Comanche Moonpicture Narrative about Cynthia Ann Parker: Her Twenty-Five Year Captivity Among the Comanche Indians and Her Son, Quanah Parker

While many underground cartoonists of the `60s and `70s focused their stories on counter-cultural issues of the time, writer/artist Jack Jackson headed in the other direction, bringing the stories of early Texas personalities to life. COMANCHE MOON tells the epic story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her famed son, Quanah. Set during the final days of the Comanche, who once roamed from the Kansas Territory to central Texas, it is a fascinating and moving historical portrait. At age 9, Cynthia Ann, the daughter of Anglo settlers, is kidnapped by Comanches during a raid in 1836. Renamed Naduah, she adapts to their ways, marrying a chief and bearing a son, Quanah. Quanah rises from an uncertain beginning to become a powerful and feared warrior, and the last chief of the Quahadi Comanche. But his most startling transition was yet to come, as he adopted the white man's ways and introduced Native American culture to white society. Jackson pulls out all the stops for this graphic novel. While I recall studying Quanah Parker and these events in my Texas history class many years ago, it was not presented with this level of detail. This is certainly not your typical read-in-an-hour trade paperback - you actually have to focus, and you may even learn a thing or two if you're not careful. Jackson's historical sources are numerous, events and characters are clearly identified, and maps are abundant. I especially enjoyed his casual presentation of the Comanche's speech, almost as if they were using modern slang. The art is very detailed, at times almost approaching photorealism. Jackson takes great pains to accurately depict historical figures from daguerreotypes. At times, it resembles the early black and white work of his contemporary, Richard Corben. With all that said, there are certain parts that should appeal to the purely underground comic fan - Jackson's depictions of Quanah's mystic vision, his first experience with peyote, and his death resemble psychedelia straight out of Zap Comics. Great reading, fully educational, and very cool.

This is the finest and most intricate graphic book (not quite a novel) I've ever read. The illustrations reach levels of beauty and artistry seldom seen in this genre of storytelling. Comanche Moon (not to be confused with the Larry McMurtry novel of the same name) tells the end times history of the Comanche peoples, with emphasis on their great leader, Quanah Parker, and his mother, the "white Comanche" Cynthia Ann Parker. The story of the Comanche's' violent way of life, their struggles against the whites in Texas and across the Southwest, and of the brilliant leadership of Quanah Parker, are rendered in a way that provides as much meaningful information to a reader as most text-only tales of the Comanche and the brutal period of the mid-1800's thru the 1870's. This is a great (though often sad and bloody) segment of North American history, and this rapidly-paced, carefully produced graphic re-telling of it is a more than worthy read.

Historically accurate biography of Quanah Parker, last Commanche to live free on the LLana Estacata of Texas. Also bio information about his mother Cynthia Ann Parker, a European girl captured and raised by Commanches as their own, later taken back by her white family by force after she had married and had children as a Commanche woman. Lots of information regarding the everyday life of Commanche people. Told in a graphic novel format , the drawing is not particularly beautiful, but the story and accuracy make up for it. My copy is bound in psuedo leather, looks nice. Highly recomended for adults or older adolecents. Especially those who are intellectually curious, who may or may not have trouble with standard written texts.