
generations and causing untold grief, and the gunslinger John Wesley Hardin, who
swept across Texas killing Carpetbaggers, Federal soldiers, and
Indians.
Two landmark works of graphic nonfiction under one cover.