Stray Dogs: Dog Days

“Stray Dogs” by writer Tony Fleecs and artist Trish Forstner was one of last year’s breakout hits at Image.  The Don Bluth-esque look of the art was immediately appealing and offered an appealing misdirection for a dark story about a group of dogs who were starting to suspect that there was something wrong about their Master.  With the individual issues selling like hotcakes, some kind of follow-up was inevitable.  Never mind the fact that the story had wrapped up in as definitive a manner as you could have expected it to.  Which is why “Dog Days” is made up of short stories that show what the original cast of dogs was up to before they wound up with their new Master.

Credit where credit is due, Fleecs and Forstner clearly put some thought into each story.  Outside of the initial one, about a schnauzer named Fritz, none of them play out in a straightforward manner.  There’s either some kind of twist in the story itself or with the format in which the story is told which helps make each story distinct.  Unfortunately, despite the creators’ best efforts all of what’s here has the feeling of watching a bunch of extraneous content that was cut for time from a movie.  It turns out that the storytelling in “Stray Dogs” was tight enough that none of the stories here wind up feeling like they add anything to what we’ve already seen.  None of this is bad, and it’s nice that all of the movie-themed variant covers were included in this collection as well.  This is one for the completists, but it’s done well enough that I’m still looking forward to seeing what Fleecs and Forstner do next.