FIRST ISSUE: BUTCHER BAKER

An admirable first issue must, above all else, contain such matter as will compel a reader to buy the second issue. At the same time, while provoking curiosity through mysteriousness, a good first issue must avoid being so mysterious as to be cryptic or incomprehensible. And, thirdly, it should introduce the title’s principals, preferably in a way that makes us care about them. Fourth, a first issue should include a complete “episode”—that is, something should happen, a crisis of some kind, which is resolved by the end of the issue, without, at the same time, detracting from the cliffhanger aspect of the effort that will compel us to buy the next issue.

BUTCHER BAKER by writer Joe Casey and artist Mike Huddleston is a hilarious send-up of superhero comics. To begin with the most obvious quality, the first issue is a pulsatingly exuberant hodge-podge of drawing styles, from crisp black-and-white line to smattering brushwork, flecked occasionally with blue and red color, enhanced by full color (mostly fleshy tones) whenever Baker, “the Righteous Maker,” is in an amorous mood, surrounded by toothsome barenekidwimmin — which he is, often.

Much of the tale is narrated in the nastiest gonzo street argot by Baker, who flashes back and forth through a career of mayhem (“the greatest life ever lived,” he says), but he eventually gets to the business at hand: hired by Jay Leno and Dick Cheney to destroy the specially built prison that incarcerates super villains — and to obliterate said villains at the same stroke — Baker sets off in his “beloved Liberty Belle,” the super-powered cab of an 18-wheeler, eventually reaching his destination and incinerating the prison, the Crazy Keep, blowing it up and all inside, an act Baker feels “might end up as my Greatest Triumph — a final act of pure righteousness — but it’s not, not even close.” Well then, what is? Tune in next issue.

In ending the first issue on a note of ostensible triumph for Butcher Baker, Casey and Huddleston have, seemingly, unhinged the cliff-hanger mechanism by which we are usually seduced into buying subsequent issues. But the cliff-hanger is vital only to serial stories that depend upon plots, and Butcher Baker apparently does not: it depends, instead, upon the outrageous personality of its protagonist.

Baker’s obscenity-enriched rant throughout is characterization enough — and his carnal sybaritic lifestyle completes the picture. The finishing touches are added with the issue’s other complete episode (other than the blowing up of the Crazy Keep), which involves Baker and the state trooper who goes after him, perceiving, rightly, that Baker in the Liberty Belle, passing by at 127 mph, is exceeding all speed limits combined and therefore sets off in heated pursuit. Baker, however, foils the lawman, crowding him off the road; whereupon, the trooper, upside-down in his capsized cop car, vows vengeance, saying, “This prick — whoever he is — just made my supreme shit list.” More to come?

We’ll come back because we want to see just how much more scabrous Baker will get in subsequent salacious sallies.

Butcher Baker is the satiric comedy of extremities, making fun of superhero comics and all of us delirious fanboys — and a hoot throughout, picture and story.