Good dogs.
Creative Staff:
Story: Evan Dorkin
Art and Colors: Benjamin Dewey
Letters: Nate Piekos of Blambot
What They Say:
This eight-time Eisner Award-winning comic book series blending fantasy and humor features the adventures of paranormal pets investigating the horrors of Burden Hill.
A heroic pack of canines known as the Wise Dogs sets off on a mission to clean up a Pennsylvania corridor plagued by seemingly unrelated occult disturbances that include a fire salamander and a horde of mutant lurkers. A link is found among the various disturbances, leading our heroes to a mountain village inhabited by a survivalist witch-cult who have discovered the existence of a ”Blood Lure” attracting occult forces, creatures, and many more terrors to Burden Hill!
This volume collects the comic-book series Beasts of Burden: Wise Dogs and Eldritch Men issues #1-4.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The first Beasts of Burden collection Animal Rites blew me away. So much so that I bought a physical copy even though I received a digital copy for review. It was an amazing mixture of animal adventure and Lovecraftian terror with a deep emotional core that managed to slip its way past my defenses and leave me both delighted and emotionally gutted. While I can’t say that Wise Dogs and Eldritch Men hit me with the same force, it’s a damn fine addition to the BoB story and well worth your time if you enjoyed the first one.
Instead of following the pets of Burden Hill, this sequel focuses on a group of full-fledged Wise Dogs as they investigate strange occult occurrences in Pennsylvania. It all starts with fire as a forest burns, and animals run for their lives. All except one, a scotty dog named Lundy races right for the heart of the inferno, protected by a bubble of eldritch magic. He comes across a salamander (the mythical kind, not the regular kind) and ends up freeing it from a magical trap. This decision on Lundy’s part will either save or doom his group.
The Wise Dogs go on to discover more and more strange happenings, eventually making their way to the town of Derrington, which went from a thriving small town to a slaughterhouse, the only survivor being a sheepdog named Tommy. Tommy leads the Wise Dogs to a group of cultists deep in the mountains, and there they discover a darkness that might well engulf everything they know and love, even the Wise Dogs in training at Burden Hill.
I was surprised that this series chose to focus on a new set of animals, and for a few pages I missed Ace and Pugsley and Orphan and the rest, but this new group of Wise Dogs won me over—especially Lundy—and I was more than along for the ride.
Focusing on this new group allowed for Dorkin to expand the world and show us the larger picture. While Ace and his group are Wise Dogs in training, Lundy and his crew are the real deal, vested with the power and experience to face the worst threats the occult world has to offer. Following them thrusts us further into the lore of this world, and makes this richer and even more vibrant.
The only downside to this is the story loses that sense of danger and pathos that made the first Beasts of Burden series such a gut punch. I keep thinking of the first story, with Jack the beagle and his haunted dog house. At first it started off as something cute and funny, but it quickly became something genuinely sad and moving. Wise Dogs and Eldritch Men never reaches that level, but I see that as more of a tradeoff for the world building than an actual flaw in the story. A great deal of that is on me expecting one thing and getting another.
Another area that takes some getting used to is the art. Jill Thompson did such a fantastic job with the first series that I associate her style with Beasts of Burden to the point where I had a hard time divorcing the two. Benjamin Dewey had some mighty large shoes to fill, and he does a great job. While his style is a little blockier than Thompson’s, a little rougher, it matches the same general aesthetic spirit as the first, which is critical to this story. What makes Beasts of Burden work art-wise is the way it straddles so many lines: it’s cartoony but never silly, it anthropomorphizes the animals while making them still seem like dogs and cats, it’s cute but also frightening. Dewey is able to straddle those lines incredibly well while making this his own. It’s a damn fine job of sequential storytelling.
In Summary:
I probably compared this series too much to the original, but Animal Rites was such an amazing read that I can’t help it. What’s important to keep in mind about Wise Dogs and Eldritch Men (great title, by the way) is that it’s trying to do something different. The first series established the rules for this world and introduced us to the main players; this one expands on that world and takes us deeper into it. It sacrifices some of the stronger emotional work in the first, but it’s a good tradeoff and it’s obviously all going to come back to Burden Hill. I’m looking forward to seeing Lundy and his crew interacts with Ace and his, and I genuinely don’t know what’s going to happen next—a sign that I’m in the hands of a top-notch storyteller. If you enjoyed the first series, you’ll love this one. I know I’m going to buy a hardcopy once I get some extra scratch.
Dr. J gives this an….
Grade: A
Age Rating: 14
Released By: Dark Horse
Release Date: 20 March 2019
MSRP: $22.99
