Three things are essential to a good mystery story. First, the setting should feel like a character in itself, a vital part of the storytelling, setting the tone for everything that happens within it. Second, you need a compelling, possibly tortured protagonist, grounding the mystery in human emotion, and entertaining enough to justify the time spent with them as the mystery unravels. Lastly, the clues – both the practical and magical part of every mystery, set up to show the audience just how intricate this story truly is, and so that when the ending arrives and all is revealed, audiences can line them all up and realize that there was no other way things could have ended. Protagonist, setting, and the presentation of clues.
Dead Dog’s Bite #1 knocks it out of the park with all three.
A 4-issue series that is written, drawn, colored and lettered by Tyler Boss, Dead Dog’s Bite tells the story of Joe Bradley, who is trying to solve the mystery of where her friend, Cormac Guffin, has disappeared to, in a town that seems to already have written Cormac off for dead. Joe doesn’t know where to start, but she knows she has to start somewhere.
The issue starts with a quote from Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 – “Shall I project a world?” – where the protagonist begins to find deeper meanings and conspiracies in nearly everything she sees. That’s clearly a mindset Boss wants his readers to go into this issue with. Little clues are littered in throughout the issue – what’s the significance behind the wavy Pendermills lines that keep appearing? What is going on with the fascinatingly weird Old Lady Pendermills? The missing girl’s name is literally Mac Guffin – surely that’s significant? Or is it all just a red herring?
There’s a clarity to Boss’ art that’s usually reserved for highly detailed instruction manuals – there’s a lot of information to get across, and with both efficiency and style Boss lays it all out, panel by panel, letting the reader know what they should be paying attention to. With that as a base, the coloring does an incredible job of setting the mood. From the cold autumn daylight, to the purple hues of sunset falling to the glorious glowy gold, red and yellow lights found in the darkness, Pendermills is alive, and breathing on every panel, and the story’s mood darkens as Joe’s does throughout the issue.
Though the issue has a very somber, autumn tone, there are elements of irreverent silliness about it as well. This clearly frustrates Joe, who often acts like she’s trying to be part of another comic entirely, one that takes itself more seriously. Despite her youth she’s every bit the cynical, world-weary hardboiled detective of noir, and the book reflects that even if the people around her don’t. The dramatic way her coat blows in the wind, the quippy one-liners – she’s putting a lot of work into the whole private dick aesthetic and none of the other characters in the story seem to care about the kind of story she’s trying to star in. The issue is the world through her eyes, and no one’s playing along – aside from perhaps the Blue Suited Man.
I have little to say about the fourth-wall breaking, omniscient narrator made flesh, the Twighlight-Zone-esque Blue Suited Man and his enigmatic ways, aside from the fact that I want him in every comic I read now. I want more stories where it feels like the narrator has an emotional stake in the story being told, and is presented in ways that just have fun with the format.
If Dead Dog’s Bite #1 has a flaw, it’s that while the issue’s storytelling is fantastic, it’s light on actual story. Very little actually happens in the first issue – it’s mostly set-up. A lot of one’s enjoyment of #1 may depend on how certain one is of buying into the rest of the series, which may have been better published as a complete graphic novel in its own right. There is clearly a much bigger mystery lying at the heart of Pendermills, and Boss has only begun teasing the edges of what that might be.
On the other hand, that might be exactly why this story works best released monthly. It gives readers time to reread. Gather clues. Make connections, and give in to that sense of unease that’s unobtrusive now, but is given ample room to grow. Dead Dog’s Bite as a series looks to be a very filling meal – perhaps it’s best digested slowly, one bite at a time.
