Tex Willer

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Tex Willer
Publication information
Publisher	Sergio Bonelli Editore
First appearance	(vol. 1) #15 (September 1948)
Created by	Gian Luigi Bonelli Aurelio Galleppini
In-story information
Notable aliases	Aquila della Notte (Eagle of the Night)

Tex Willer is the main fictional character of the Italian comics series Tex, created by writer Gian Luigi Bonelli and illustrator Aurelio Galleppini, and first published in Italy on 30 September 1948. The series is among the most popular Italian comics, with translations into numerous languages around the world. The fan base in Brazil is especially large, but it is very popular also in Finland, Norway, Greece, Turkey, Croatia, France, India, Serbia, Bosnia, Israel and Spain.^[1] Issues have also been published in the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Tex series is an Italian-made interpretation of the American Old West, inspired by the classical characters and stories of old American Western movies, and occasionally by American history. The author took inspiration from Sardinia, where he grew up.

Tex is depicted as a tough man with a strong personal sense of justice, who becomes a Texas ranger (even if living in Arizona) and defends Native Americans and any other honest character from the greed of bandits, unscrupulous merchants and corrupt politicians and tycoons.

Native Americans are portrayed in a complex way, emphasizing positive and negative aspects of their culture. The same can be said of the American authorities, such as the U.S. Army, politicians, businessmen, sheriffs or the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Tex had a son, Kit (who also became a ranger), with a Native American woman, Lilyth, the daughter of a Navajo chief; Lilyth died of smallpox early in the series, but remains a recurring character in flashbacks. Later, Tex himself went on to become the Chief of the Navajo tribe.

Tex is not only featured in a monthly comic book series, but also in a special series called Tex Albo Speciale (sometimes called Texone, meaning 'big Tex', because of their bigger size). The Texone comic books have around 240 pages and some artists known outside the Tex universe have been involved, like Jordi Bernet, Joe Kubert and Ivo Milazzo.