Review: ‘Carmen Red Claw’ #1 Is One Solid Book

Welcome to the table,

I love a weird western. And a weird western set in the well-storied Hellboy landscape is right up my alley!

Let’s get into it!

From the creative team of Mike Mignola and Rae Allen comes Carmen Red Claw. The title character is a spiritual forebear of the enigmatic World War II pulp superhero Lobster Johnson. She’s a seriously rad gunslinger who, from page one of this series, becomes iconic in the well-traveled landscape* in which the Hellboy stories take place.

Carmen Dascher is a hunter and tracker of fiends and demons who travels about with Yargoss, a floating, long-tailed creature who resembles something between a small horned lizard and a haunted Pokémon. The two are currently hunting down a Chupacabra in the New Mexico Territory in the late 1880s. Their dynamic visually feels so natural in this very grounded landscape of sand and mesas.

The story does a great job of showing — without telling — a lot of the racial tension and bigotry of the time as Carmen is visibly depicted as one of the Indigenous Peoples of America. This, of course, gets her, even as a child, in the typical Eurocentric dress of the time and harsh looks from European settlers.

While it has not played a major part in this first issue, it’s incredibly important to the underpinnings of the character. I really appreciate that it’s done in this way because, fundamentally, we become who we are based on our experiences in youth. And while no child should have to experience hardships, it speaks to the character we are getting to know in this first issue, much like Hellboy, Abe, Miss Truesdale, and Liz, as someone who comes from a place of diversity and struggle.

She is different, not a monster, but treated and seen as “other” by the people of her community. That could cause one to become bitter, but Carmen becomes a protector of those who may not, all evidence provided on the page, ever consider protecting her.

The narrative in this book is a ton of fun. We get more than enough to go on from the words the master of speech bubbles, Clem Robins, placed on the paneled page. However, as I am a fan of westerns and, by proxy, samurai films, it’s the visual storytelling happening in this book that truly stands out for me.

Rae Allen captures the open expanse of the American West in the age of cattle rustlers and open planes. There is a brilliant artistry at play here. Allen has crafted it in such a way that you can feel the warm sun and see the haze of a mirage on the horizon. Michelle Madsen‘s colorwork floods in like wildflowers and tallgrass, really lending the feel of a natural expanse that balances so perfectly between an “old west” folk story and the looming dread of something awful coming at dusk.

For a first issue, Carmen Red Claw is another welcome addition to the mythos that makes up the world shared by such icons as Hellboy, Lobster Johnson, and Miss Truesdale herself.

Until next time, this book is a ton of fun, and hopefully, we get a whole lot more of this western setting because it for sure is working for me.

*I’m not calling it the “Mignolaverse” because Mignola did not seem to like that title in the brilliant documentary Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters, and I’m not about to call someone I respect something they are not fond of. It’s going to sound clunky until I can find something I like, but we will get there. I respect the man and love the work more than just trying to slap a label on it.