Roswell, Texas online: one year later

By Anders Monsen
On May 1, 2006, Big Head Press began an online venture. They started serializing an original novel concept by L. Neil Smith and Rex May. First conceived as a novel idea over a decade ago (and still seeking a publisher in that format), Smith and artist Scott Bieser transmogrified the alternative history extravaganza that is Roswell, Texas as a graphic novel (to use a term from another graphic pioneer). Bieser and Smith last collaborated on turning The Probability Broach into a graphic novel.

The old cliché that it has to be seen in order to be believed definitely applies to this novel. As we learn in the opening pages, after Santa Ana is shot at the Alamo, history takes a vastly different turn. A hundred plus years later, something has happened in Roswell, TX. The President of Texas, Charles Lindberg, Jr., sends Wild Bill Bear to investigate with three Texas Rangers. The United States, California, France, and Mexico also send agents, including pink-wearing Nazis, Madame Curie, and a host of other characters. The Pope is involved, an internal spy group in Texas keeps tabs on most of the players, and the mystery deepens when Bill Bear encounters the rancher in Roswell where events took place, a drop-dead gorgeous brunette from Tennessee, called Bettie.

One year into the project at http://www.bigheadpress.com/roswell, I have spent virtually every Friday reading the latest panels, and gone back through the entire work at least twice. Historical characters blend seamlessly with fictional ones, and this has to be one of the funniest, most enjoyable alternative histories I have ever read.

A panel from the graphic novel accompanied the article in the newsletter. It's visible on page 2 of the pdf.