Crime scene editor Mike Stotter looks back
THE WESTERN AND I

Mike Stotter

I didn't write my first BHW until 1989, when I was thirty-two, but the genre and I — correction, the genre, BHWs' Dave Whitehead and I — go back much further than that.

I was born in the East End of London in 1957. Dave was born in the same area almost exactly one year later (we actually missed sharing the same birthday by just three days). We were introduced to each other at primary school by a mutual friend when I was nine and he was eight, but it wasn't exactly love at first sight. In fact, we didn't really have much to do with each other until we met up again some years later, at secondary school. This time, something — I don't know what it was — just clicked, and a firm friendship was born.

Because all this happened long before the days of PlayStation and X- Box, we always made our own entertainment. Movie-mad as we were, we used to choreograph stunt-fights at our local park — always saloon brawls, naturally — and spared no effort in trying to really "sell" every punch and kick.

In our quieter moments we wrote and drew our own comics, usually stealing ideas from the likes of Marvel and DC. But even here, the western played its part. Dave used to write and draw an outlaw character called "The Scarlet Bandit", while I chronicled the adventures of Wyatt Earp. Inspired by the Larry and Stretch books of Marshall Grover (which were then to be found in just about every newsagent's and market bookstall), we also co-wrote a series of stories about two cowboys-turned-detectives called Henry and James. Since "Henry" is Dave's middle name, and "James" is mine, you can see that we didn't exactly believe in stretching ourselves creatively at that point!

Dave's Dad — who had always dreamed of what life might be like as a movie mogul — bought a Standard 8mm cine camera in 1969, and the three of us soon set about making a movie. It was — surprise, surprise — a western called The Fast Gun. There wasn't much of a plot as I recall, but I do remember that I played the bad guy and Dave (with those matinee idol looks of his) played the goodie. It only ran for five shaky and often out of focus minutes, but we had a really good time making it, so over the next fifteen years we made about thirty five more. They weren't all westerns, of course, but a fair number were. I even got to play the hero in one of them!

When the Edge westerns of George G Gilman first hit the stands, we quickly became avid fans. In fact, as far as we were concerned, ol' "Triple G" couldn't write them fast enough for us. Eventually, Dave decided to start a fan club for the man himself, and with the blessing of the author — alias Terry Harknett — and Edge publisher New English Library, that's exactly what he did. I helped out wherever and whenever I could.

It was a great collaborative effort. But in 1977, Dave's father (who had always been such a tremendous help behind the scenes) died suddenly, and I think it's fair to say that Dave's heart just wasn't in it after that. So we agreed between us that I would take over the club, and somewhere along the line Steele Edge, as the club magazine was called, evolved into The Westerner, which more accurately reflected the input of such other British western writers as Laurence James, Angus Wells, Mike Linaker and Peter Watts, as well as cover artists like Tony Masero and Dave McAllister.

It was Angus Wells who first suggested that we attempt to sell the idea of a western magazine to a professional publisher, and in 1979 we did just that. No one was more surprised than us when, amid much fanfare, TV and newspaper advertising, etc., IPC Magazines launched Western Magazine in October 1980. They did a fabulous job on it too, and kept Dave and I on as consultants for the entire run. But only four issues were published before an unforeseen journalists' strike put the kibosh on the project, and Western Magazine was cancelled under the old "last in, first out" rule.

This, of course, was the height of the British paperback western, when the so-called "Picadilly Cowboys" ruled the range. Dave had always wanted to join them, and in 1984 he had his first western accepted for publication by Robert Hale Limited. Incidentally, his pseudonym "Ben Bridges" is actually the name of my nephew. Dave liked the sound of it and "borrowed" it. Anyway, one evening we were chatting away, when Dave suddenly suggested that I write a BHW of my own. I'd always fancied having a go, of course, but never actually did anything about it until then. So I wrote McKinney's Revenge, which was accepted and published about a year later. Ol' Thad McKinney returned in McKinney's Law three years later, and in between times I also created two other continuing characters, Jim Brandon and Joshua Slate, who have so far galloped through two BHWs, Tombstone Showdown (1991) and Tucson Justice (1994). As Jim A. Nelson I wrote Death in the Canyon in 1997.

These days, a full-time job in the City of London, and my duties as editor of crime fiction website Shots (www.shotsmag.co.uk), keep me fully occupied. I still manage to write a fair amount of factual material (including the award-winning children's non-fiction title The Best Ever Book of the West in 1997 and, more recently How Ancient Americans Lived), as well as short fiction for American anthologies, but I still retain a particular affection for the humble BHW, and hope to contribute some more westerns to the line very soon.

For sure, Thadius McKinney is still lurking around in my PC somewhere, as is the beginning of his third adventure, McKinney's Rangers, just waiting for him to power into action. Small wonder, then, that I have such tremendous regard for the western genre — it has played such a large part in my life to date, and I have so many great memories associated with it.