Dead Dogs Bite featured image Reviews 

“Dead Dog’s Bite” #1

By | March 4th, 2021
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

We knew Tyler Boss Could draw. With “Dead Dog’s Bite” #1, he proves he’s a damn good writer too. (Warning: may contain minor spoilers.)

Cover by Tyler Boss

Written, Illustrated, Colored and Lettered 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. From award-winning cartoonist Tyler Boss (4 Kids Walk into a Bank) comes the story of a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a candy wrapper.

Full disclosure: I’m an unapologetic stan for “4 Kids Walk into a Bank.” Three and a half years later, it continues to be one of my all-time favorite books, as exciting and unique as the day the last issue dropped. That five-issue series was written by Matthew Rosenberg, but Tyler Boss did everything else – excluding letters – and he absolutely crushed it. Together, Rosenberg and Boss created a created a gritty, unforgiving, authentic world and they didn’t back down. Screw your saccharine, Disneyfied endings. Sometimes things don’t work out.

This time around, Boss does it all, demonstrating in the process that his writing is every bit strong as his art. You can identify Boss’s visual style almost immediately from 10 feet away. Perhaps when he has a few more scripts to his credit, the same may be said for his prose. Either way, it’s the art that will draw you in.

Open the book and the first thing you’ll notice is its overtly formal style. The unnamed narrator in the blue suit catches your eye immediately, but two pages of 3×3 grids with thick white borders around the panels set the tone for the story that follows.

The simultaneously monotonous yet oppressive layout also raises several questions. Is the unnamed narrator who appears in 13 of the first 18 panels – nine of which find him anchored to the exact same spot – constricted by the panel borders? Or have the panels been constrained to accommodate his stationary, pokerfaced performance? And what’s up with that banana peel? Not to mention manhole cover….

For the first one-third of the book, Boss’s illustrations and colors aren’t exactly “eye candy.” They’re a visual metronome, equally comforting and disconcerting. With desaturated colors and several more nine-panel pages, the story keeps tick-tick-ticking along, occasionally punctuated by quirky camera angles and visual non sequiturs. Or at least they feel like non sequiturs so far. Who am I to say? Maybe the matching green casts on the pharmacist’s “clappers” will be crucial to solving the mystery. When everything could be a clue, nothing is a clue.

After the introduction of Cormac Guffin, however – by way of a brilliant transition – the visual treatment suddenly changes. The paneling is still pretty formal, but whether the compositions are horizontal, vertical or both, the vast majority are drenched in neon purple or bright red, casting an eerie pall over the characters.

Narratively, there’s a lot to digest. Not only is it too much to describe, it’s virtually impossible to know what’s an actual spoiler and what isn’t. Could it be Joe spilling her pills? Lady Pendermills’ funky outfit? Mary Lou’s overly eager sexual advances? Surely it has something to do with the off-kilter, peppermint candy-like swirl that keeps popping up on everything from the town’s welcome sign to the seemingly infinite supply milk cartons.

“Dead Dog’s Bite” has been described as Twin Peaks meets Lady Bird. That doesn’t seem far off, but there are also plenty of Twilight Zone and Hitchcockian elements – beyond the MacGuffin reference.

In a pre-publication press release Boss said he hoped his readers would find themselves trying to solve the mystery before the series is over. That’s a big part of what made “Twin Peaks” such a buzzed-about show. After every episode you were forced to rework your theory to account for even the tiniest new clue. Every viewer was on equal footing. Nobody really knew where the story was headed – or even what the real story was – but week after week you tried. You argued, you debated and you took best guess. Only to miss the mark and do it all over again.

Tyler Boss’s debut script evokes much of the same feeling. From the narrator’s blunt, tangential telling of “Little Red Riding Hood” to the book’s highly evocative, poetic ending, there are stories within stories within stories. It’s a book that unfolds moment by moment, like beads stacking on a string. It’s not a fluid, continuous process, but each bead is captivating. You can try to see the whole picture, or simply appreciate each piece as it comes. Some won’t amount to much, but they’re well worth savoring.

Final Verdict: 8.4 “Dead Dog’s Bite” #1 isn’t a breezy read, but creator Tyler Boss puts it all out there and accomplishes everything he set out to do.


John Schaidler

EMAIL | ARTICLES