Butcher Baker, The Righteous Maker #1

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Butcher Baker, The Righteous Maker #1
By Dan Horn
April 2, 2011 - 12:28

Image Comics
Writer(s): Joe Casey
Penciller(s): Mike Huddleston
Inker(s): Mike Huddleston
Colourist(s): Mike Huddleston
Letterer(s): Rus Wooton
Cover Artist(s): Mike Huddleston and Sonia Harris
$2.99 US

Joe Casey and Mike Huddleston's new mature reader series from Image Comics stars a retired patriotic superhero, Butcher Baker, whose only prerogative now is to revel in constant carnal pleasures. He's not down-and-out or even embittered, but perhaps slightly disillusioned and OK with that. All of that changes when Jay Leno and Dick Cheney appear at Butcher's personal brothel with a proposition for him: destroy the state-of-the-art facility where Butcher Baker's super-powered foes have been locked up, kept alive by taxpayer dollars. From there, the plot devolves into an orgy of Tex Avery cartoon splendor, a tongue-in-cheek tale of bravado including big-rig CB radio narratives and an irreverent homage to the first patriotic American superhero.

It's an interesting start, but there's definitely something missing here. I guess the book isn't quite as funny as I was expecting it to be or as it assumes itself to be. Sure, there are plenty of moments of outlandish situational humor, but nothing inherently witty, really. The scene with Dick Cheney and Jay Leno is a perfect example of what I'm referring to. Sure, it's amusing to see Leno in the same vilified ranks as Cheney, but neither of these two caricatures is fully realized. They quip a bit, but the essence of neither ever even shows slightly. How difficult is it to riff on Dick Cheney and Jay Leno? The guys are practically living satires of themselves already! Jesus, the more I think about how disappointing some of these comedic setups' punchlines turn out to be, the more I dislike this book. I suppose perhaps my senses have been dulled, also, by better adult books: The depraved self-indulgence illustrated in Butcher Baker that I suppose is meant to have a polarizing and potent affect on readers merely made me roll my eyes. I do commend Casey's sort of "epilogue" after the issue, in which he states (perhaps without even realizing it through his own self-aggrandizing diatribe) that really this book is just creative drivel to frame Huddleston's exemplary artwork.

And Huddleston's art is where this book truly shines: a prismatic display of pastel technicolor surrealism and innovation, neon bar sign sexual debauchery, a running experiment in varying forms of period pop-art, of delivery, and of execution.

Perhaps the two do balance out the book into something worth reading, but if Butcher Baker, The Righteous Maker #2 doesn't step its game up, I'll be dropping this series from my pull-list without hesitation.

Rating: 6.5/10