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Review of Rawhide Kid

HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU, KID

You couldn’t miss the “PARENTAL ADVISORY: EXPLICIT CONTENT” warning on the cover of each issue of Marvel Comics’ five-issue miniseries Rawhide Kid. It was about two square inches, with “EXPLICIT” in especially large, red block letters. But then shooing kids away from a comic book is something of a joke in itself, since comics are less likely to be read by kids nowadays than by 30-something fans like me—or like the paunchy, pony-tailed Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons, whose seen-it-all world-weariness stems from his encyclopedic knowledge of 1950s comics as well as his degree in folklore and ancient mythology. We comics fans are an aging, shrinking cohort. If you did see that parental warning note on Rawhide Kid, you’re part of a small subculture.

Of course getting a casual taste of comics was easier, especially for children, back when Superman and Captain America were sold on newsstands and in drugstores. During the industry’s so-called Golden Age, the 1940s, individual issues sometimes sold a million copies. Notwithstanding a few upward spikes, comic sales have been in general decline ever since. Today the most popular titles sell in the neighborhood of 50,000 copies a month—mostly in specialty shops that are more or less shunned by the masses. The comics-only shops were the industry’s salvation when they emerged around 1980, because drugstore and magazine store owners had already begun replacing the comics on their shelves with higher-priced glossy magazines marketed mostly to adults. The unforeseen long-term downside for comics, though, was that they lost access to a generation or two of kids.

This grim news has yet to cause widespread mourning, though, for two reasons. First, members of the non-comic-reading public have been mostly oblivious to the industry’s decline, and who can blame them? From where most people sit, the influence of comics appears to be expanding, not shrinking, as each season brings new comics-inspired TV shows and movies. Among the latest are films based on Daredevil, the X-Men, the Hulk, and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen—not to mention new blockbuster entries in such comic-like franchises as Terminator (which echoes an old X-Men storyline about time travel and evil robots) and, of course, The Matrix (created by a pair of former Marvel employees).

The second reason you haven’t heard much wailing over comics’ demise is that the industry’s shrinkage hasn’t prompted a decline in quality. In fact, the older, die-hard fans demand ever-more-sophisticated stories. It’s a bit like what happened to alternative rock in the late 1980s, when the arena bands that had led the New Wave earlier that decade had to content themselves with bookings on the college circuit. With its lofty pretensions the college rock ghetto arguably made better, more interesting artists out of R.E.M., Bob Mould and Matthew Sweet, among others, than pop superstardom had made out of earlier bands like Duran Duran.

With the significant exception of the early-’90s burst in sales of poorly written, violent comics (typified by the demonic Spawn), comics have tended in recent years toward self-awareness, maturity and an interesting blend of the experimental and the openly nostalgic: talking gorillas inspired by old pulp periodicals find themselves ensnared in contemporary political conflicts (Tom Strong); the mantle of a hokey World War II hero passes to his cynical, stubbly, tattooed son (Starman); some of Marvel’s X-mutants acquire press agents and drug habits (X-Force). And Rawhide Kid, a largely forgotten, straight-shooting gunslinger, finds new life through a change in his sexual orientation and in his sense of humor.

The Rawhide Kid series made newspaper headlines earlier this year by outing its star, but the contents behind that titillating parental advisory label wouldn’t faze most kids or startle the typical sitcom viewer: No one has sex, no one even gets naked, and the swearing is as mild as that on network television. Indeed, most of the humor comes from the Kid’s gentle use of innuendo and double entendre.

When asked whether he’s ever met Wild Bill Hickock, the Kid lights a cigarette, smiles devilishly and says, “Very nice man. Bigger than life.” When advising the serious, reserved sheriff of his adopted town, the Kid says, “Matt, stoic is nice. Stoic is sexy, but let’s not overdo it because stoic can also be boooooorrrrring.” Called away from a meeting with characters who are parodies of Bonanza’s Cartwright brothers, the Kid tells the criminal responsible, “I am furious! Do you have any idea how hard it is to meet young, rich, good-looking men that still live with their parents in this part of the country?!”

