Beau Smith has been having a “Manly Cover Competition” with Chuck Dixon where each week they offer a comic from their collection and compare which one is mas macho. Chuck has a pic of Tarzan with a machine gun, then Beau fires back with a WWII superhero and his sidekick mowing down an entire platoon of Japanese soldiers with machine guns before rolling over them with a steamroller. Of course, there’s never a winner. Each guy disses the other’s offering and brags about their own…which is, of course, manly.

(OK, the steamroller cover wins. Steamroller always wins.)

I hear there’s an archive of these covers on the way, but for now all you can do is join in the fun by checking the Busted Knuckles column and the Dixonverse message board.

Beau tends to favor the “fighting and loving” covers where wholesale slaughter is going on whilst a leggy blonde is fixing her hair.

Anyway, Beau has a new book coming out soon with artist Eduardo Barreto called “Cobb: Off the Leash.” (Note: this is the only permissable way to use “coming out” in a sentence that includes Beau Smith.) Today, he posted the cover and I’m going to evaluate whether it qualifies as manly. The story concerns an ex-Secret Service agent and the Russian mafia.

Let’s see:
Smoking bullets: check!
Smoking guns, two of ’em, in the man’s hands: check!
Big bruiser wielding a knife: check!
Mustache: check!
Commie: check!
Naked chick: chick! I mean, check!
Badge: check!
Bullet holes: check!
Babe with a bat: check!
Speeding car: check!
Steely-eyed bad guy in a suit: check!
Holsters: check!
Boots: check!

I dunno. It could use a steamroller. Maybe that’s for issue 2.

I thought about hosting the image here, but nah…go give it a look at full size!

Plus, here’s an interview Beau did with Sequential Tart.