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Shaolin Cowboy #12-15
Shaolin Cowboy: Who'll Stop the Reign?
Who doesn't like Surf and Turf? Well, what do you do when Surf and Turf doesn't like YOU?????????The Eisner Award-losing and winning, drawing-room talkfest The Shaolin Cowboy returns and will try to answer those questions as the titular hero of the series finds that his road to hell is paved not with good intentions but old nemeses hellbent on bloody revenge ... AGAIN!!!!He fought an army of the shambling dead, but can the Shaolin Cowboy survive a sinister desert town filled with guns, prostitutes, and white supremacists, all run by a crustaceous mafia?Collects Shaolin Who'll Stop the Reign #1-4.
128 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 7, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
May 18, 2021
The Shaolin Cowboy fights surf and turf through a rundown city as King Crab returns. But first he must stop the menace that is Hog Kong. Darrow lets all his demons pour out into this hyper-violent, ultra-detailed, fight fest. I like how people walk through this huge fight in the middle of the street but can't be bothered to notice because they are on their phones. Darrow's art is exquisite.
November 1, 2017
It takes a really long time to realize that Who'll Stop the Reign? is a decidedly different beast than the ridiculous surrealist beat-em-up that Geof Darrow started back in 2005. This shouldn't be true -- I shouldn't be able to tell you that there is a sequence in which a kung-fu monk weilds two live dogs with knives for feet like nunchucks, and yet somehow the scene is sad and somber and politically-charged. This, even in the psychotic and impossible world of Shaolin Cowboy, seems too illogical to be real.
SC has been my favorite comic for twelve years, but by no means have I ever thought of Geof Darrow as a storyteller, as someone with something to say. He's a "visual storyteller," sure, but that's just a phrase we use to mean "draws good with a sense of panel continuity," and even that is a statement that's too simple for what Darrow does. In The Shaolin Cowboy and its followup, Shemp Buffet, Darrow drifted between aesthetic orgasms and pure overindulgence -- a circus of one-upmanship for action sequences too ornate and gratuitous to be believed.
And Who'll Stop the Reign? is, to all outward appearances, the same, except that it isn't. Where the previous volumes concerned demons, sprawling deserts, and ancient zombie hordes, Reign mainly takes place in a run-down city oozing with drug addicts who seem unaware of each other, each one texting to friends offscreen. The only characters who speak to each other directly are packs of wild dogs who piss and shit incessantly. Every store is either a porn shop or a chain restaurant, the sky is choked with smog and flying lizards, and the villain of the piece is a young woman covered with swastika tattoos who only stops fighting long enough to ask on occasion if Trump is really president. When the Cowboy spills blood of the rotten people around him (as he always does, in copious amounts) it no longer feels exciting. It just feels sick and sad. It feels like animals being put out of a collective misery.
There is absolutely nothing subtle about the commentary here, but the lack of nuance isn't the point. This third and (seemingly) final volume of Shaolin Cowboy is corrupted and diseased, short-circuited with modern anxiety that stands in direct opposition to the fabulist excess of the previous books. There is always a roiling tension that drives Darrow's work, but Reign feels genuinely angry, funereal, mournful. For a series that began as something almost timelessly fun and abstract, Shaolin Cowboy now seems like a book that is more bleak and of-our-times than anything I've read this year.
SC has been my favorite comic for twelve years, but by no means have I ever thought of Geof Darrow as a storyteller, as someone with something to say. He's a "visual storyteller," sure, but that's just a phrase we use to mean "draws good with a sense of panel continuity," and even that is a statement that's too simple for what Darrow does. In The Shaolin Cowboy and its followup, Shemp Buffet, Darrow drifted between aesthetic orgasms and pure overindulgence -- a circus of one-upmanship for action sequences too ornate and gratuitous to be believed.
And Who'll Stop the Reign? is, to all outward appearances, the same, except that it isn't. Where the previous volumes concerned demons, sprawling deserts, and ancient zombie hordes, Reign mainly takes place in a run-down city oozing with drug addicts who seem unaware of each other, each one texting to friends offscreen. The only characters who speak to each other directly are packs of wild dogs who piss and shit incessantly. Every store is either a porn shop or a chain restaurant, the sky is choked with smog and flying lizards, and the villain of the piece is a young woman covered with swastika tattoos who only stops fighting long enough to ask on occasion if Trump is really president. When the Cowboy spills blood of the rotten people around him (as he always does, in copious amounts) it no longer feels exciting. It just feels sick and sad. It feels like animals being put out of a collective misery.
