This being Valentine’s Day, I (very briefly) considered reviewing a webcomic with a romantic theme? Perhaps Anders Loves Maria? However, that particular comic is in the middle of a heart-breaking plot to the point where the title banner now has a broken heart between Anders’ and Maria’s names. While this may be lauded by the cynical among you, I’m a more sentimental guy. I believe in the power of love, especially the kind that shoots out of your fingers to defeat evil villains like the type portrayed in final scene of Krull.
Also, I haven’t finished reading it.
No, today I’m going to explore a well-trod genre today: the superhero parody. For what was St. Valentine but a sort of superhero from the Medieval Ages. He was featured in the old-tyme best seller Legenda Aurea, where saints did superhuman things like slay dragons and stop fires with relics. St. Valentine didn’t exhibit much superhero prowess, but he did restore sight to a jailer’s daughter before being beheaded by Emperor Claudius and that’s pretty much the furthest I’m willing to stretch this admittedly thin premise.
(And St. Valentine was beheaded? What the crap?!?! I always figured his death had something to do with the heart. You know, like his heart was struck by an arrow or something. I mean … Valentine’s Day!)
Previously, I’ve reviewed two other formidable superhero parodies: Dean Trippe’s Butterfly and Brad Guigar’s Evil Inc. However, deep in the darkest depths of my soul, I knew something was missing. It wasn’t until I read today’s subject, Jim Ford’s Cow-Man, that I knew what it was: a man in a cow suit.
A bovine-themed superhero just has so many possibilities! I mean, when was the last time you saw a hero protect America’s Heartland and not some city with a made up name like Metropolis or Gotham? Not since Clark Kent decided he was too good for Smallville, that ingrate. Finally, we have a hero that can protect us from cow tippers, tractor thieves, and out-of-town motorists going 70 in a 35 mile-per-hour zone!
Unfortunately, Jim Ford’s Cow-Man doesn’t even take place in a farm. Instead, Cow-Man takes place in … well, crap, it’s impossible to tell half the time. Usually, Cow-Man (the man in the bovine costume) is shown at his apartment complex or in a cafe. By the way they’re drawn, though, I may be jumping to conclusions. For example, how do I know that Cyber-Hackinator here (actually Jim Ford in a self-inserted role) isn’t just standing in front of an ugly pink fence?
Let’s get the Elephant in the Room out of the way: the art is terrible.
TERRIBLE.
This is the sort of stuff back when you were in third grade and when your best friends find examples of it tucked away at the bottom of your desk drawer you just want to DIE. I understand that I may be crossing a line here since — despite illustrations where he’s depicted with a beard — Jim Ford MIGHT in fact be a third grader, but there is no way that the artwork is in any way acceptible. There are times when a character’s shirt pattern is a lazy paint fill. There are other times when the background looks like it’s colored by crayon. And of course, there’s just the sheer grotesque appearance of every single one of the characters, like at any moment they’ll spring on you and start feasting on your gooey brains.
One character in particular haunts my nightmares: Strawberry Bombshell, one of the strip’s few female characters.
For a second, let’s ignore the massive jowl and the ill-fitting bra (and you CAN’T ignore ‘em, no matter how hard you try). There’s also the freckles that maker her look like she’s got a severe acne condition. There’s the bowl cut that looks like it was molded directly to the top of her head. And don’t forget those dead, dead eyes. It’s enough to give a man the jibblies to last a lifetime. Jim Ford seems to have come to the same conclusion, since he redesigned the character later and snarked on his earlier design.
But that’s not the most disturbing aspect of Cow-Man. No, that would be Cow-Man’s utility belt. I thought that people were overreacting when they claimed they saw a phallic symbol in the silhouette during Prince’s Superbowl performance. “Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar,” I huffed snobbishly. However, it’s hard for me to ignore that there may be something … Freudian going on with Cow-Man’s accessories. Now, I’m going to give Jim Ford credit here and say that Jim Ford new exactly what he was doing. After all, what guy would draw a long, erect pink thing extending from a man’s waist that looks absolutely nothing like a cow’s udder and not know what he was doing? If I find out that those “udders” can shoot streams of hot, bubbly milk, then I think I just might call it a night.
But you might say, “El Santo, art is so overrated. Beavis and Butthead used to control the barometer of American culture, and those guys looked like they were drawn by a particularly disturbed prisoner.” That’s partially true. However, Mike Judge and his misanthropic creations would’ve been relegated to the heap of cultural obscurity along with The Brothers Grunt if they didn’t attract morality watchdog groups like flies to honey. The same could probably be said of The Simpsons and South Park.
Cow-Man generates no such controversy. Heck, it hardly generates characters, a story, or pretty much anything resemble a real webcomic. Instead, it’s a cow-mmon PG-rated, mostly kid friendly tale* of superhero absurdity with an udderly clueless, beef-cake superhero and Orange Hatter, his barely more competent sidekick who looks kinda bullimic. It’s like The Tick, only less moo-ving. See what I did with the cow puns? Well, strap your belts on, son, because Cow-Man … ahem … milks these puns for all they’re worth. (OK, I’ll stop now.)
