Ryan B does Dog Days

Let me just start out by saying that Charles Burns is one of my favorite artists, comic book, or otherwise. His simplistic, cartoony style blends a 1950's aesthetic with grotesque freakishness in a way no one else can. In my last review I told you all about one of the best writers of horror comics, Bruce Jones, so I thought that it was only appropriate that this time I would focus on one of the best artists of horror comics. Not that Burns isn't also a great writer, he writes and draws all his own stuff, but it's primarily his art that has made him such a recognizable talent.

Today we will be subjecting ourselves to one of his best, most well known stories (besides Black Hole) that comes from the graphic novel Skin Deep, originally published by Penguin Books in 1992. It's a bizarre little chew toy called...

Dog Days.




The story starts in the backyard of Sam Sablosky, a character from another of Burns' comics, Big Baby. Sam and his friend Tony are building a fort and decide to sleep in it that night. After they both ask their parents, or rather, trick them, they are seen camping out in the fort that night and telling scary stories. Tony is right in the middle of one about a man trapped in a cave with his dead friend who suddenly hears a scratching sound. Of course as soon as he says this a scratching sound can be heard from outside the fort and the two boys go investigate. They notice it's coming from the yard next door and when they muster up the courage to look over the fence they see...

Dog-Boy

Tony asks why they call him Dog-Boy, but Sam says he doesn't know. Dog-Boy is digging for something in the yard and soon unearths a large bone.

That might have something to do with the nickname.

Sam and Tony get freaked out and run off while Dog-Boy walks home chewing on his bone. Along the way he passes a couple out for a walk and the two are disgusted to see what he's eating. Dog-Boy says they don't know what they're missing.

He shortly arrives at his house and begins lamenting the fact that people think he's a weirdo just because he likes a bone every now and then. As far as he's concerned, he's a totally normal boy. He goes inside and starts to get ready for bed. As he lays down to sleep in his dog house that he keeps in the living room (perfectly normal) he is unable to rest because he keeps thinking about girls.

It seems that every girl he's been with has been put off by his canine tendencies. He starts to reflect on how he got this way in the first place. It seems that some time ago he was at the doctors office and the doctor told him his heart was "all messed up".

"It's gotta be yanked."

Having no money for an operation, Dog-Boy was overjoyed one day to see an article in the news paper advertising discount surgery. He goes to see "Doc" Benway from the ad and is surprised to find the address listed is a rundown house in a bad neighborhood. He knocks on the door anyway and is greeted by a man in boxer shorts, sunglasses, and bandages with a punk haircut holding a gun. Dog-Boy explains his problem and the "doc" welcomes him inside. He goes off on a speech about how he doesn't need  an office or credentials or "all that crap" he's an artist. He, along with a nurse, Betty, prep Dog-Boy for surgery and while they do Benway tells him that the reason the surgery is so cheap is because he'll be transplanting a dog's heart into him. It works with ape hearts, so why not?

Dog-Boy remembers how nice nurse Betty was as he drifts off to sleep. Soon after he begins to have a nightmare that he's woken up after the surgery to find he's become half dog.

He wakes up again (for real this time) in a panic and realises he's late for work. As he runs out of the house he sees a cat and tells himself he shouldn't chase it... but he does and by the time he makes it to the greasy diner that he works at he's late again for the third time that week. He gets chewed out by his boss then sent to wash dishes in the kitchen. While he does, his coworkers, Rufus and Dufus, blue collar hash slingers start teasing him. They say he was late because he was out chasing tail and he says that that's true... sort of. All of a sudden the new waitress, Rondy, comes in and the two mooks decide to introduce her to Dog-Boy. They hold up a ham bone and Dog-Boy is unable to resist begging for it. Rondy is not repulsed by this behavior, much to the cooks dismay, and even thinks Dog-Boy is kind of cute.

