The Hallelujah Man is a story that forms part of a Weird West series that Rik Rawling and I created for Fantaco Comics in the early 90s. It is set in the American West of the near future, where a 'Supernatural Disaster Zone' has created an area within the western states where technology no longer works and where the spirits of ancient lore and mythology hold sway - the vampires and ghosts and UFOs of the white settlers, the shape shifters and animal gods of the Native Americans. In colabroration with artists such as Tom Simonton, Kev Cullen, Derek Gray and David Gough, Rik and I produced three issues of an anthology-based series and then several booklets of text stories featuring Anja Van Helsing, the Weird West's ace vampire hunter, and prototype to Streetmeat's Melanoma Solo. This particular story was written seveal years later, was released as a Bad To The Bone booklet, and is expertly illustrated by Bigger Betty's Steve Colgan.

The sequences featuring Billy's dogs Rags predate the death of my own dog Bella by several years, however rereading them now they are strangely prescient. As I type this, my new puppy Molly is asleep in her basket under my table. I often wonder if the joy of long-term companionship (with Bella, of thirteen years) with a dog is worth the incredible heartache of their deaths, particularly when the cold decision has to be made to have them put down. I look at the beautiful dog asleep now in my room, and I remember watching her swim for the first time in the Irish Sea last week, and the joy that my son Alex has playing with her, and there can only be one answer.

Yes.

This one's for Bella.

(added to the archive 29th August 2000)