There is absolutely nothing subtle about the commentary here, but the lack of nuance isn't the point. This third and (seemingly) final volume of Shaolin Cowboy is corrupted and diseased, short-circuited with modern anxiety that stands in direct opposition to the fabulist excess of the previous books. There is always a roiling tension that drives Darrow's work, but Reign feels genuinely angry, funereal, mournful. For a series that began as something almost timelessly fun and abstract, Shaolin Cowboy now seems like a book that is more bleak and of-our-times than anything I've read this year.
September 23, 2021
The shaolin cowboy fights an enormous ninja pig (who, like King Crab, has an extremely elaborate backstory). Shemp Buffet was the perfect Shaolin Cowboy volume in my opinion. The lack of dialogue and insane repetition of the violent, detailed art was pure and astonishing to behold.
Who'll Stop the Reign certainly has the great art, but it also has so, so, so much dialogue. It also leans further into the Where's Waldo school of background art. Except in Shaolin Cowboy, you're trying to identify all the drunks with their dicks hanging out (seemingly dozens on every page). At this point, Shaolin Cowboy is just exhausting. Check out Shemp Buffet and skip the rest.
Who'll Stop the Reign certainly has the great art, but it also has so, so, so much dialogue. It also leans further into the Where's Waldo school of background art. Except in Shaolin Cowboy, you're trying to identify all the drunks with their dicks hanging out (seemingly dozens on every page). At this point, Shaolin Cowboy is just exhausting. Check out Shemp Buffet and skip the rest.
July 11, 2022
Konečně. Konečně se začne něco vysvětlovat. A svět je mnohem krásnějším místem. Jasně, velmi rychle to přejde do vtipu, ale kdo by to tady řešil? Protože tenhle díl funguje zatím nejlíp ze všech, kresba pořád bombastická a tady ve městě konečně pořádně vynikne. Sice jsem zvědav, jestli se tohohle dílu někdy česky dočkáme a jestli druhý neodradí poslední fanoušky, ale byla by to sakra škoda. Víc, prosím, a to hned.
September 4, 2018
Um, wow. Imagine a nondescript Asian who has Robert Mitchum & a Shaolin grandmaster as mentors with Buddhist swagger and Western decadence. He likes to wield two dogs with knives for forepaws as nunchakus or chainsaws attached to the end of a bo-stick while wearing a corny cowboy outfit and Converse sneakers. Extremely graphic detail and very clever commentary about America's woes and foibles. I think that the moral of the story is to not eat meat anymore because it might come back to kill you.
March 28, 2025
Verden har gått av hengslene. Kanskje dette er sånn verden egentlig ser ut, bare at vi ikke får det med oss med nesa dypt i mobilen? Her er pizza-gate ispedd Walking Dead. Det er som om det finnes et overherredømme vi ikke vet om, men ingen bryr seg. Tech-kongene styrer verden, mens folket er ignorante og bare opptatt av elementære behov. Dyrene tar makt og plass, men er likevel sett på som underlegne raser. Som sagt; Moebius møter Walking Dead, og kanskje litt Animal Farm. Stor detaljrikdom ❤️
February 12, 2021
This series reminds me a lot about Samurai Jack. A lone wanderer acting as the only sane person in an insane world. Anything is possible as long as it makes sense in context. But of course everybody wants a piece of the action and will do just about anything for stakes.
The action on display really does give off the impression from the creator's influence of "Moebius". Everything feels like it's in motion with little things happening on the side with no real importance, it's what gives the world a little meaning.
The action on display really does give off the impression from the creator's influence of "Moebius". Everything feels like it's in motion with little things happening on the side with no real importance, it's what gives the world a little meaning.
January 28, 2018
Considering the gargantuan amount of detail Geof Darrow puts into his Shaolin Cowboy pages it's a wonder that there's another Shaolin Cowboy book out so soon after the previous volume. But there is, and that makes us the lucky ones.
Having previously battled a mind-boggling horde of zombies that took him to the point of exhaustion, the Shaolin Cowboy now has other problems to deal with. Firstly there's his long-time foe in the form of a bitter crustacean, holed up in a white supremacist town with murder on his mind. And then there's a humungous pig with it's own tragedy linking directly back to the titular hero of the piece. Everyone's after revenge but, as we know, this cowboy doesn't go down easy.
The world of Shaolin Cowboy, some sort of near future post-collapse shambles where society has broken down for the worst but limps on with some semblance to the familiar, is a place where everyone seems to carry a gun, a grudge and a multitude of piercings and tattoos. Litter and detritus cover the ground and graffiti adorns every vertical surface. Dirty and dysfunctional, it's ruled by violence, weapons, sex and attitude, and whether Darrow is drawing the desert, the highway or the town it's quite plain this isn't a pleasant place to live. So when the Shaolin Cowboy is forced to defend himself against gun-toting forces you certainly feel everyone's going to get what's coming to them.
