“It’s a pugly job, but someone’s gotta do it!”
What They Say:
The epic tale of blood and drool begins here! Join Molly and her dogs Mingo and Colfax, as she recounts the legend of “The Warrior and the Battlepug”—a tale of a fearless barbarian, his trusty and freakishly large pug, and evil baby harp seals. This volume collects the first year of Mike Norton’s Battlepug—the perfect opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the fan-favorite webcomic by Mike Norton, Allen Passalaqua, and Crank!
Creators:
Writer and Artist: Mike Norton
The Review:
Once upon a time in the frozen northern wastes lived a tiny village. In that village lived a small boy with his mother. The boy wanted nothing more than to play with his toys and live his life, but tragedy struck when his village was destroyed by a warlord and his army of harp seals. The boy was taken in by the northern elves and their despotic ruler—a certain white-bearded man dressed in red with an exaggerated tendency towards jolliness. The boy grows up and breaks free from his captors and sets out on the road to meet his destiny. Little does he know that this destiny involves a pug the size of a buffalo.
The cover was what drew me to this comic: a brawny, Conan-esque warrior riding on a giant pug through a deserted hellscape while a nude women with a blanket carefully covering her naughty bits lounges in the foreground. That was enough to get me to try this. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep me interested. Once the initial silly charm wore off there really wasn’t much to this comic other than random story elements and a goofy-looking dog.
The naked woman on the cover is Moll and she’s the one telling the story to her two dogs Colfax and Mingo. We know nothing about her other than the fact that she lives in a palace in a vaguely Indian or Arabic setting and that she owns two talking dog that like stories. What connection she has to the unnamed warrior or the Battle Pug is unknown. It’s really just one more bit of randomness added to the pot.
It’s obvious that Norton is playing with the Conan story—specifically the story told in the original movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger—but there’s no real consistency or internal logic to some of the story points. His being taken in by Santa Claus seems to serve no purpose other than to be strange, as is Santa’s cold, cruel nature. Similarly, there seems to be no real reason for the protagonist’s village to be attacked by the most adorable harp seals in creation.
I suppose I may be asking too much from a story about a barbarian and his faithful giant pug, but the key to any good story is how well it entertains, and this one just left me cold. The art is good and appropriately cartoon-y for this type of story. The animals in particular are very well done and terribly cute (I’m a sucker for dogs). However, this just doesn’t come together to make a satisfying story for me. It makes me want to dig out my old issues of Groo the Warrior to read a proper barbarian parody.
In Summary:
Battlepug is definitely cute, but once that cuteness wears off there’s not enough story to make this a worthwhile read. Most of the story elements appear to be odd for the sake of being odd, not to serve the plot in any significant way. The art is very good, but it’s not enough to make me recommend this collection.
Grade: C
