Dead Dog's Bite #1

Dead Dogs Bite #1

Dark Horse Comics 2021

By Tyler Boss

Cormac Guffin has gone missing. It's been three days and no one has seen hide nor hair of her. The police have nothing, and the townsfolk are acting more like a funeral procession than a search party. If Cormac has any hope of being found, it rests on the slouching shoulders of her best friend Joe. Joe will need her wits about her though, because, like any story worth hearing, nothing is what it seems.

Tyler is one of the exciting new voices in comics and after 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank I knew i’d read everything he did. There is something exciting about discovering a fresh new voice and seeing what they can bring to the table. The opening here is a great example of what I am talking about it as it has this twisted kind of Rod Serling thing happening and it is absolutely brilliant to see play out. Also I admire anyone who can do it all, the writing, interiors-which include the colours- and the lettering. This kind of talent is phenomenal and once again you don’t have to look past the opening to see why.

The way that this is being told is crackingly brilliant! How we meet Joe is sensational and then to see how the story & plot development through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented incredibly well. Mind you why does this story need a host? What’s the deal with Joe anyway, it’s hard to get a read on her or him or whatnot. The character development that we see is really interesting and the more we see someone and the less we learn the stronger the desire to know more. The pacing is amazing and as it takes us through the pages revealing the twists & turns as it shows us this world and it’s characters we are treated to something bizarre and fascinating!

I like seeing how well this is being structured and how the layers within the story take their spots in the proceedings. I say this because this isn’t the beginning of a story as we’re dropped into it already in progress and you can see how the layers within the story have already taken shape. The way that we see everything work together to create the story’s ebb & flow is marvellous.

The work on the interiors here are mindbogglingly great in how they come across. I mean the linework is phenomenal and how we see it being utilised to create these intricate patterns throughout in such high quality detail is stunning. I am impressed with how we see backgrounds utilised within the composition of the panels as they bring us depth perception, a sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the story. Granted I do wish we’d see more of them but hey it is what it is and with Tyler doing everything it’s still damn impressive. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is beautifully rendered as well. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is really nice to see.

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What a fantastic story this is already. We are being introduced to this world and these characters and while we’re not entirely sure what the heck is actually going on we do see a lot of running around and people behaving as if everything in the world is fine and dandy. Heck even Joe seems to be going about this with an air of nonchalance that really doesn’t fit with the passion she’s pretending to display. I’m hooked, no not on phonics, on this already and with what I’ve seen I now have the desire to see and learn more and this is precisely what good, solid storytelling is supposed to do.