She says that the two of them should "step out and have a little fun". as she leaves to go do her job Dog-Boy is smitten. The two cooks start teasing him again saying that Rondy "wants his ass". Dog-Boy just thinks she's a nice girl, just like that nurse Betty. He begins to remember what really happened when he woke up from that surgery. He was  full of puppy like energy and began sniffing nurse Betty. He sniffed her butt and asked her on a date and she was so bemused she said yes. That night they went to the Pussycat Club and the square Dog-Boy stuck out like a sore thumb amongst all the hip club goers.

While getting him and Betty some drinks, Dog-Boy got side tracked and wound up sniffing some other girl's butt which got him beat up by the girls boyfriend. Betty never returned his phone calls. Yet again his animal instincts got him into trouble.

Back in the present, Rondy comes in and says she's off work and wants to take Dog-Boy out. She takes him to a club called The Love Lounge and buys him a drink called a "pink fuzzy". Before you know it he's drunk and entertaining everybody at the club with the story of his unusual surgery. People quickly pick up on his dogness and start getting him to do tricks like fetch things. Rondy seems unembarrassed. Dog-Boy eventually gets so wound up he tells Rondy they should go somewhere since it's a full moon out. They go parking and Rondy says she wants to show him "a thing or two", but just at the wrong moment that cat shows up again. Dog-Boy bolts from the car and chases it into the woods. After running for a long time and not catching the cat Dog-Boy realises he's lost. He figures Rondy is long gone by now and he starts to reflect on some more failed romances as he walks in a random direction. The time he sniffed a fire hydrant on a date, the time he asked a girl to drive real fast so he could chase her car, the time he told a girl that his backyard was full of bones and she called the police. He's so busy feeling sorry for himself that he trips and falls down an embankment  and winds up on a road. Not a good place for a dog to be. This story has a semi-happy ending, though, so don't worry for Dog-Boy's safety. He sees Rondy's car at a roadside shop and heads over. Just as he gets there, he sees her come out carrying groceries and two guys in the parking lot start harassing her.

He suddenly goes crazy and becomes Guard-Dog-Boy, biting and chasing the the creeps away. Rondy says he's her hero and that she's been driving all over looking for him. Dog-Boy is surprised she's not mad or weirded out by him and Rondy reveals that she's actually bought him some dog treats. They get in her car and drive off into the moonlight together. The End.

While not a "horror" story in the traditional sense, Dog Days is still a very odd story reminiscent of many wolfman tales. It's a story about a boy who has something "different" about him and therefore feels like an outcast from the rest of society. Being that he lives in a very white-bread American suburb, possibly in the 50's, even small, dog-like traits are enough to make him seem like a weirdo. Eventually Dog-Boy is able to find someone who loves him, or at least wants him, for who he is even if that's a dog-boy.

Charles Burns art is great, did I mention that? The whole thing has an Archie Comics-like vibe to it with the feel of a B-movie. Every character who isn't Dog-Boy or a woman is drawn to look like some deformed monster or punk, no doubt to off set how people view Dog-Boy. In this world no one is normal and the ones who think they are are the most repugnant.

I give Dog Days 9 out of 10 Werthams.

You may feel like you've heard of Dog-Boy before and if you were around in the 90's and watching MTV after midnight, you have. Dog-Boy was one of many offbeat offerings shown on the animation showcase Liquid Television. It was the only segment of the show to be done in live action, but at a time long before Sin City, and Watchmen, it strove to capture the look and feel of the comic without the use of CGI and green screen. It did this using exaggerated color and backgrounds. Rubber, sculpted hair made the characters look just like they did on the page and in some cases they recreated the panels entirely.

Over the course of one season there were ten four and a half minute segments. The basic story of Dog Days is there, but Charles Burns also added a few new subplots to flesh out the story including some nauseating next door neighbors that spy on our hero, a shrink that tries to cure Dog-Boy's behavior, and a psychotic televangelist.

As far as adaptations go, this one is spot on and short of Dick Tracy, which came out around the same time, was one of the most visually faithful page to screen translations of the 1990's.

If you'd like to watch it, all ten episodes can be found at:

http://liquidtelevision.com/video/dogboy-1/

Be there!