ABSTRACT
The final year of the 1920s experienced the metamorphosis of the traditional Western in Spain, which resulted in the birth of the hybrid subgenre known as Weird Western in the Iberian Peninsula. This article introduces and explains the context that gave birth to the original Weird Western collection of El sheriff (Prensa Moderna 1929-1932; editorial Fénix 1932-1934), and offers a sample of the whole by locating and scrutinizing some of the weirding elements in La reina del país misterioso (no. 12, 1929). The aim is also to make some fundamental information about El sheriff available to a global readership, including an appendix that reconstructs, for the first time, a tentative bibliography of the original collection of El sheriff, the spin-off Pete (Prensa Moderna 1934-1935), and the inconsecutive reprints of the original volumes by Ediciones Tesoro (1943-1944). This author hopes that the article will offer a strong foundation for any future work on El sheriff, with the aspiration of starting and stimulating a transnational discussion.
