Review: The Cowboy Wally Show

The Cowboy Wally Show by Kyle Baker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's the Cowboy Wally Show!

The Cowboy Wally Show is wildly, wonderfully uneven. Kyle Baker's faux documentary of the "rise", fall, and return of the eponymous entertainer approaches the subject with a bit of a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach. The result is a delightfully scathing look at the entertainment industry filled with quotable dialog, laugh out loud gags, and heavy doses of absurdity. Written when Baker was 23, what TCWS lacks in subtlety (it doesn't know the meaning of the word "subtle") it makes up for in charm.

or the word "stupid" apparently.

Baker's art is phenomenal, here. Characters faces, in particular, are beautifully realized. They're drawn in a very realistic manner, with slightly exaggerated features (more exaggerated during emotional moments). The writing might be as subtle as a brick to the head, but Baker manages to capture a tremendous range of (sometimes) nuanced expressions on his character's faces.

Maybe he's a well travelled cowboy?

The writing won't appeal to everyone, but I found a lot of the gags and jokes laugh out loud funny. During a bit about Cowboy Wally's brief stint as a news caster, Baker draws two panels depicting the show: "Today's big story, Mayor Fenton Hubley was killed today in a tragic plane crash." "On the lighter side of the news, I never liked him anyway." During a rewrite of Hamlet, a palace guard,Francisco, is talking to another guard, Bernardo, about the King's death: "accidental death, says the Queen. The King fell on his sword." "Wow." "Eight times." "Sounds fishy to me." "Hey, I don't see nothing, I don't hear nothing. That's what they pay me for." "You're the palace guard." "And I want to keep it that way." Cowboy Wally's brief stint in jail is pretty typical of the kinds of jokes that run through the book:

What's a cowboy without a pony, anyway?

He gets that a lot.

I could go on; Baker's absurd humor ("Ed Smith: Lizard of Doom!") and rapid fire approach mean rarely a page goes by without something at least chuckle worthy happening. I can only imagine what TCWS would look like if Baker were writing it today; his depiction of a shallow Hollywood icon has aged surprisingly (depressingly) well. Much recommended!

It's really not.

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