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WHISKEY DICKEL, INTERNATIONAL COWGIRL
Highly Recommended (9/10)
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Image Comics
"Faith, Luck & Insurance" & "Memories"
Writer: Mark Ricketts
Artist: Mike Hawthorne
Other Contributors: Galen Showman, Antony Johnston, Tim Bradstreet, Marc Andreyko, David Mack, Scott Morse, J. Torres, Mike Norton, Steve Lieber, Geoff Johns, B. Clay Moore, Steven Griffin, Tom Fowler, John Rogers, Michael Avon Oeming, Brian Michael Bendis, Marc Wheatley, Jay Faerber, Guy Davis, Scott Allie, Jay Geldhof, Wayne Alan Harold, Jill Thompson, Will Pfeifer, P. Craig Russell, Debra Rodia, J.K. Snyder III, J.C. Vaughn, Phil Hester, Jim Valentino, Rob Ullman & Eric Stephenson
Price: $12.95 US |
What is Whiskey Dickel, International Cowgirl? Well, it's kind of like The Cowboy Wally Show, if Cowboy Wally was a sexy, spunky cowgirl and if Cowboy Wally came with an amazing sketchbook from a variety of talented artists as well as an entertaining and wild opening yarn. OK, it's not much like The Cowboy Wally Show. But Whiskey Dickel did remind me of that hilarious and over-the-top masterpiece from Kyle Baker, if only because Ricketts has created a character who is just as outrageous as Wally in Whiskey, mixed her with the southern charm of Ida Red from Mutant, Texas and delivered her to Mike Hawthorne, who took the concept and just knocked it out of the park visually. A loving spoof of rodeo life, fame and fortune, beauty pageants and more, Whiskey Dickel is a really fun read.
The lead story in Whiskey Dickel is her origin story, showing how she grew up into the world famous cowgirl/astronaut/movie star that she has become. Done with the framing device of a TV talk show, Ricketts and Hawthorne quickly establish Whiskey as an individual, full of life and southern charm. But they spend just as much time showing why she developed that way, building up the lovable and wacky character of Mamaw, the grandmother who raised her, with unconventional wisdom like "Hormone Injected Chicken will give you a mustache" and last words that hover in the area of "I've got porno and muscle mags under the bed. Be discreet." While the story introduces us to Whiskey and makes us love her, it's really a story of Mamaw, who I came to really enjoy as well.
The actual story here is fairly short, a little origin tale to introduce us to Whiskey, and it certainly whet my appetite for more. Fortunately, there's plenty more to be had in this volume. Ricketts goes to town on a hilarious send-up of the politics of animation, showing us the outrageous partial script and character designs for the "Whiskey Dickel Animated Series." He re-teams with Hawthorne at the end of the book for another tale of Young Whiskey, as she attends one of her first rodeos and meets some unusual rodeo clowns. Both of these are great fun as well, and Hawthorne's art, as always, looks terrific.
However, while the stories of Whiskey are fun, the real prize to be found in this collection is The Wild Pink All-Gal Rodeo Show program included in the middle. A mixture of pinups, profiles and rodeo programs, this is an all-star collaboration on cowgirls from around the world. It fits perfectly in with the tone of the book, which generally treats Whiskey as if she were a real superstar and not a fictional one, and this helps to build context for that world. It also happens to be just hilarious much of the time, and gorgeous almost all of the time. Some of my favorites were Tim Bradstreet's Eduardo Risso-esque Alice, with fun text by Marc Andreyko; David Mack and Scott Morse collaborating on a Japanese cowgirl (and sumo Elvis); J. Torres and Mike Norton on the sexy German cowgirl Heidi; the Hawaiian Dick team's double entendre-laced Sweet Leilani; Mike Avon Oeming's borderline filthy (and damn sexy) Rhonda, with hilarious accompanying text by Bendis and Guy Davis's elaborate Christina, the Italian cowgirl, with text from Scott Allie. Oh, and it was great to see more work from Rob (From the Curve) Ullman, and it's always good to see Steve Lieber. Really, it's impossible to not like any of them, and it's an astounding line-up of talent. Whiskey Dickel is worth the price if only to have what amounts to a kickass all-star theme sketchbook of international cowgirls.
I have no idea what Ricketts's further plans for Whiskey Dickel are. This reads like part origin story, part primer, part goofy fake celebrity manual, so it's a little hard to pin down. What I can definitively say is that there's plenty of potential for more, and I'd certainly like to see it.
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