The Shaolin Cowboy #4

The Shaolin Cowboy #4
Dark Horse Comics
Written by Geof Darrow
Art by Geof Darrow

Take a person proficient in the art of Shaolin Kung Fu, taking a cleansing breath, running through a focusing form and setting himself in a defensive stance. Dressed in a neckerchief, All-Star Chucks and a western style of shirt and jeans, he starts attacking what look like zombies coming out of nowhere while he’s in the middle of the American Southwest. They’re hundreds of them, possibly thousands, all massing on this one man who then starts turning them into pieces of zombies in a very calm and fluid style of martial art. This description just about sums up this entire book and the whole story in it. . . Yeah, that’s what I said.

Going through this, the art told the story of what’s going on. It came across as being a dirt filled place and a dirty situation; that really worked. The paneling was basic squares, because there was so much action going on, this really worked. You never got lost trying to follow the blow-by-blow. Also, the cover art matched with the art inside and gave you a hint of what’s going on. Again, to me, this is a positive. The writing was . . . well, a story was told, but there wasn’t any dialog until the end and that didn’t tell me why this character, who remained nameless was doing what he was doing.

Reading this brings back a point I bring up about getting a book in the middle of a story and I’m not aware of what happened in the first issues. In this, there’s nothing saying what happened in 0-3. Also, there was no dialog really to help with what’s happening. As for the action, that worked but I need to know more. Who is he, why is he there, what is the endgame other than living? Basic stuff like that. If you see this, find the first ones and get caught up before you get this one, in my humble opinion. I give this 2 caps out of 5.