Do you have a sudden craving for guns, dust and horseback riding? No need to go to America, open instead The Dragons of the Border of Harriet and Gil, a new vision of the western.
A troop of soldiers accompanied Spanish settlers who had come to settle on the border. For the sergeant who leads the group, it is already painful enough to advance under the sun and in the dust but he has to put up with the young cadet Miguel. When he decides to pursue Indians to recover a nun, his duty obliges him to help her, but he feels that it will end badly…
A classic of the wild west
The reader passionate about films will quickly find the codes of the western. The convoy of settlers that opens the first page is in a semi-desert landscape worthy of a John Ford or Sergio Leone movie. Ivan Gil's classic drawing is reminiscent of many older series by the realism of the bodies and detailed landscapes. We also find thanks to Garluk Aguirre the bright colors of yellow with some green spots of the Wild West. Ivan Gil is also very good at action and takes the story much higher. The cutting and framing are then closer to the comics by highlighting the speed. By a very beautiful scene of chase on horseback, the reader is caught up in the action. We even discover how a ferret can save from an ambush… This volume revolves around a duo of opposing but complementary soldiers very well written. We laugh at the sergeant's weariness in front of the impulsiveness of the youngest, but also at the arrogance of this son of the great nobility.
Planned in only two volumes, Dragons of the Border is a very ambitious comic. Initially, Native Americans seemed stereotyped. They run to swallow a large bottle of alcohol. They do not seek a frontal attack but use ambushes. They do not respect civilians by abducting a woman. However, through dialogues, the truth is much more complex because the decline of these indigenous populations is planned. The viceroy of Mexico delivers alcohol to the Apaches to weaken them during the war. In addition, the drought is creating region-wide tensions as each Indian people, already in conflict for a long time, puts pressure on the neighboring tribe to find food. This whole border area is on the verge of explosion.
A new vision of the conquest of the West
Westerns are very popular in comics but Frontier Dragons innovate by presenting the other side of the border. It seems that the book takes place before the rush to the west. This step aside goes through a new geographical setting by seeing the Mexican side. Published by Glénat, this Spanish comic wants to rehabilitate the losers of American films. In most films, Mexicans are often victims, torturers or forgotten of the conquest of the West. These settlers represent another migration, the Spanish to Latin America. There is also a French community with mercenaries and a nun who left Louisiana after the takeover by the United States. The uniforms of the soldiers are very different. They are the dragons of the title because these riders are armed with a spear and protected by a shield.
The historical framework is rigorous by the small explanations of the short footnotes. We can also welcome Aurore Schmid's translation. This presence of the past begins with everyday life at the border. Due to the lack of women, each is coveted by Mexicans and Indians. Widowhood does not last. But Gregorio Muro Harriet's screenplay goes much further. It comes out of a monolithic vision of Native Americans. The Apache are at war with the Mexicans but also against the Comanches while the Hopi, subject to the Mexicans, are starving by drought. A Spaniard was kidnapped and raised by Apaches, but he hates his biological father so much that he denies his Mexican identity and even wants to kill all whites.
Frontier Dragons begins as a good action story, but the narrative becomes much richer as the pages go by. We are going from a group of soldiers accompanying settlers to a vast geopolitics of the border region. So follow these soldiers to a high-risk area.
If you like exotic westerns, we advise you to read the chronicle of a South African western or the life of an Englishman kidnapped by Native Americans in John Tanner.
