Review -- DOG EATERS

Dog Eaters
Written by Malcolm Wong
Art by Guillermo A. Angel
Dabel Brothers
Dog Eaters is the kind of book I have to admit being a sucker for.
To start with the art is stunning. It jumps off the page thanks to an obviously manga-influenced style by artist Guillermo A. Angel, and dramatic colour work by Ruben Del Vela and Michael Bartolo. The art really sells this series, including great covers on the first three issues.
“Guillermo Angel was recommended to me by David Dabel, one of the four Dabels brothers,” said Wong. “He sent some character designs and we went back and forth until we came up with the final designs. I tended to lean towards what he does best, rather than try to swim against the current and to demand a vision that he may not be what he can execute.”
Then comes the theme of the storyline. Writer Malcolm Wong is telling a post apocalyptic story, which has seen the people of North America evolve back to a tribal life that has strong native overtones. So you have a sort of post apocalyptic western feel. Come on how cool is that.
The better news is that once you get into the series, you find Wong isn’t going for the big bang story, where every scene is gunfights. Instead, we get a descent look at the life of a nomadic tribe. It is through this story of survival Wong weaves a larger story of a mysterious stranger, and the arrival of an obvious bad guy.
Wong said he didn’t have a particular character pool in mind, instead creating by building off the central premise.
“The characters developed with the script,” he said. “I didn't outline the script. I started writing with just a premise and it was like getting into your car and taking a long distance drive without having a destination. I added characters as the story developed and then shaped them as I rewrote.”
Wong has a fine sense of pacing. He is able to balance the story of just making it through a day in a world gone backwards, with the more action-oriented aspects of the book. That for me sets Dog Eaters a cut above.
You get a feel for the big picture storyline as Wong tells about how he came to do the story.
“I started to write Dog Eaters at a time when I was totally disgusted with what was going on in the USA. The addictive preoccupation with celebrity, the political incompetence and arrogance at the highest level, the needless and endless war, the feeling that Americans were ‘fiddling while Rome burned.’ The U.S. has thrown the Republican party out of power and elected Barack Obama as president, but we are not getting much change, unless you consider "change," meaning that he has changed what he promised while he was campaigning. You could say matters are starting to fester even more.
“I started to speculate about what would happen if this current incarnation of Rome did in fact burn, bringing down the rest of the world with it in a chain reaction of economic collapse, war, disease, and famine, culminating in the ‘Die Off.
“After this second Dark Age, who would rise from the ashes of the destruction? Who would survive in the U.S. Southwest? Prisoners isolated in high-security prisons who interbred to create a super-brutal outlaw. People of native descent who could live off the land. Where would civilization start to coalesce first? Why, around the casino-cities, of course. And how would they be supplied? By armored caravans plying the trade routes by tight-knit groups of people like the Black Dog Clan.”
I always find it interesting that many excellent comic stories start out with the idea being targeted at a different medium. Wong’s story fits that list.
“Dog Eaters was a screenplay first,” he said. “I started writing it probably around 2004. So you see how long things can take, especially with a labor of love. (Quentin) Tarantino worked on Bastards for 10 years before it came to the screen, so this is not an uncommon occurrence. The adaptation from screenplay to comic script was fast, just a few weeks.”
Of course Wong said comics are not exactly where the story comes from.
“Comic writing has not been an influence at all,” he said. “Most comics are serial with the story structure becoming static after the origin story. After that, the story structures: bad guys are dispatched -- is repeated ad infinitum. I suppose, if there was a sequel, that Dog Eaters could be considered an origin story, but that might be trying to fit this story into a framework where it doesn't belong.”
I have always liked the post disaster story, and the western feel is a great addition. Add in the killer art and Dog Eaters is a book I highly recommend.
Wong likes it too.
“I am very proud of the way this book looks,” he said, adding production was a problem in terms of supporting the project. “As far as its acceptance and audience, it is hard to keep a reader’s attention with monthly issues of 28 - 32 pages an issue. And in our case, the gap between Issue 2 and 3 was five-months. In this day of instant gratification, you can't expect readers to stay tuned.”
Check it out at http://www.dogeaters-manga.com/
— CALVIN DANIELS

-- Appeared on Yorkton This Week WebXtra