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Is It Good? The Shaolin Cowboy #2 Review

Comic Books

Is It Good? The Shaolin Cowboy #2 Review

If you’ve been following along like good little AiPTers then you’d know the first issue of this series got a perfect 10 from us.

Here’s the deal: I’ve been reviewing comic books on a weekly basis for a while now. I’ve seen some things. I’ve also noted that a perfect score for a premiere issue is no guarantee that #2 will rock our socks off. So… The Shaolin Cowboy #2: is it good?

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The Shaolin Cowboy #2 (Dark Horse Comics)


Is It Good? The Shaolin Cowboy #2 Review

I’m not sure I’ve had such a hard time reviewing a comic that has so little to it. They say brevity is the soul of wit; well, this comic is short, especially if you skim the art, but that doesn’t guarantee any wit. Aside from the sound of a chainsaw and the sound of zombies there’s nothing to this comic than huge double page spreads of…well, I won’t ruin it. Where did we leave off?

Basically the Shaolin Cowboy woke up to find some zombies out in the desert and proceeded to take them out. The last issue also opened with a lengthy two page summary of what came before that was delectably hilarious. He decided to whip out a chainsaw/staff-thingy and take out zombies. Cut to this issue.

Writer and artist Geof Darrow is well known for his hyper-detailed work. The stuff he spins out is gorgeous to say the least, and this issue is no exception. It’s just so monotonous I’m not sure what to make of it. To simplify it, there are pages and pages of the same thing here, which is the cowboy spinning around cutting zombies to pieces. Flip through this in five seconds and you get the idea. If you sit and linger on things though, you’ll see the real reading pleasure comes in eyeballing the details.

And oh, there are many details to marvel at, from the zombie penises to the bones cluttering the ground to bugs crawling on the zombies asses. It’s at once hilarious, breathtaking and somehow, boring. I have a feeling when collected this is going to resonate a lot more, because we’ll have story before and after it to justify all the art. One of the sentences on the solicit reads: “For fans of chainsaws!” and I have to agree. Aside from the zombies there are tons of chainsaws, that’s for sure.

Is It Good? The Shaolin Cowboy #2 Review 6.0

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  • Amazingly detailed art
  • Repetitive

Is It Good?

This book isn’t bad per se, it’s more a problem of how repetitive it is that makes it hard to justify a purchase. In these days of writing single issues to fill collections I can see this issue being a great part of the whole, but to pick this off the shelf and enjoy it will require a person’s desire to see hyper detail and oggle a page for minutes on end. I’m just not that person. I’m still game for issue #3, but I hope there’s more to it to stimulate more than my eyes.

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