| "El Mestizo" | |
|---|---|
 El Mestizo on the cover of the 4 June 1977 edition ofBattle Picture Weekly, art byCarlos Ezquerra. | |
| Publisher | IPC Magazines |
| Publication date | 4 June – 17 September1977 |
| Genre | |
| Title(s) | Battle 4 June to 17 September 1977 |
| Creative team | |
| Writer(s) | Alan Hebden |
| Artist(s) | Carlos Ezquerra |
| Editor(s) | Dave Hunt |
"El Mestizo" is aBritish comicwar story published in the weeklyanthologyBattle Picture Weekly from 4 June to 17 September 1977 byIPC Magazines. Set during theAmerican Civil War, the story follows amestizo slave turned mercenary returning fromMexico to America in 1862. The story was written by Alan Hebden and drawn byCarlos Ezquerra.
Since starting work onBattle Picture Weekly on the strips "Rat Pack" and "Major Eazy",Carlos Ezquerra had rapidly become one of the comic's most popular artists by 1977. He was much in demand elsewhere, working withPat Mills andJohn Wagner on designingJudge Dredd for newscience fiction weekly title2000 AD.Battle editor Dave Hunt wanted to keep Ezquerra, and assigned Alan Hebden - who had worked with the artist on "Major Eazy" - to create a story, especially for the artist, coming up with "El Mestizo". As it was, Ezquerra left as regular artist on "Judge Dredd" in controversial circumstances, and would remain withBattle for another year.[1]
As with Eazy, Hebden drew on theClint Eastwood-starringDollars Trilogy of films, directed bySergio Leone, both for the mysterious lead character and the historical setting.[2][3]John Freeman would later suggest thatJimi Hendrix influenced the design of the character.[4]
Ezquerra greatly enjoyed both the comic and working with Hebden, but was aware the strip's unconventional nature - being the first inBattle to feature a black hero and the first (and last) story in the comic set in the American Civil War, and at the time one of the few not centred onWorld War II - meant it was unlikely to be popular with readers.[1][5][3] He would recall that "England in the seventies was not the right place for this character".[6]
Their predictions proved correct as it only lasted for 16 issues before the pair were returned to "Major Eazy". Hebden would later reflect it was "too radical a story for the readership of the time", and felt Ezquerra wouldn't have leftBattle to draw "Strontium Dog" inStarlord if the strip had continued for longer.[7]
Since 2016, the rights to the story have been owned byRebellion Developments.[8][9] In 2018 they issued a hardcover collected edition of all 16 episodes under theirTreasury of British Comics label,[10] shortly before Ezquerra's death.[11]
A mysterious stranger appears in aTexas border town in 1862; with word of 'El Mestizo's deeds having already spread few are willing to tangle with him. He claims to be uninterested in thecivil war being waged across America, instead having crossed fromMexico in pursuit of a murderer called Hutardo - though he has no reservations about taking on mercenary work for bothUnion andConfederate armies. He also pays a visit to the plantation inAlabama that he escaped from, visiting old friend Shelley and killing his former 'owner', only to see her mortally wounded by a group of Yankee brigands.[12]
| Title | ISBN | Publisher | Release date | Contents |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| El Mestizo | 9781781086575 | Rebellion Developments | 15 November 2018 | Material fromBattle 4 June to 17 September 1977 |
In his foreword for the collected edition, Alan Hebden acknowledged the story's poor reception fromBattle readers at the time but felt the strip had received a re-evaluation in the years since.[2]David Bishop, editor of2000 AD between 1996 and 2000, referred to the strip as "ground-breaking".[13]
Reviewing the collected edition for Slings & Arrows, Karl Verhoven praised Ezquerra's art but expressed discomfort of the strip using a derogatory slur as its title, surmising that otherwise the story "still stands up as an imaginative adventure strip, rarely predictable beyond the certainty that the title hero will live to appear in the next episode".[14]