The Cisco Kid Volume 1

The Cisco Kid Volume 1 by Rod Reed
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Cisco Kid volume 1 collects the Cisco Kid newspaper strip from 1951 to 1953.

I was running out of material for Western Comics Month and put the call out on twitter for western comic strips. This was the most popular recommendation so I gave it a shot.

First off, the art by Jose Luis Salinas is fantastic. It's an illustrative style, highly detailed and with a great use of blacks. His desert scenes in particular are spectacular. The Cisco Kid and his sidekick Pancho are on model in every frame. His sense of design is also great. The pacing is masterful considering it's a three panel daily adventure strip, something I wasn't sure was even possible.

The stories are fairly typical Western fare with crooked lawmen, tension between the Indians and the white settlers, cattle rustlers, and the like. There is a good amount of humor, usually at Pancho's expense, although the fifth story is easily the funniest. Cisco takes a bullet to the shoulder and has to recuperate, only for his girlfriends from the previous four stories to show up to take care of him at the same time.

Cisco is a bit of a trickster, staying ahead of the bad guys with his mind, although his fists and guns often come into play. His relationship with Pancho humanizes him a bit, keeping him more grounded than a lot of Western heroes.

I guess the best thing about this volume is that I'll keep my eye out for the rest of them, along with other productions from Classic Comics Press.

The Cisco Kid Volume 1 is a remarkable collection of comic strips for Western fans. Dig, Diablo!



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