But the sheer joy of this book, and its predecessors, is the hyper-detailed illustration. No short-cuts or rushed panels here, just page after page of superbly realised indulgence depicting every moment of outrageous and outlandish fights, complicated street scenes and all manner of bizarre and sublime extras. You are most certainly getting more than your money's worth, with each page requiring your full attention to appreciate the scale of the detail. A standing ovation for Mr Darrow, please.
Having previously battled a mind-boggling horde of zombies that took him to the point of exhaustion, the Shaolin Cowboy now has other problems to deal with. Firstly there's his long-time foe in the form of a bitter crustacean, holed up in a white supremacist town with murder on his mind. And then there's a humungous pig with it's own tragedy linking directly back to the titular hero of the piece. Everyone's after revenge but, as we know, this cowboy doesn't go down easy.
The world of Shaolin Cowboy, some sort of near future post-collapse shambles where society has broken down for the worst but limps on with some semblance to the familiar, is a place where everyone seems to carry a gun, a grudge and a multitude of piercings and tattoos. Litter and detritus cover the ground and graffiti adorns every vertical surface. Dirty and dysfunctional, it's ruled by violence, weapons, sex and attitude, and whether Darrow is drawing the desert, the highway or the town it's quite plain this isn't a pleasant place to live. So when the Shaolin Cowboy is forced to defend himself against gun-toting forces you certainly feel everyone's going to get what's coming to them.
But the sheer joy of this book, and its predecessors, is the hyper-detailed illustration. No short-cuts or rushed panels here, just page after page of superbly realised indulgence depicting every moment of outrageous and outlandish fights, complicated street scenes and all manner of bizarre and sublime extras. You are most certainly getting more than your money's worth, with each page requiring your full attention to appreciate the scale of the detail. A standing ovation for Mr Darrow, please.
September 21, 2023
Following the events of "Shemp Buffet", the Shaolin Cowboy dusts off his fatal gunshot wound by diverting some chi and then communing with the spirit of the Warden of Hell. SC invokes his deep knowledge on the jurisprudence of the laws of Hell and the Warden grants him more time of Earth. What does SC do with his alotted time? Kill a bunch of gun-toting rednecks and white supremacists of course! It's pretty clear that Darrow has the events of the 2016 election in mind when he wrote this because the jokes do feel quite a bit dated only a few years later. The material itself isn't all that funny, but the visual gags land because Darrow is a hell of an artist. Narratively, "Who'll Stop the Reign?" offers more than the previous Shaolin Cowboy entries, and even the artwork seems a bit of a step up with more visual variety (especially compared to "Shemp Buffet"). This is just as loud and gonzo as a comic about a kung fu fighting lone wanderer should be.
June 17, 2022
Normally I'd cruise right through a graphic novel but each page demands to be read and reread. I'm a big fan of Geof Darrow, Dave Stewart, and The Shaolin Cowboy, having picked up most of the earlier series in single issues. There is a particular tone in this one that I think was heavily influenced by the political environment of the times. There are a lot of references to pop culture as usual and especially the American obsession with guns and narcissism. Almost every page is a piece of art, you could spend days reading the advertisements on buildings alone. If you're familiar with the creators and the character you won't be disappointed.
June 13, 2018
The art is rated at about 11 on a 5 point scale. Geoff Darrow literally has no living peers when it comes to comic book art and the ability to fill a page with visual orgasms for your eyes to behold.
That being said, the story is just ok. The socio/political commentary is a little heavy handed and relies on some pretty big chunks of exposition and repetitive bludgeoning the reader about the head and shoulders to make it’s point.
So, while the art is some next level kung-fu shit, full of graceful, artful forms worthy of a ninja master, the story is a little clunky and obvious at times.
That being said, the story is just ok. The socio/political commentary is a little heavy handed and relies on some pretty big chunks of exposition and repetitive bludgeoning the reader about the head and shoulders to make it’s point.
So, while the art is some next level kung-fu shit, full of graceful, artful forms worthy of a ninja master, the story is a little clunky and obvious at times.
July 20, 2017
Better than the last one (the zombie one-- Shemp Buffet?), which was way too repetitive and one-note. This was funnier, with more chances for Darrow to draw lots of different craziness, which, let's admit, is all we're really here for and all we're really meant to expect. It's one long strange trip, don't expect much in terms of plot. I do wish he'd play more with the form, though. We already know he can draw the holy hell out of anything, and he loves the silliness.
