THE WILD MUSTANG

An educational journey about horses that spans history from the Miocene to modern times.

The largely forgotten history of the millions of mustangs that roamed the American West, as well as the activists who set out to save them in the 1970s, is explored in this graphic novel. It’s told a bit like a classroom lecture, with an illustrated horse playing impromptu professor to two stylized figures that look like Keith Haring’s free-figure drawings. The pop-culture pictographs argue in a comical way with the talking horse as it clarifies everything from the origins of horses to the culling that ensued in order to clear the open prairie for farming. With realistic, detailed illustrations of Spanish ships, conquistadors, Native people, bison, and the Pueblo Revolt set alongside the two questioning silhouettes, the comic book employs everything from maps to X-ray images of a horse’s digestive system to get at the big picture of America’s history even as it maintains its focus on horses. The story of early Natives, traders, horse thieves, and settlers gives way to the Wild Horse Act and the Bureau of Land Management horse-adoption program that exists in our country today. While the conquest of America is perhaps attributed too heavily to Hernán Cortés and his horses—excluding any talk of pandemics and lateral violence—the story encapsulated here is impressive for its scope. Sadly, though, the self-referential tendency of the classroom lecture uses too much space.

A surprisingly comprehensive history of wild horses.