I really enjoyed reading this book! I read this book in one sitting because I could not put the book down, I highly recommend reading this book!

'The True Death of Billy the Kid' with story and art by Rick Geary is a graphic novel about the famous outlaw and how he died.

The book begins with Billy the Kid in jail awaiting sentencing, then does a flashback to his life up to this point. Henry McCarty, aka Billy the Kid, was born in New York. He lived with his mother and brother. When he was 16, his mother died, and he and his brother were abandoned by his stepfather. Shortly after this, he started a life of crime. When he was finally caught and jailed, he made a daring escape. Eventually, he was killed.

If I'd had these in school, I would have loved them. The black and white art, at first didn't jump out at me, but over time the textures and details won me over. I really like the art style for this story. The story ends with a few questions that leave the reader something to think about. I found it pretty interesting.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from NBM Publishing, Papercutz, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

The True Death of Billy the Kid is part of a series of historical graphic novels by Rick Geary. The cover proclaims the book to be the first true and accurate graphic novel telling the story of the death of the wild west's outlaw, Billy the Kid. One of the great folk legends of the Wild West, William H. Bonney went from cowboy and rancher's gunslinger to a pure outlaw, forever dodging justice in New Mexico before it was even a state. On the one hand, he was charming, fun-loving, often present at social events, quite appealing to the ladies. Also conversant in Spanish, “Billito” was popular with the Spanish speaking crowd. On the other hand, he had no compunction to coldly kill a man, a sheriff, a deputy—anyone who got in the way of his rustling cattle or horses for an illicit living. He also proved hard to keep in jail once he was caught. It is probably his daring escapes from jails that made him most famous, and this is the main subject of this biography, which traces his story up through his death by a gunshot in the pitch darkness, fired by lawmen obsessed with getting rid of him.

The True Death of Billy the Kid is a black and white graphic novel detailing the life and death of Billy the Kid. While some of the details are not well documented, so Geary clearly had to speculate and fill in the gaps as best he could. The art work is neat and very detailed. It is visual pleasing and does a good job of telling the tale and enhancing the text. The labeling and explaining text were done well, and I felt like I have a little better of an understanding of what Billy was like, and how he lived. I have watched more than my fair share of movies and documentaries that cover Billy the Kid, and found this graphic novel to do a really good job of entertaining and informing readers about his life. Again, I know that Geary had to make some leaps, because we just do not know all the answers. However, I found that the choices he made in this respect seemed to be on point.

The True Death of Billy the Kid is a good graphic novel for those looking to learn more about Billy the Kid.

What a neat read. Great artwork and a lot of interesting facts. Just wished it was in color… that’s just a personal preference though!
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book, which I voluntarily chose to review.

I suspect that most of us know of Billy the Kid but know very little about him. This graphic novel isn't really a full biography. We get a dozen or so pages about his path into crime, but the bulk of the space, as the title would imply, is given to his final imprisonment and eventual death. Sort of niche interest.

This feels like a fleshed out version of a story that would have appeared in one of those <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Book_Of">Big Book of</a> series that Paradox Press published in the 90's. Geary gives you all of the scant facts (and alternate theories) of Billy the Kid's life and death. Geary has a whole series of these books and I look forward into delving into more of them.

This was a fun, quick read, and informative as well. I would have loved this series when I was a kid. The balance of caption to image is perfect, and the depiction of the title character is spot-on. The only disappointment was that it wasn't in color.

Copkiller. American Robin Hood. World-famous outlaw. Western legend. This is the story of William H. Bonney aka Billy the Kid, infamous for the murders of several lawmen and shot dead by federal agents in 1881 aged just 21 years old.

I adore Rick Geary’s true crime comics and I heartily recommend his Treasury of Victorian/20th Century Murder series to anyone who enjoys the genre. That said, The True Death of the Billy the Kid is one of the rare entries that I didn’t totally love – it’s still decent but not as high quality as the majority of his books.

Geary is as informative as ever, providing the scant facts of Billy’s short life before he became the Kid, then jumping ahead to the final weeks of his life, beginning with a daring one-man prison break from a New Mexico jail and closing with the fateful showdown in Fort Sumner.

It sounds like an exciting read – and the jailbreak sequence isn’t bad – but on the whole it turns out to be quite an uninteresting story. Billy’s early life is unimpressive, the scenes showing why he was liked by ordinary people are dull and the final showdown is disappointingly anticlimactic. Compared to Geary’s other subjects like H. H. Holmes the Beast of Chicago and Jack the Ripper, Billy’s crimes aren’t nearly as morbidly fascinating or unusual, nor is the investigation to capture him particularly gripping.

Geary’s detailed black and white line art perfectly complements the writing, clearly illuminating the story and making the history instantly understandable. And I like that he sticks doggedly to the facts to be as educational as possible, though he also presents alternate theories and ideas to certain events for some added narrative intrigue.

The True Death of Billy the Kid isn’t the most entertaining read but it’ll learn you all you ever wanted to know about this romanticised historical figure of the Old West.

Back when the National Lampoon had the best comic stories, I first saw Rick Geary’s stuff. I sought him out, the way I sought out all the other great cartoonists. It’s great to see that he is still drawing, and telling stories. Apparently this book is part of a series of historical graphic novels that he has done.

The only problem, of course, is that there isn’t a whole lot of documentation on Billy the Kid, so at times Rick has had to speculate, but he points out that is what he is doing, and shows the different narratives and why he is showing them.

Well thought out story. Since we know he is going to die, that is where it is all leading to, so no surprises there.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.