Moonstone Forums

Don't know if there's been any discussion of 'Gunfire and Brimstone', but I was amazed to find a copy of #1 on the shelf at my local shop ( they usually only get a couple issues of Phantom or Kolchak stuff)

All I can say is.... what the heck was that all about?!

We go from the brawl with the Lone... ahem, I mean Masked Ranger to a Grant Morrisonesque scene with the shaman that appears to leading into some deep soul searching by the Kid.

I'm curious to see where this is going and if you guys can balance out the "Ranger" part of the story with the soul searching part.

Art was good. Not quite as grey and washed out as the first mini.

My only problem with these minis is that Cisco's grim loner personality can make him a bit unsympathetic.
Tricky walking that fine line between rugged individual, following his own code and 'what a jerk.'

Nope, no discussion of Gunfire & Brimstone on these forums yet, so thanks for starting one, TCH!

And thanks for your thorough, honest feedback.  Happy that you're at least curious to see what happens next, and I hope you do decide to check out issues #2 and #3 of this three issue miniseries.  It's my opinion that, as the story progresses, things become clearer.  The story was crafted as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas meets Fistful of Dollars," so the strangeness is intentional.

I'm interested in your critiques once you've read the rest of the story.  Are you looking forward to the Cisco Kid vs. Wyatt Earp crossover?

glad my review seems to have caused no emotional trauma.

G+B has definetely got me curious. Heck, having him fighting the 'Ranger' was enough to keep me around.
I'm looking forward to the soul searching, as I think Cisco needs to be fleshed out past his grim loner bit.
If the Cisco minis are to continue, we need to get more of a feel for him and more reason to root for him, besides the fact that his name is on the cover.


Very much looking forward to Cisco vs Wyatt. I'm a big time team up junkie.
The two characters seem to have similar codes, but come at them from opposite sides.

Finally tracked down issues 2 and 3.
Pretty decent.
Very surreal. Not entirely sure what parts were memory, halluciation and actually happened, but I enjoyed the story enough that I didn't mind.

Was Billy the kid really that big a knucklehead?

Nice to see Cisco's personality mellow from loner jerk to world weary loner.

Not sure how I feel about Cisco becoming the shaman's padawan, but I'll hold off judgement till I see where the next mini takes that plot thread.

Any plans for more Cisco after the Wyatt crossover?

Hey, thanks for hanging in there for the whole series, TCH!

The Cisco character presented an interesting challenge for me because we're dealing with a guy who killed the woman he loved in cold blood. That was the ending of the original O.Henry story and that was my starting point: the Cisco Kid is a bad man.

So, as the writer, I felt I had to give him his penance, whether he wanted it or not. He's a noir-type hero, so he can take a beating. His encounter with the Ranger showed us that much. Hell, deep down, I think he feels he deserves all the pain that comes his way. He subconsciously seeks it out, secretly hoping that one day somebody'll get lucky, put one in his brain and end all his misery once and for all.

No, Cisco wouldn't have learned his lesson if I just "tortured” him physically, so to speak. Just like Clint Eastwood in Fistful of Dollars, in a sick sorta way, physical torture kinda makes the Kid stronger – or at least more pissed off.

Cisco's weak point is his fragile psyche. The Masked Ranger, Billy the Kid, the Indian terrorists, the U.S. soldiers run amok: Cisco handled them no problem. But when Zora and Perez put him through the ringer mentally, spiritually and emotionally, that's when the Kid was able to take that first step toward redemption. It doesn't change him completely from a bad guy to a good guy. That would be stupid. The ending of Gunfire & Brimstone is actually a beginning. It’s the start of Cisco's long path toward redemption. The possibilities are left open, which I feel is more real than a neat and tidy ending.

No plans at the moment. Like the ending of Gunfire & Brimstone, the possibilities are pretty open right now. Speaking only for myself, I'm trying some new things with my writing career this year. I'm writing and independently producing a graphic novel about the riots in Chicago surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention. It was born out of the same blend of magic and politics that informed my approach to Cisco. The journey's only just begun for the both of us...

Oh, and to address another of your questions specifically:

There actually was a historical context for Billy the Kid's behavior there. Billy grew up in Silver City New Mexico, and the first "crime" he ever committed was stealing clothes from an Asian-owned laundry. To teach the young troublemaker a lesson, the sheriff pretended to charge him with larceny or some such nonsense, and locked him up in a hotel room for the night. But Billy was very young and naive at this point. He thought he was a real outlaw now. So he escaped his “prison” and ran to Arizona. It was in Arizona that young Billy Antrim fell in with a gang of real criminals, and the career of Billy the Kid officially began.

I thought it would be interesting for Cisco to come across Billy the Kid right before his "coming-of-age," and, through the course of the issue, show that Cisco was in some small way responsible for the man Billy would grow into.

Thanks again for all your honest feedback, TCH. That's why I write this stuff. So people will read it.

Thanks for the reply and all the info.

True, that the Kid was in need of some redemtion. It was ages ago that I read any of the O. Henry stories, but I remember he was a bit of a bastard.

I like how instead of the usual 'out for vengence/justice' driven type of loner, he feels more world weary and seems to be beating on people just to get them to go away so he can get some peace and quiet.

Hopefully, with stuff like Lone Ranger, Jonah Hex and all the Moonstone titles, Westerns will make a big comeback as a comic genre and you guys will keep cranking more stuff out.

Then you guys can revive pirate comics, as well as pulps and noir and I'll have to get a second job to keep up.

This has nothing to do with the topic, but the only version I knew from Cisco Kid was that from Jose Luis Salinas, which I loved but I see now that it has nothing to do with the original guy. I haven't read any Moonstone stuff regarding the character but I may give it a try.