The comic tells a fairly conventional Western tale of outlaws and the stranger who comes to town to deal with them, flavored with the Kid’s arch asides and some fairly restrained jabs at Hollywood Westerns. Written by radio comedy-writing veteran Ron Zimmerman from The Howard Stern Show and beautifully drawn by longtime Marvel and Mad artist John Severin, it’s genuinely funny, not only when the Kid is commenting on the violent action (“What is wrong with you people?”), but also as the generally slower-witted supporting characters fumble their way through their stereotypical Western roles, from a Laura Ingalls WilderÐlike schoolmarm to a drunken sawbones. Rawhide Kid might strike some as a stereotype himself, but against the Hollywood Western backdrop of stock characters, he seems comparatively sophisticated, likable and real. Whereas the scruffy outlaws, preparing their invasion of the town, bicker barbarously over how to draw a “dirt map” correctly, the far classier Kid repeatedly jabs his foes with queeny putdowns and etiquette hints.

Should gays be offended? Not really. Much of the humor comes from the Kid’s being morally and intellectually superior to the ruffians around him. The riffs on gay stereotypes are meant to amuse, but there’s no question who the good guy is. Far from ridiculing the Kid for displaying his femme side, the series invites us to laugh at (or rather with) traditional Westerns by placing a knowing, sly character in the midst of a typical Western plot. In its way, Rawhide Kid has much in common with Clint Eastwood’s dark, skeptical Western Unforgiven; the Kid comes across as self-aware, even hip, without forsaking his trademark white Stetson.

Precisely because he is not quite a Western stock character, the Kid can see the absurdity of a small town’s conflicts in a way that the other citizens/characters cannot. Indeed, he is several different types of outsider at the same time: the heroic stranger who rides into town (as in countless Westerns), the gay man among folk so straight they don’t know a gay man when they see one (as in small towns across America), the oddly modern-sounding character traveling around the Old West, the savvy fellow surrounded by cretins and the unconventional character amid Hollywood archetypes.

Even with all these layers of outsiderness, though, Rawhide Kid isn’t much freakier than most Marvel Comics heroes. Witness my own favorite comic book character: the rocky, orange Thing of the Fantastic Four, who is so inhuman-looking that only a blind woman can love him—yet who is never without a ready wisecrack and a satisfying cigar. The subtle difference between the two is that the Thing was an outcast from conventional society, whereas the Kid is more an outcast from conventional stories. That is, the Thing may have made fun of his foes—and his superhero pal the Human Torch—but he never winked at the audience while doing so; readers’ belief in the cosmic significance of the Thing’s comic-book universe could thus remain intact, which was just how founding Marvel writer Stan Lee wanted it.

Rawhide Kid, on the other hand, seems keenly aware that despite the earnestness of the combatants around him, he is part of a somewhat tired farce. When challenged by the outlaw leader to prove his gunfighting skills, the Kid rolls his eyes and asks, “Is this going to be one of those macho tough guy test things? . . . Uch. These are sooooo boring.” He seems to be bored less with frontier life than with the thousand phony movies based on frontier life that we’ve all seen. That John Severin’s art is so serious, realistic and reminiscent of 19th-century illustration only makes the Kid’s gentle rebellion funnier.

It’s good stuff, and there’s more good stuff like it in comic shops. The question, though, is whether the diverse readership that once made comics hugely popular, representing both young and old and all walks of life, will ever poke their heads into comic shops to see what they’re missing.

Ironically, Rawhide Kid’s “alternative”-themed story line could be a sign that a return to the industry’s mainstream glory is under way. One thing comics had going for them in their heyday (and have in Japan today, where they are broadly popular) was a willingness to defy convention and experiment with genres. For comics to lure new readers, they will likely have to expand beyond the superhero ghetto, and tapping into such genres as crime, Westerns and science fiction is an easy way to do that. With luck Rawhide Kid represents a small step toward the day when comics—popular comics, not just the artsy indie comics—can tackle topics from history to Hollywood to gay psychology without surprising anyone or becoming headline news.

Already the risky resurrection of Rawhide Kid has paid off for its publishers: The comic has cracked the industry’s list of top-100 sellers this year. Such success represents little more than a blip on the pop culture radar screen compared with sales of Matrix tickets and X-Box games, but it does mean that Rawhide Kid’s influence may be felt in some film or TV show someday. But why wait for the film? (Besides, if the original story got dumbed down for a mass audience, who’d want to?) If it’s sophisticated hero stories you’re looking for, you can find them at your local comic shop today. That includes many “adult” books that, like Rawhide Kid, are more likely to shock you with their quality than with any rude explicitness. Now there’s a warning for you.

Fall 2003
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