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Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities and the Ghastly Fiend of London #1 (of 4)
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Eric Powell
Art: Kyle Hotz
Cover: Eric Powell
Variant Cover: Kyle Hotz
Second Feature: Eric Powell
Price: US, Three hundred and ninety-nine pennies
Release Date: September 9, 2010

***CAUTION: This Review Contains Spoilers!***

I bet you thought that Pat Garrett killed ol’ Billy the Kid, didn’t you?  WRONG!  He’s over in London.  White Chapel, to be exact.  He’s the hired gun of Fineas Sproule’s traveling Freak Show.  Care to know who else is running around White Chapel?  Jack the Ripper.  It seems like the trend here is to be “the such-and-such,” so for the rest of this comic book review you need to call me, Aron the Sane.  Does everybody understand that?  Good.  Let’s move on.

Jack the Ripper is killing hookers.  Ripping them to shreds.  A hunchback gentleman was seen close to the scene of the crime and the murder was pinned on him.  He was put to death.  Meanwhile, another hooker came up murdered and the authorities pinned it on another ugly freak.  Freaks keep catching the blame here.  Even Joseph Merrick the Elephant Man (See?  Again with “the such-and-such.”  I’m glad I came prepared!) was questioned.  Fineas Sproule and his group of freaks go to visit Joseph.  This gets Sproule interested and he agrees to do some sniffing around.  He gets Billy to go along with him, but only after he convinces Billy that they will be around a bunch of hookers.

While Sproule is engaged in conversation about the murders with a local bar patron, Billy is off drinking and mingling with the ladies.  One of the ladies talks Billy into following her into the back alley.  Before they have a roll in ze hay, the lady squats to take a pee.  While Billy is waiting, his drinking starts to kick in and things are getting blurry.  The tinkling hooker is slaughtered right in front of Billy’s doubling vision.  Billy sees a monkey man holding a bloody knife and chases after him.  The monkey man says he didn’t do it and heads for the roof tops.  Monkey man jumps to the next roof and Billy tries the same, but crashes on a pile of crates in the below alley…right in front of the cops who notice Billy has a knife sheathed in his belt.  Uh oh!

Wow, this is nuts!  Would anything else be expected from Eric Powell?  I mean, come on!  This is the guy that has given us The Goon and Satan’s Sodomy Baby, for crying out loud!  Kyle Hotz’s art does a good job of capturing the dark and odd feel of the story.  This is a good combination!

If you think all of that is wild, there’s more!  Eric Powell treats us to a second feature!  The Goon in, “The Goon’s on Vacation“!  In this episode, the Goon shows us why it’s best not to be wearing flip-flops when a scraggly-looking zombie dude eats all your wieners.

This comic book is a riot!  I’m already standing in line for the next issue.

Aron the Sane
aron@comicattack.net