SHAOLIN COWBOY 7 - by Geoff Darrow, colors by Alex Wald.
Published by Burlyman Entertainment. $3.50
This book comes out pretty infrequently, but I go to the comics shop pretty infrequently so we’re about even. The art is gorgeously and strangely detailed … the first issue, which is not this issue, featured a page in which our hero, the Shaolin Cowboy of the title, meeting his foes, a motley assortment of villains who conspired for his doom. They were met in a splash page the borders of which disappeared page-right. You turned the page and the splash continued, a whole new row of foes, and you turned the page again, and you turned the page again and again -- it was essentially a splash that bled on for about six pages before the panel ended and the Cowboy took up the task of defeating his enemies. A long story short, it was a book with a sense of fun that played with not only genre conventions, but technical conventions as well. Later issues featured attack-sharks and talking zombie heads.
SHAOLIN COWBOY 7 has all of those things on paper, but there’s a certain something missing from the mix … I suspect it’s “forward movement.” There are still ultra-detailed moving mountain-beasts, flying baby-seeking demons, mystic monkeys, and twain zombie heads whose word balloons are cut in two, but I’m missing the won’t-stop-to-breathe momentum of previous installments. It may simply be (and I suspect is) the pitfalls of serialized entertainment. The same way folks say LOST SEASON 2 plays a lot better on DVD than it did week to week, it’s possible this respite from non-stop Shaolinity is a welcome breather were one reading the Cowboy’s adventures in long gallop, or were one creating the Cowboy’s adventures at said speed. But like the swellest of season two LOSTS, as an issue standing alone it feels more like a gorgeous advertisement for the next issue than a completely satisfying experience of its own.
That said -- I’m glad Burlyman Entertainment still exists, that I might someday see SHAOLIN COWBOY 8. The ad in the back for DOC FRANKENSTEIN 6, which I can only assume is as infrequent, if not moreso, than SHAOLIN, states “We’re working on it … honest.” I believe you, Burlymen!
Tell me more: http://burlymanentertainment.com
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