This week our Friday Recommendation falls upon me, and I finally get to recommend one of my favorite titles in recent memory: Dark Horse Comics’ release from the mind of Evan Dorkin and the brush of Jill Thompson – Beasts of Burden. This title saw its origins in four Dark Horse horror collections – “Book of Hauntings,” “Book of Witchcraft,” “Book of the Dead”, and “Book of Monsters”. While some less adventurous Alaskan comic shop employees have described this as evil Homeward Bound, they missed the point. Dorkin himself called this story, quite simply, “cats and dogs vs. evil.”
It’s an adventure of the supernatural with man’s best friend and the occasional cat, and it’s one of my favorites. See why after the jump.
Beasts of Burden is a fairly simple premise that is far fetched (fetch!) but engrossing and amusing if you suspend your disbelief. When the whole saga is introduced in the initial four stories (you can find the first three here for free), our gang of dogs have gathered to summon the Wise Dog. That gang of dogs includes Whitey (Jack Russell Terrier), Rex (Doberman), and Pugsley (Pug), and they are soon joined by their friends Ace (Husky), Jack (Beagle), and even their cat friend Orphan.
The Wise Dog himself is basically the shaman or elder of their community, and the one that the local animals go to for answers when there are none. Once the Wise Dog is summoned, they are quickly thrown into a world of the supernatural, as their once quiet street is now an epicenter for ghosts, zombie dogs, frog lords, and various other examples of the occult. Each adventure is something uniquely its own, and Dorkin always seems to give each character a moment to shine issue to issue.
One of my favorite things he does is really imbue these animals with their own distinct personalities. Sometimes, they even exist in conflict with stereotypes, such as Rex the Doberman – from the very beginning he is the most fearful of the occult, and it takes the near death of Orphan to get him to spring into action. When you think dogs named Rex and Dobermans, you think tough, smart, and agile. With Rex, you have his base existence clashing with expectations created by his breed and name. It really is a very clever move by Dorkin.
I’d be remiss in my role as a fan of this series if I didn’t mention my favorite character – Orphan the cat. One of my favorite moments from the debut story “Stray” in which Orphan is thrown into the group for good (as Rex runs away out of fear no less). Another is “Stray” and its extremely touching ending, as Jack invites Orphan in to stay in his (now not haunted) doghouse. My favorite issue of all was #3 from the mini-series where Orphan is given a chance to headline a whole issue. No matter what the situation is, the guy is an absolute champ. It seems as if every favorite moment I have in the series involves him, and I love the little guy for that.
While the series is often very dark and even sad, Dorkin makes sure to balance the occult with humor. It’s a careful line he treads, with the series oscillating between intense horror moments (the whole confrontation with the frog lord in particular) and interpersonal interactions highlighted by humor. Many thanks to Pugsley on the humor front. He is the resident disbeliever in the occult, and we’re given a lot of laughs thanks to him. To date, the balance of the stories has been impeccable, and it says a lot about Dorkin as a creator to really temper the stories in such a manner.
Even if you have absolutely no interest in reading a story about dog and cat occult detectives, you still should buy this title. Why? Jill Thompson’s incomparable painted interiors. I first became aware of Thompson’s work in Bill Willingham’s Fables OGN 1001 Nights of Snowfall, and I appreciated her work, but not like this.
Her work runs the gamut of emotions, conveying humor, sadness, shock, fright, sadness, loneliness, and more in the simplest of movements and expressions. Dorkin allows her to almost be the primary storyteller here, as he sticks to almost only dialogue and lets her run free with her work from there. Not only that, but her dogs and cats are adorable and almost scary accurate in the conveyance of their personalities. There is one scene where all of the animals are having a funeral in the story “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie” where every dog is standing exactly like that dog would stand. While that isn’t impressive to some, the level of research and thought process put into such a simple scene was absurd.
Beasts of Burden finds two exceptional creators collaborating on a project that can reach across all age groups and succeed. The concepts within are universal, especially given that pets are something we all know and love. Dorkin and Thompson should be poked and prodded until they make another mini of this exceptional title. That may be going too far, but I really do hope to see my favorite characters solving another mystery sooner rather than later.
For those with patience, there is a book coming out in June that collects all eight of the Beasts of Burden stories in one anthology. I’ll be picking that up, and I recommend you do as well.
