A Year of Cool Comics – Day 47

Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here‘s the archive of the moments posted so far!

Today, for Mardi Gras, let’s look at a story set in New Orleans (presumably during Mardis Gras), Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s Cassidy: Blood and Whisky

Enjoy!

Unlike the other tie-ins to Preacher, this Cassidy one-shot was drawn by Preacher’s regular artist, Steve Dillon, so this is basically an extra issue of Preacher spotlighting Cassidy.

The basic gist of the story is that Cassidy is in Louisiana when he smells something strange…another vampire! The only other vampire Cassidy ever met…

The rest of the comic is an interesting look at the French Quarter of New Orleans, but mostly it is a chance for Ennis to parody the Anne Rice style of vampires by contrasting them with his vampire, Cassidy…

The result is some strong parody work (although I thought that the Neil Gaiman jabs were a bit much – I’ll feature them as a Meta-Message very soon) and really, a compelling story about what happens when you, for lack of a better phrase, “buy into your own hype,” as the other vampire gets into the idea of being a vampire far more than he should.

It’s an amusing work with great Dillon artwork, but it is also filled with plenty of violence, including a brilliant twist on the idea of using a cross to stop a vampire.

I can see why this might not have been something Ennis wanted to include in the series proper, because it really doesn’t progress the character of Cassidy all that much (what it DOES do is show how Cassidy ended up in New Orleans, which ends up being important when the Preacher gang ends up in New Orleans years later and Jesse Custer learns some unsettling truths about what Cassidy did in New Orleans AFTER the events of Blood and Whisky – his actions make Joe Rice’s prejudices against the Irish seem quite valid) – it’s really more of a fun ride while getting to make fun of the silliness of some vampire fiction, but it’s still a good work.

It’s collected in the fifth Preacher trade collection, Dixie Fried.