The Shaolin Cowboy Adventure Magazine: The Way of No Way!

by Andrew Vachss, Various (Illustrator)

Overview

Best selling author Andrew Vachss teams with award-wining artist Geof Darrow to revive the spirit and format of the pulp novels of the 30s and 40s. The Shaolin Cowboy Adventure Magazine is the first new hero-pulp to be printed in decades and combines hard-hitting prose with illustrated mayhem. The Shaolin Cowboy: The Way of 'No Way!' is a kung fu gripping tale of high adventure and relentless bloodshed. The Shaolin Cowboy and his trusty mule battle overwhelming odds and inclement weather against enemies thirsting for revenge and retribution in the battle royal to end all battle royals.

* Best selling crime-fiction author Andrew Vachss!

* Geof Darrow co-creator of Doc Frankenstein, Hard Boiled, and The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781621154198
Publisher:	Dark Horse Comics
Publication date:	11/06/2012
Series:	Shaolin Cowboy
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	112
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Andrew Vachss (1942-2021) was an American crime fiction author and lawyer. He wrote several popular series (The Cross series, The Aftershock trilogy, and The Burke series) but was best known for his hardboiled Burke series, which he began in 1985. The second book in the Burke series, Strega, won a number of international crime fiction awards. In 2000 he won the Raymond Chandler Award for a body of work.

Editorial Reviews

As written and drawn by Darrow, with input from the Wachowskis, the Shaolin Cowboy comic was a kinetic tour de force, full of violent humor and cinematic fury. If you’re seeking that with this one-shot tribute to pulp novels, you’re in for a disappointment. Crime author Vachss presents an extended, though severely episodic, adventure for the cowboy and tries to retain the comic’s tone. Except for patches of cleverness, it never coalesces into a tight enough package, and sometimes descends into tedium. Vachss attempts to represent the original instead of transforming his prose version into its own thing. The result is a manuscript that seems more like a script to a comic book that was never drawn and less like a novel with its own voice and merits. Action and humor lurk in Vachss’s text, but never leap out of the book. Darrow’s illustrations are fine, but don’t capture what the text lacks. Black’s unrelated backup story is better suited to the form, but this pulp revival flatlines fast. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly