Lady Rawhide #1 (New Comic Day #4)

Admittedly, I was never a fan of Topps’s Zorro or its spinoff Lady Rawhide.  Though the latter did have a couple of visuals that improved it over the former, so I was reluctant to pick this first issue/reboot up.  And I should have gone with my gut. 

I did manage to read it all, which is saying something, as the writer Eric Trautmann was a bit long winded and boring in his narrative and his dialog was a cross between hackneyed and cliché. 

But let’s start with the art.  The internals by Milton Estevam were so-so.  Foreground characters, especially Lady Rawhide, are very crisp and clean – except in a flashback sequence, which still looks good and stands as a valid choice thematically – but background characters and scenery are almost added in as an afterthought.  In most cases, they do more to detract from the issue than add to it – many images would look better had Estevam not even bothered. 

Added to this is an almost complete lack of visual differentiation between minor characters, and all the points Estevam earns with his depictions of Lady Rawhide.  Ditko detractors will offer comparison to his inability to draw more than four or five standard character appearances, while his fans will counter with Estevam’s lack of the charm and nostalgia in Ditko’s work.

Worse still, an early establishing image of a train which is treated almost as a character – and a main character at that – is so poorly executed as to be insulting to the art of comic book art. 

Better is the wonderful cover by Joseph Michael Linsner – the color version is good, but the Black and White version is much more stunning.  Linsner’s Lady Rawhide is much different than Estevam’s – most noticeably in her lack of certain super exaggerated, gravity defying assets, in a time long before the necessary advancements had been made in silicone technology to support them. 

My favorite image of the book however is on the inside front cover – a partial picture of Rawhide in gray, white, and red, which is very invocative of what can only be (to my eye at least) a heavy influence from Marvel’s Electra to Lady Rawhide’s character/costume design. 

You may have noticed I’ve spend an inordinate amount of time on the art of this book, this is not by accident, but by design.  As mentioned above, Trautmann’s writing leaves much to be desired.  The pacing is off, things happen more to be and look cool than for a coherent reason, certain actions by our heroine make her seem foolish if not downright stupid, and many other characters behave in incomprehensible ways.  Add to this a page six shocking revel that is so easily seen coming as to be an affront to the reader’s intelligence, especially when it was a neat enough thing stand on its own without the wanted “OMG!” factor. 

Some of Lady Rawhide’s internal dialogue and banter shows the promise of possibly developing into something interesting or at least entertaining, but Trautmann does not quiet hit that mark here. 

2/5 Stars (3/5 if just considering the art)         Excellent Jumping on Point

Rated T for Teen (Western and Adventure Violence, some Language but in Spanish)