Comic Review #68: Stray Dogs #1-5 (2021)

 

I've been doing quite a number of movie reviews lately as you all can see. I'm trying to get all three of the main columns I guess is what I usually call them that I do all caught up to the same number, which is probably going to be about 88 when all is said and done. So I've been doing more movie reviews and I'm not going to stop but I do want to discuss the other two more. I wanted to talk about this comic for like the entire year, but I knew the spooky season would be the best time. Another point I want to make in this paragraph which is I guess what's going on with the blog update kinda thing is that I'm continuing the spooky fun into November! That's right on this blog our Halloween Special DOES not end at 11:59 on October 31st. No we are going to keep discussing the spooky stuff that I wanted to but got caught up in how much spooky stuff I haven't discussed. I mean if Christmas can take over November despite happening in December than this blog can take over November for Halloween. So keep watching for the fun we will have.

Stray Dogs is a recent comic (it literally started in February of this year.) done by Tony Fleecs and Trish Forstner. Tony Fleecs seems to be a newer person in the comics industry, working on according to google stuff like Ninja Turtles and My Little Pony. So in other words Tony is my kinda guy. Trish Forstner worked on a comic called My Little Pony / Transformers II. which means I've somehow missed two crossover comic series that involved the My Little Pony characters teaming up with t he Transformers. I'm kinda mad that Trish hadn't told me about this personally. Anyway Trish does the art for this comic which is so cute. It's very Don Bluth-ish which I think works well for this story. Don Bluth stories had a lot of weird dark moments in his cartoon movies. 

Stray Dogs is a pretty dark little story. We start out with the main dog of the story named Sophie at the vet and her owner is worried that she will hate her for bringing her here and the vet says that no dog ends up hating their owner and that they have very poor short term memory so in a week she'd have forgotten about even being there. It then goes to Sophie being introduced to all of the other dogs that live in the house with this guy. They all of course get excited because dogs are like that. One dog named Rusty sees she's freaking out and get's all the other dogs out of her face. His name is Rusty and then he decides to tell her who everyone is. He shows her the entire house until they get near the masters room and she freaks out and pees on the floor, like you know a dog sometimes does when scared. She hides and the Master of the House finds her and puts a scarf over her. However she's reminded because of the smell and sees that the Master of the House is really into murder, having killed her previous owner! Oh shit now it's on.

She tells the other dogs but none of them believe her except Rusty. Rusty and Sophie go to a room that the Master has said they aren't allowed in. They move around the room but the Master catches Rusty, while Sophie is still stuck in there. Rusty gets put in the PUNISHMENT ROOM which this nice guy has in his backyard. I would be weirded out by the very visible PUNISHMENT ROOM this guy has in his back. It's more of a PUNISHMENT SHACK but that doesn't sound as good as PUNISHMENT ROOM. We will get back to that in a bit. Sophie finds a photo and brings it to the other dogs and BLAM one of the dogs Roxanne remembers this woman as her previous owner. Oh shit! Stuff is going down! The third issue has the dogs finding some graves under the porch of the house. At least three of them. Roxanne, Sophie, Rusty and Victor a three legged Dalmatian get stuck down there but well find their way out. They find a small piece of clothing that Victor realizes was owned by his previous owner, a firefighter. Victor gets the gang to try to call 9-11, however they can't actually understand dogs. The Master (have I said how this always just reminds me of The Brave Little Toaster) he brings Victor out and fucking SHOOTS HIM behind the PUNISHMENT ROOM/SHACK.

Issue four starts with the oldest dog there, Earl, not believing the Master would do any wrong ever. He pretty much is the last dog believing The Master is a good guy AND he told (in his dog way) the Master about Victor. He's a big rat rat the water rat. That was a weird saying children would say when I was a child. I don't get it and I don't think I ever will. They open up the PUNISHMENT ROOM and they see Victors fur was cut off him. Holy shit you know this guy is a monster. Earl finally finds out about the truth about the Master is how he opened up a drawer? I don't know what the actual name of this thing he opens is but it's got fucking dog skulls stuffed and put up like you know hunters do. This Master guy is fucked up.

Earl is not fucking happy about this shit. He's barking like a madman and he fucking RIPS THE SHIT OUTTA THIS GUYS THROAT. He literally tells every other dog to run like hell and JUMPS THROUGH THE DAMN WINDOW and that shit AINT open! The dogs all run out of the open window and Sophie does not want to remember her lady so she wants to go back and get her scarf.  She gets past the Master but he goes outside and starts fucking shooting, hitting Roxanne, Sophie comes back out without the scarf and bits the Masters leg, the dogs can't get across the street because there's like seventy thousand cars going by. Earl realizes that the only way he can save his friends is to sacrifice himself by walking in front of the other cars and causes a  accident. He tells the other dogs that he remembered and all the dogs go OWWWWWOOOOOOOOOO sound that dogs make. One lady gets out of her car and the dogs try to get attention from her and talk to the Master, however the throat bite that Earl gave him and he falls down dead. I guess holding your hand against a bleeding throat wound won't help you not die. Now all police are around and the dogs are trying to get their attention for quite some time. One of them is like GET ANIMAL CONTROL HERE! However there is a police dog and they give him all the details and we go to several months later and we see Rusty and Sophie playing but they also think this is the first time they met. The final page shows that Sophie has a new name and new owners and doesn't remember anything. Kind of a melancholy way to end this comic, but I'm pretty sure like all horror stories kinda end melancholy way, still this one kinda bummed me out. Poor pupper doesn't remember her friends or original owner.

FINAL VERDICT: This comic has been getting a lot of love from many people and I gotta add in my love in too. I loved the characters (them being dogs helps a lot) but there's also a bit of comedy that works well earlier on in the comic. You see two of the dogs are named Henry and Other Henry. It's the kinda joke that a Disney/Don Bluth/Animated Movie of the 1980s or 1990s would have and it works well with what they were clearly going for which was a messed up Disney flick. The art is fantastic in every way. Look at the cover up there. That's just fucking awesome. I think I would have a great time talking about horror movies or Disney things with Tony and Trish, I've also found out about a spinoff series called Stray Dogs: Dog Days and if I can find them I will talk about them.