Hey, Wild West fans! Like the title says, tomorrow is the last day for Piko Interactive’s The Legend of Calamity Jane: Box-Set DVD and Comic Kickstarter campaign, which includes The Legend of Calamity Jane: The Devil Herself, a one-shot comic I’m collaborating on with artist/colorist Eliseu Gouveia (Lorelei: Sects and the City and the Saga of Pandora Zwieback comics) for Piko’s Virtual Comics imprint.
The Legend of Calamity Jane was a Western series that appeared on the Kids’ WB network in 1997 and presented a heavily fictionalized, heavily stylized take on the life and times of the real-life Martha Jane Canary, a gunslinging, bullwhip-toting cowgirl who was famously known across the United States as “Calamity Jane.” It starred Barbara Weber-Scaff (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets) as the voice of Jane, with Frank W. Welker (Megatron and others of the Transformers cartoons and movies, Freddy of Scooby-Doo) as Jane’s sidekick, Joe Presto, and Clancy Brown (Superman: The Animated Series, Highlander) as Wild Bill Hickok.
Unfortunately, the series was canceled in the US after just three weeks—possibly due to the level of violence and gunplay on display—but it did complete its single-season, 13-episode run in other countries, where it built up quite a worldwide following over the years. And in recent years, people have been discovering it by watching low-res, fuzzy transfers posted on the Internet.
The Legend of Calamity Jane: Box-Set DVD and Comic collects the entire series, taken from the original masters and presented in its original running order, and comes with the aforementioned The Legend of Calamity Jane: The Devil Herself full-color comic book that picks up the continuity from the series—and moves the action to the present day, Jane is on the hunt for a stolen relic: a gun that belonged to her old friend Wild Bill Hickok. But more suprising than the identity of the gun’s current owner—a series villain from her past—is the even bigger mystery it sets up: How can Calamity Jane still be alive today, and not looking a day older than she did in the 1870s?
The Legend of Calamity Jane: DVD Box Set and Comic Kickstarter campaign—features a presentation video narrated by none other than Barbara Weber-Scaff, Calamity Jane herself!—ends tomorrow at 11:20 a.m. ET. If you’ve thought about backing the project but haven’t done so yet, head on over now and throw your support to the Wild West’s most badass cowgirl!
