Rawhide Kid: Slap Leather

Rawhide Kid: Slap Leather is Ron Zimmerman's 2003 retooling of the Rawhide Kid legend. The big controversy behind this book was that through all the thinly veiled hints and innuendo, it's supposed to be implied that the Rawhide Kid was gay. Here's the thing, I don't think Rawhide is really gay. I think it's one big joke that fans of Marvel Westerns are in on and the prank was pulled on the House of Ideas.

The late Ron Zimmerman was among things besides a comic book writer, he was also a stand-up comedian and satirist. I think Zimmerman took the idea of homo-eroticism in Western lore, especially with cowboys, got Marvel on board and took a chance to make his version of Blazing Saddles. 

The entire story was a comedic farce. There's absolutely nothing serious here. The mayor of the town is an ancestor of the Bush family (He looks like W too!). There are also ancestors of some of your favorite funny men from 60s and 70s sitcoms. Icons of the classic TV Westerns such as Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Cartwrights of Bonanza and many more guest star as well. Only the spelling of the characters is changed slightly; probably to avoid copyright issues. Slap Leather is satire. Slap Leather is parody. 

The addition of comic book legend John Severin on artwork added some gravitas to this project. It's probably why Marvel to this day still claims the Rawhide Kid as an LGBTQ+ icon. Severin was an artist on the original Rawhide Kid series. Yet I am telling you, this 5 issue miniseries is anything but serious. If this book was published in the 70s or 80s, today's readers would probably criticize it today as being unsympathetic or homophobic. But Zimmerman pulled the wool over everybody's eyes and was able to take a whole lot of stereotype and humor about gays and somehow fooled everyone into thinking that this was a book full of pride. But I think it's really a secret thumb-nose to any and everyone on both sides of the issue. 

That's not to say that this wasn't a funny read. The gang of outlaws who seek to 'rape and pillage the town' of Wells Junction are hilarious. They're totally incompetent and yet their wordplay is so clever. Catastrophe Jen is one of the best Western comics characters to be introduced in the past 40 years!  The banter between the inept Sheriff and his son who is embarrassed by the lawman's lily-liver was so brilliant. I thought Rawhide was great too in how he interacted with the Sheriff's bratty child. The scene where the Kid wants the townsfolk to leave before high noon and they all get insulted by not being recruited to help save their homes. Such great irony! I just felt that the part that everyone circles the wagons around, Rawhide's sexuality, was actually the joke and not some big step in helping the homosexual community become less marginalized.

If you are a fan of Westerns. If you can overlook the change to Marvel canon. If you can laugh at humor that is far from P.C., you will like this book. You might think I am wrong and decide that Rawhide Kid: Slap Leather really is pro-LGBTQ+. That's okay if you do. Just as it's appropriate for me to think that the joke is on you!

No matter what, this is an essential classic of modern comics. It's just up to the reader to decide what merits of this work make it a paradigm of sequential art.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

Essential Rawhide Kid, Volume 1

Though I am very much a bit of a city mouse, I do have some down-home roots. I spent many a summer working on my grandparents' farm. I've run barefoot in fields and creeks. And I have a fondness for a good country western story. 

Legendary writer Louis L'amour is a good go-to for such a need. But when you don't have time to sit down and read a lengthy adventure tale, you can't go wrong with the Western comics of Marvel! 

This volume collects issues #17-35 of the Silver Age adventures of the Rawhide Kid. Retooled from a fledgling 1950s cowpoke who was pretty forgettable, this iteration of the character is a rough-and-tumble loner who's not quite a teen anymore but barely a man. 

After the death of his adoptive father-figure, the Rawhide Kid travels the Old West in search of peace and quiet. But more often than not, the Kid runs afoul of varmints, Indians and gunslingers looking to make a name for themselves. As the Rawhide Kid leaves his mark of Justice and fairness on the cities and towns of the Western frontier, his legend grows...

These stories were crafted by a group of legends in their own right. Stan Lee crafted all of the tales in this book. Jack Kirby penciled all except the last 2 or 3 issues of this book. His work is adeptly inked by Dick Ayers. Finishing out this volume is Jack Davis. Known for his work on the EC Comics of the 1950s, Davis adds a whimsical flare to the Rawhide Kid.

Each reprinted issue features an extra Western tale that often ends with an EC Comics style twist ending. More often than not, the hero's of these adventures turn out to be legends such as Doc Holiday, or----uh,uh,uh! SPOILERS!

These issues also had a prose story. These 2-pagers were early 60's postal requirements for comic books to maintain their status as first-rate mail. They're actually pretty good reads but they're anonymous. Stan Lee got his chops in the comic book industry penning such tales in the pages of Captain America in the 1940s. He might have wrote some of these epics. Or someone else might have got their unsung start writing them. I just don't know.

On at least 3 occasions, stories are retold. It's interesting seeing Stan and Jack remake their own works. (Davis retools one Rawhide yarn as well with Stan's able pen.) But where Western stories that hard to think up? Obviously, this wasn't one of Stan Lee's most verbose titles as the words 'owlhoot' and 'hombre' were used to mind-numbing effect and there's quite a bit of poor vocabulary and grammar spoken on the rustic plains.

With the Rawhide Kid just wanting to be left alone, I'm wondering if this comic book was the inspiration for another Marvel creation- the Incredible Hulk! Coincidentally, the first appearances of the Hulk are advertised frequently in the pages of this book. Should the Rawhide Kid have been a forefather to the big green machine, it would add all that much more to the mystique of that all encompassing world known as the Marvel Universe that was brilliantly brought to use by Stan the Man and Jack the King!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars!

Sadly, only one volume was ever