March 4, 2021
Impressionant. Cada vinyeta és un "On és Wally" de l'absurd. Una idea esbojarrada rere una altra, excel·lentment executades. El Shaolin Cowboy enfrontat al Rei Cranc i a un porc gegantí com a trama principal, en un món consumit pels telèfons mòbils on els gossos fumen, els llangardaixos campen lliures per tot arreu i els pterodàctils agafen nadons al vol.
És que poc més hi puc afegir. Un còmic per mirar i remirar, amb denúncia a Trump inclosa.
És que poc més hi puc afegir. Un còmic per mirar i remirar, amb denúncia a Trump inclosa.
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January 1, 2022All the details! Utter madness. An almost wordless zombie story of a chubby dude with a chainsaw. Absurd and outrageous.
The first volume was a bit abstract, the second volume was a feast for the eyes but missing entertaining dialogue, the third volume was a bit more conventional and better for it. Although I miss the talking mule named Lord Evelyn Dunkirk Winniferd Esq. the Third - his additional commentary when the cowboy is in the midst of battle really makes the book shine.
The first volume was a bit abstract, the second volume was a feast for the eyes but missing entertaining dialogue, the third volume was a bit more conventional and better for it. Although I miss the talking mule named Lord Evelyn Dunkirk Winniferd Esq. the Third - his additional commentary when the cowboy is in the midst of battle really makes the book shine.
March 12, 2018
A step up from Shemp Buffet, an actual story with characters and exposition and redirection. The artwork is extraordinary and combined with the faux Western slaughter there is a definite remembrance of Hard Boiled. Surrealism makes for more entertainment value than Frank Miller, but it isn’t a strong recommendation.
April 2, 2018
79/100
Incredible art work but, man, Geof Darrow's background world in this thing is disturbing. Particularly if you read this thing in a couple of sittings. Lots of crazy ideas and wordplay, though. A kung fu master in John Wayne clothes and Chucks fighting a giant pig kung fu master in a white trash hell town is amazing.
Incredible art work but, man, Geof Darrow's background world in this thing is disturbing. Particularly if you read this thing in a couple of sittings. Lots of crazy ideas and wordplay, though. A kung fu master in John Wayne clothes and Chucks fighting a giant pig kung fu master in a white trash hell town is amazing.
November 17, 2017
Big Moebious fan, sci fi fan, started kung fu for a couple of years,
just bought that book cause of the cover.
what a blast ! crazy drawings , beautiful colors and crazy bat shit rythm/story.
Best surprise in years !
just bought that book cause of the cover.
what a blast ! crazy drawings , beautiful colors and crazy bat shit rythm/story.
Best surprise in years !
December 6, 2021
Wow
Holly shit that was the most detailed comic series I have ever read and it was amazing the sorry was a Lil confusing but it was really cool definitely worth check out just for the art
Holly shit that was the most detailed comic series I have ever read and it was amazing the sorry was a Lil confusing but it was really cool definitely worth check out just for the art
March 1, 2023
Did Trump win? A dizzy women covered in nazi tattoos asks after her crab husband (who was mind controlling her, not exactly consensual) got kicked into a stew.
GTA style humor + brutal violence + gorgeous artwork = winner
GTA style humor + brutal violence + gorgeous artwork = winner
March 31, 2018
Moebius, Breughel, Bosch, Dadd, and all the American greats meets Shaw Brothers and QT in this bloody awesome masterpiece featuring my fav Shaolin cowboy. Stupendous!
March 11, 2018
What a rush. Elaborately imagines and gory, Darrow delivers! Not for the faint hearted!
April 16, 2018
Even crazier than the other I read. The surreal inventiveness is incredible. The art is just jaw dropping.
March 24, 2019
I really tried, but I just couldn't get into it.
March 12, 2022
This was definitely written and drawn by a guy. Crude and disgusting, even if the art skills are impressive. Funny in some parts, but needless to say I will not pick up another volume.
July 14, 2023
Shaolin Cowboy is just put unadulterated absurdity panel after panel and I keep lapping it up.
August 21, 2023
A bit vulgar at times, but that is its genius. Astonishingly brilliant and beautiful. It’s amazing that this exists.
September 9, 2023
Despite being chock-full of dialogue that can and should be skipped, the fight scenes manage to keep this comic worthwhile.
September 23, 2024
Absurdalny, tragikomiczny, prześmiewczy, karykaturalny, wulgarny!
Uczta dla oczu i rozrywka dla umysłu i duszy.
Uczta dla oczu i rozrywka dla umysłu i duszy.
July 30, 2025
Darrow's batshit crazy imagination and hyperfine attention to detail as a draftsman are in stellar form here. Truly next level stuff.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews