Beasts of Burden #1 (2018) - Dark Horse Comics
Written by Evan Dorkin
Art by Benjamin Dewey
Letters by Nate Piekos of Blambot
We have become a society that loves our pets more and more. I have two dogs at home, and they get treated like spoiled kids for sure. That being said, we all think that our animals are special right? Difference is, my dogs don't have any magic abilities and they haven't won any Eisner Awards. Beast of Burden is back, and we're taking the leash off of this new story, Wise Dogs and Eldrich Men.
In case you are unaware, the story follows a pack called the Wise Dogs who use their abilities to find off evil. In this particular case, something awful is happening in a Pennsylvania town and they rush in to find the cause. Once that is dealt with, the investigation begins and leads to something that seemed a bit unimportant at the time. What happens after that is a meeting, some more investigating and just trying to gather more information. Things pick up again the next day, when a mistake starts a bit of a battle. Under the "everything happens for a reason" motto, this does yield some interesting results and sets up where the story will go from here.
While I liked the dynamics of the team, this particular book does seem to bank on the reader already being familiar with these characters. Full disclosure, this was my first exposure to the story and I did feel like a bit of an outsider. So judging this book simply by this one issue may be unfair, but here it goes. I felt like I was waiting for something to happen a lot and there was a bit too much of the investigation side in this first issue. I'm not saying I needed non-stop action or anything, but my mind drifted away from the story a couple of times. Maybe this book shouldn't feel like a #1, but it is and I just wasn't grabbed by the larger story. I did like the dogs themselves, especially Lundy, and definitely felt like this was a great concept. The art really brought a slight horror element to the story and really sold me on the magical elements, as well as the Pennsylvania countryside. This does make me want to read more about these characters, but perhaps my reading needs to go backwards and not forward. For now, I will see where the journey takes me.
RATING: PICK UP
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