A quick look at the KungFuMagazine.com forums will reveal that while many attribute such comics as Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu as a source for initial inspiration, there remains a consistent handful who still currently read comics. Today, it’s a time when the digital comic download is as available as the New Comic Book Day arrival at the local comic shop stands. But anyone who’s been paying attention (especially the martial arts inclined) will note that Kung Fu is making an epic comeback in comics.
But there’s one creator who has pretty much ignored that ebb and flow of interest in pursuit of the type of comic that entertains him. That creator’s name is Geof Darrow and his comic? It’s one you’ve probably heard us mention before –the Shaolin Cowboy. It’s a comic title that consistently remained at the front of the long box of comics that were also a part of the Kung Fu Tai Chi Headquarters Library.
It’s been several years since that library’s dissolution, so for those who might not remember: the very first issue of Shaolin Cowboy was published in 2006 by the boutique publisher Burlyman Press, an imprint founded by the Wackowskis creators of THE MATRIX (1999). We’ve been collecting this comic ever since and at long last the stars aligned and a zoom conversation was arranged with Mr. Darrow, live from his home studio in Paris, France.
Despite a few pages of meticulously prepared questions, we instead immediately found ourselves in a free-wheeling conversation ranging from comics, Jet Li, Joel Silver, Martial Arts in kitchen basements, Tea Ceremonies, Eagle Claw and Tai Chi. Read on!
PLUGO: I've been a big fan of your work for a number of years. I mean, these (copies of Geof Darrow & Frank Millar’s oversized collaboration Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot #1 published by Dark Horse/Legend 1995–1996) even made their way from New York to California. You know, they took a little bit of damage, you can see the sun burning the cover here.
GD: But it makes them makes better, you know; I don't like them stuck in a bag. They put comics in plastic slabs now. They’re like plastic coffins, which I find ridiculous.
PLUGO: Yeah. it's a crazy thing. But comics has changed a lot since we were both kids, I'd say.
GD: Yeah. And even when we were kids, it changed from when our parents were kids. It was a much more popular medium. Neal Adams (legendary comics illustrator June 15, 1941 – April 28, 2022) once said in an interview, and rightfully so; that it used to be parents didn’t want their kids reading comics, but they would still read them and see words they didn't know, so they’d look them up. Something we might not do with a reading assignment we got from school. So I know I improved what little vocabulary I have from reading comics. Finding out “What does omnipotent mean?” Or Astonishing or “to behold,” any time you can get a child to read you’re winning a fight.
PLUGO: Comics are now for kids again.
GD: Yes, just not mine.
PLUGO: Well, that’s what’s so exciting about the chance to talk The Shaolin Cowboy. We’ve kept a close eye on that title since it was first published by Burly Man Press.
GD: you know, that spawned out of THE MATRIX.
PLUGO: We followed THE MATRIX closely at the magazine covering fight choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping. We watched the whole transition of Hong Kong cinema coming to the States.
GD: You know; I'd watch some of the filming of the fights in THE MATRIX.. And I did a little work with Jet Li once and he showed me some stuff and the next guy was absolutely fast.
I learned an important lesson. I was taking some reference photos of him and I said, “Can you give me the pose or something?” I thought he would just kind of do it, you know; he’d just put his hand out and give me a pose. But it was beautiful. He did the all the movements to get to where it had to end up. I mean, Holy cow, you know.
PLUGO: I’ve never met him, but I’ve met his coach Wu Bin.
GD: So he used to show me some things. He’d punch at me and just kind of stop right at my Adam's apple. But I felt it. I mean, I could feel it and touch it, but there was this energy, man. He was fast. Is fast, I guess. Oh, yeah.
He told me that at one point he was going to give it up, the movie stuff. And that he was going to actually go into a monastery. And he went to the monastery and he talked to the head monk. That monk said “You're not ready yet. Go home. You're going to get a call.” He went home and then after a few days there was the other call. It was Joel Silver. And he called him in to work in L.A.
