Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here's the archive of the moments posted so far!

Today we look at the second Stray Bullets collection (and the first "real" story arc of the series), "Somewhere Out West," written and drawn by the great David Lapham...

.

Enjoy!

"Somewhere Out West," which covered Stray Bullets #8-14, works off of a clever premise - what happens AFTER the dramatic "ending" when the hero and the girl make a dramatic exit, robbing a drug dealer blind in the process?

As we learn here, they end up "Somewhere Out West," in a town called Seaside (that is nowhere near the sea) in a village called Woodlake.

And you can see, our "heroes," Orson and Beth, are having a hard time adjusting to the new set-up (they're holed up with a briefcase filled with cocaine along with Nina, the former girlfriend of the guy they stole the coke from)....

Beth continues to give Orson a hard time...

As the storyline goes on, Lapham introduces us to other residents of this odd little town, including Nick...

In this storyline, the first one that Lapham spent a group of issues on one time period and one cast of characters, he really showed off the importance of his greatest attribute - developing interesting characters and then throwing them into intriguing situations.

This is a weird, offbeat storyline, and that's BEFORE (SPOILER!) the bad guys catch up with them.

Plus, of course, there's Virginia (who supplies an Amy Racecar interlude in #10 that's, like Amy Racecar interludes, amazing), who ends up joining this gang of misfits.

This is a strong, well-paced arc by Lapham that was really important for the book as a whole to show that he could do a series of one-off issues AND tell a series of connected issues, and have them all come out really well.

And, naturally, his art is fantastic.

This is a great series. I wish it were all collected!