Cover Price: $2.95
Bargain Price: 5/$100
Cover Date: May 2002
As the title indicates, this series focuses on Sheriff Ida Red, a character created by Paul Dini and featured in a few Jingle Belle back-up stories. The rub here is that Ida Red is not yet a sheriff, with this mini existing to tell her origin. The story, expertly rendedred by artist J. Bone, Dini’s frequent Jingle Belle collaborator, begins with a baby Ida, orphaned when her mother is eaten by a giant rattle snake. From here, we see Ida’s early life, raised by a talking bear in the imaginatively created world of Mutant, Texas, a town full of people and animals who were mutated by a radioactive meteor strike into cactus guys, plant people, and talking bears, coyotes, and armadillos and, sadly, Ida, the town’s only “normal” human, feels a bit isolated and yearns to explore the outside world. This issue also sets up her chance to do just that with the revelation that many of the town’s mutant inhabitants are being kidnapped and exhibited in freak shows around south Texas. Bone’s “animated” style, in the same vein as Darwyn Cooke and Bruce Timm, fits the content beautifully and brings it all to life, giving the world the charm it needs to really be memorable. Ultimately, this issue could probably be a bit more engaging, but as the first part of a mini, it more than does its job. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for issues two – three at some upcoming cons.
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