That was the LETHAL WEAPON movie he did first. But it was because they had tried to get him into The matrix first. And Warner Brothers was like, “No, the only guy that knows Kung Fu and can do the movie is Steven Seagal.” Oh man, and then suddenly that was saved by Joel Silver. You know, he's got a pretty good nose for things. And so he called me and says he told them, “I said we were just kidding.” kind of. And I'm like “Thank you.” Because, you know, they wanted to talk to him. It was like “Steven Seagal is our guy.” I met his daughter once, and she told me, whatever you heard about my father is even worse. Oh, my God.
PLUGO: Seagal reached out to us for coverage once.
GD: Well, at one point I think Burly Man wanted to take an ad out in the magazines for my comic. But it didn't happen.
PLUGO: Well, we were a really small ship trying to do a bunch of things.
GD: I couldn't even imagine how you all did it so well.
PLUGO: Let's talk a little bit about Shaolin Cowboy and how you pitched that back in the day.
GD: The publisher, Mike Richardson, said, “You do whatever you want.” I always liked Westerns. And I really like martial arts, samurai and Kung Fu movies. And I just kind of thought “What can I do in that name?” But I remember Frank Miller (300, Sin City) asking “What are you working?” I say “I’m kind of working on this Western? It's kind of martial arts.” He say “whatever you do, don't put the word cowboy in the title, because nobody will buy it.” So of course, I didn’t listen to that, Shaolin Cowboy just sounded cool.
Right now it's, you know, it's a name. You don't forget letters. But people will call “So are you still drawing that samurai cowboy comic?” Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I may take took it for granted. I thought everybody knew about Shaolin Temple, right?
PLUGO: It's getting there is. The name recognition is growing. It's a UNESCO site now.
GD: You know, the shaolin monk / western fusion; there's a tradition of that. I think of the David Carradine movies, you know? Yeah when that came out, I loved that show.
And to this day, it's regretful that they didn't have an Asian-American or an Asian playing the character. That's Hollywood. I mean, and it always used to bother me when Carradine walked into town and people go “What do you want here, Chinaman?”
I was like “You did not at least look anywhere near Chinese to me,” but everybody - the first thing that that was said was that he was Chinese or whatever. It used to make me laugh. But, yeah, that that shows, you know, I mean.
PLUGO: That show and Marvel’s Deadly Hands of Kung Fu got a lot of martial artists started.
GD: Do you remember one of the first comics in America, there were two; one was Peter Cannon Thunderbolt, that was [published] at Charlton then another was Judo Master. Judo Master was just crazy goofy. But you know in, Peter Cannon he had studied, and learned from a lama. But those were the first that had martial arts in them, right? Then that whole boom started in the seventies. Mm hmm.
You know, I think it was great. Like the mythology is so huge, you know? I mean, the whole I thing, that's why I love them. Wasn’t it John Lewis Shaw, those books that he wrote, The Shaw Ones, The Condor Heroes, Return of the Condor, Heroes of God. I love those books. I mean, they have translations for all of them, now. Unfortunately, I read some period fan translations of them.
But those things are fascinating to me. They're just. You know, the mythology of being taught by a giant condor. How did it come forward? At one point, I mean, the ideas in that are way more fantastic than anything you'd see in Star Wars.
PLUGO: Wuxia, that “Kung Fu” genre is back in a big way.
GD: Have you read that book that Mondo put out? And it's all about that boom era. It's called These Fists Break Bricks. Gosh, I read one and one called something like Sex Punches and a Bullet to the Head, or something like that. Seriously, there’re really good. There's so much stuff. Check. Here it is. [turns round and plucks the book out from his wall-of-a-book-shelf].
So some of these guys, just like they buy the rights to these movies, the very early ones, for you know whatever and they would, you know, what they call “wall-to-wall” them. They'd rent out a movie theater and run it all day. Then give a percentage of the take to the owner and the rest they would keep. It's all these guys, like one of the first was the guy that he did a compilation of the Green Hornet stuff. That kind of made them a lot of money.
And it was it's a crazy story how important it was to the people of color. All the young African American and Puerto Rican young men that would come to watch these films. And it just became huge. And then it crossed over for a while. And then, you know, of course, Hollywood sniffs a buck and…
Stay tuned to KungFuMagazine.com for Shaolin Cowboy, the Matrix & Kung Fu Movies with Geof Darrow Part 2 By Patrick Lugo
