By Geof Darrow
Publisher: Burlyman
ISBN: 9781932700404
It would be fair to say that the collected comic works of Geof Darrow won’t fill a shelf, although what he lacks in quantity he certainly makes up for in quality. His superbly detailed artwork is visually compelling, meaning this is a man who likes to draw stuff, and by stuff I mean it all from everyday detritus to gnarled and adorned humans to jagged, weathered landscapes. If there’s a space, he fills it with something. He’s a man unafraid to plug a gap or draw an accessory. To be fair, although he’s not done too many series, he does complete a lot of covers and one-off illustrations, not to mention working as a movie concept artist, so it’s not that his detailing slows him down by that much, but it does mean that when he has got something available it’s worth sitting up and taking notice.
The Shaolin Cowboy is a creator-owned piece that glories in over-the-top violence, grotesque characters and fantastical confrontations. It doesn’t have a deeper narrative running through it, nor does it have a message it wants to impart. It’s just page after page of gloriously drawn action with its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. The Shaolin Cowboy himself is of Chinese descent and rides a heavily-laden talking ass across a version of an American desert. He’s a peaceful soul, mostly silent, but this is made up for by the ass who natters constantly in not too dissimilar a fashion to Shrek’s Donkey, albeit somewhat larger and more focused. The Shaolin Cowboy has mastered a fighting style that appears to put him at odds with just about everyone he crosses paths with, and this is illustrated, beautifully, in the opening chapter when he is cornered by a vengeful posse in a canyon. The extent of the adversaries is shown across a double-page spread with the Shaolin Cowboy still atop the ass and the miscreants surrounding him in a wide circle, each bedecked with various weapons and accoutrements. It looks like it’s going to be some fight to get himself free. But then you realise the figures to the right of the circle are bleeding of of the right-hand side of the page so you turn it over to discover a veritable line of armed and fractious people hellbent on levelling some grievance which in turn bleeds off of that right-hand page, and again and again and again. Not a lot is said across those few pages, but it took me an age to work my way through them, so fantastically illustrated they all were with all sorts of human variants, weapons, states of dress, creatures, vehicles, tattoos, and goodness knows what else. And then on the following page the fight starts.
It’s all very much a deliberate over-the-top, never-could-happen fantasy in some sort of weird parallel, possibly post-apocalyptic dust-bowl setting with everything from aggrieved crabs to scheming demons, not to mention lots and lots of martial arts, guns, and fisticuffs. And it is brilliantly absurd and a joy to behold. The cover alone took several minutes to absorb.
Darrow’s recently done an illustrated prose book with the cowboy via Dark Horse, but I really do hope he’ll do more of this. There really isn’t anyone else drawing quite like him and I for one would appreciate some more. If for no other reason that to marvel at one of the greatest comic artists in the business, you should buy this book.
And if you liked that: You’ll no doubt like Darrow’s Hard Boiled
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