In this episode I discuss the history of the genre of the Western, beginning early in the 19th century as frontier fiction and proceeding up to the late-1930s, when the first two Western comic books--Star Ranger #1 and Western Picture Stories #1--were published.

Among the topics discussed: frontier fiction of England, France, and Spain; James Fenimore Cooper; the Mexican-American War; anti-Mexican racism and pro-Mexican racism; the novelettes; the dime novels; Deadwood Dick, Frank and Jesse James, and the progressive (verging on revolutionary) politics of the dime novel Western; the first Western novel; Owen Wister's The Virginian; how a club of elite Easterners not only created the Western as we now know it, but shaped the discourse of the Western, with effects that are still felt today; the Western pulps; the Western comic strips; and the eleven interesting things in Star Ranger #1 and Western Picture Stories #1.