Winner, Mitchell A. Wilder Award for Publication Design, Texas Association of Museums

Folks across the West know a cowpoke named Jake. A good-hearted guy, he’s always up to his eyebrows in debt or drought or prickly pears looking for them dad-blamed ole wild cows. In fact, he’s so real a fella that it’s hard to believe that Ace Reid made him up.

This book brings together 139 of Ace Reid’s popular Cowpokes cartoons, reproduced in large format to show the artistry and attention to detail that characterized Reid’s work. Grouped around themes such as work, weather, bankers, and friends, they reveal the distinctive you might as well laugh as cry sense of humor that ranch folks draw on to get through hard work and hard times.

In the foreword, Washington Post cartoonist Pat Oliphant offers an appreciation of Reid’s Cowpokes cartoons, noting that Ace’s work has a magic of its own, and it owes nothing to anyone else. Reid’s longtime friend Elmer Kelton recounts Ace’s life and career in the introduction, describing how a shy boy who grew up on ranch work transformed himself into an artist-entrepreneur who never met a stranger and who made ranch work the subject of his real love, cartooning. This collector’s volume belongs on the shelf of everyone who loves the Cowpokes cartoons, knows a fella like Jake, or enjoys the dry wit of the American cowboy.