Why Westerns: I Owe It All To The Man With No Name

Of my childhood interests and pastimes, I could number among them neither comics, pirates, nor westerns.

As a child I had no interest westerns. Not movies, not books, not comics.
Cowboys didn't interest me.
For the longest time, I labored under the mistaken notion that western plots would be complicated, and I wouldn't have the patience to decipher them. Funny stuff, that.

I never cared much for John Wayne movies.

Maybe John Ford was a master of cinema, but all I saw was just another black and white cowboy movie.

Roy Rogers? Nah.

And western novels? Are you kidding me! No way.

These things just weren't exciting. They weren't cool.

But then, as always happens, you discover the spaghetti westerns of Clint Eastwood, the Dollars Trilogy, Sergio Leone's masterpieces.
And you're hooked.
These are the gateway drug to all other westerns.
Ah, you're mind expands. And pretty soon you're watching an overweight, middle-aged Duke, and thinking, Yeah, this is cool.
You're hooked. You're a junkie.

But then it's over. The western has gone the way of the dinosaur. Where will get your next fix?

I'll tell you...