(* — Given the whole “udder belt” issue, I briefly played around with the idea that Cow-Man may be hiding adult themes under layers of subversiveness. But, you know, outside of naming a dude “Cow-Man” and a girl “Bull-chick” I didn’t detect much self-awareness in Cow-Man. Either that or Jim Ford is buring his comic’s true sinister intent in layers upon layers of childlike drawings, and he’s put one over on me … the sly devil.)
I’ve gotta say, though, I’m reminded of a quote from Nathan Rabin’s review of Batman & Robin: “In a strange bit of critical Stockholm Syndrome, I found myself actively looking forward to Schwarzenegger’s atrocious puns, some of which are so hilariously convoluted that they become goofy parodies of bad one-liners. A great one-liner is both surprising and natural, spontaneous and impeccably crafted. But a quip like ‘Allow me to break the ice. My name is Freeze. Learn it well for it is the chilling sound of your doom’ is so clunky, wordy, and forced that it made me laugh out loud.” And that’s honestly how I felt about Cow-Man‘s cow puns. They were so bad and forced that I was sorta anticipating if, in the next strip, Ford could top the sheer awfulness of the previous pun.
Cow-Man is surrounded by lame villains and even lamer allies, which is pretty much standard procedure for superhero mockery. The Tick, after all, had a guy with a chair for a face named Chairface Chippendale. And the main nemesis in the Venture Brothers is a guy in a butterfly outfit. Yet Jim Ford manages to set his sites even lower. How about a half-robot, half-taco? No? How about a whole family of them? (I’m seriously starting to wonder if Jim Ford bases his characters on whatever he burped up from lunch.) You know, I’m making this sound more exciting that it actually is. The tacobots are easily the most boring characters in a series where having zero personality seems to be an admirable life goal.
Jim Ford aims for unpredictable absurdity. The webcomic, though, fails in this regard. The silliness follows such a familiar pattern that it’s the gags are woefully telegraphed. Here are the typical gags: random, wacky words are jumbled together to make fun of superhero goobledygook. (It almost sounds like when your kid brother sticks some Lego wheels on a slice of bread and calls it a “Breadmobile.” Charming … but definitely juvenile and best left to the Teletubby set.) Or the strip follows a typical narrative, and something out of the blue (and wacky!) happens in the final panel. Villian is defeated with the power of friendship. The cadence is almost soothing in its repetition. Yet the humor relies on the element of surprise, and it fails udderly. I mean “utterly”!
Damn you, Cow-Man!
Overall, I would be out of place if I didn’t say Cow-Man was a terrible webcomic. However, is it entertaining? Hell, yeah! Anyone who enjoys bad movies know that there are two types: the boring ones that are a pain to slog through, and the fiascos that fail on artistic merit yet are still entertaining in its zaniness. Cow-Man falls in the latter category. It’s entertaining in the way Manos: The Hands of Fate or Uwe Boll’s House of the Dead are entertaining. They’re not great movies — some would say they’re the worst movies — but the absolute craziness of the project becomes so surreal that you’re sorta laughing along at how bad things crash and burn. That is, Cow-Man is hoot, but probably not how Jim Ford intended.
Mr. Ford no doubt has an exuberance for what he’s making, and it’s admirable in a way. I managed to communicate with him via e-mail, and he revealed that he has another series planned in the future. (By the way, hats of to Jim Ford, who allowed me to review his comic even though he knew I was going to savage it. Truly a nice guy.)
However, I do urge Mr. Ford to do one thing: take art classes. The most glaring flaw of Cow-Man is the art, hands down. Its shortcomings cast a shadow over every single aspect of this webcomic. Jim Ford, if you are reading this, sign up for an evening cartooning course at at community college (like I did), or pick up “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way” from your local library. Or, failing that, outsource your artwork to one of those fine folks on DeviantArt. A lot of ‘em like to work for free just to get exposure, those poor saps. Or if you prefer to do the artwork yourself, find a decent inker and colorist to work with you.
Exiern, for example, started off with artwork far more atrocious that anything you see in Cow-Man. Drowemos started working with Studio Boom, though, and the illustrations got pretty damn sweet.
The core concept of Cow-Man — a big dope in a cow suit does stupid things and lets stupid things happen to him — is actually not that terrible. And there IS a precedent in the print comics world where characters who like to dress up in odd costumes just sorta hang around and make no sense whatsoever. Observe:
Then again, that might not be such a good example, because I harbor nothing but unbridled hate Zippy the Pinhead. Everyone knows he only in the funny papers ‘cuz he’s got a hot bod.
Rating: 1 star (out of 5)
