Customer Reviews

Beasts of Burden

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book collects the four issue miniseries and three previous short stories. They are all supurbly written and beautifully illustrated (watercolors, folks- not Photoshop) supernatural/horror stories. Please don't be misled by the fact that our main characters are talking animals- there's nothing childish happening between these pages. In fact, parents, you may want to read the whole thing through before offering it to the little ones. I'd give this book a strong PG-13 rating.
The stories have just the right blend of creepy horror, adventure, a dash of comedy relief, and alot of heart.

The Beasts of Burden is surely one of the greatest comic titles to come out in years, a fantastic combination of elements that don't seem to fit together at first glance.

The world of the book is a sunny, idealic suburb with the dark forces of the supernatural creeping in at the fringes. There to fight back are the eponymous beasts, a group of dogs (and one cat) who find themselves reluctant heroes. Evan Dorkin's writing gives each member of the cast (even characters who only pop up for a few panels) a distinct personality and an arsenel of sharp dialog and Jill Thompson's watercolor art is gorgeous - it looks even better due to this hardcover's slightly oversized dimensions.

This is one of those rare things that is simple, straightforward and just plain old fashioned fun. I purchased this as I was a huge fan of Evan Dorkin back in the days when he was responsible for Milk & Cheese and Dork! and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this here book.

This doesn't take a lot of explaining. Basically there's a group of suburban house pets (mostly dogs), that band together to protect their neighborhood from a host of supernatural occurrences.

You know those terrible Disney films where the animals talk and jazz? It's like that, only crossed with Tales From The Crypt/X-Files. What's so great about this book is the way that both Evan Dorkin's writing and Jill Thompson's watercolor style of illustration create this neat world of simple creatures dealing with supernatural horrors. And the "horrors" aspect of this is important. As much as this book creates this warm environment of talking dogs and cats - the stuff they deal with and see is often sad, brutal and fairly gory. But not so gory or intense that it would make this "inappropriate" for older kids.

So if you're looking for something cool to read - here you go. This is fun, easily accessible and just plain cool. Totally worth a purchase.

I must say it is pretty cool to see a guy who went from drawing punk/ska comics about tiny, angry dairy products running around brutally maiming New Yorkers, mature into someone capable of writing such a thoughtful and largely innocent work. Not that Milk & Cheese wasn't genius or anything because it sure as hell was.

I couldn't resist the pun. Sorry.

These shorts were undeniably the best stories in the Dark Horse Presents books, and when I found they were making a four-part miniseries I was beside myself with glee. The story and art combine to create the pathos and heroism we all know and recognize in our canine counterparts. The animal characters retain their dog-ness or cat-ness, while simultaneously creating depth of character and complexity. This title is an example of the current comics scene at its best.

I usually read very fast. Beasts of Burden took me about a ten days however, because I read it slowly, lovingly and with great attention. It supports rereading well too.

As with most graphic novels, the visuals are a large part of the storytelling and they are what catches the eye first.

Visually this book is beautiful - Jill Thompson's style can sometimes seem wispy and insubstantial to me, however this book was a labor of love and it shows. Her love of this work is solidly there in the rich panels, background, and in the naturalistic yet expressive, charming and powerful characters depicted. I honestly think this may be Ms. Thompson's best work to date, though I can only hope for more in this small, richly imagined world.

Mr. Dorkin's writing is powerful. The characters are warm and evocative, the setting by turns exquisitely normal and chilling. When the film Blue Velvet came out, much was made of how David Lynch evoked the normal American surface that we WANT to see in ourselves, and then the wormy things under that surface. For my money, Beasts of Burden mines this vein better. It has less flash and melodrama in most of its situations and even the most fantastic and fictionalized parts of the drama still are so deeply grounded in human and animal behavior to feel familiar and that familiarity is what gives such a punch to the evil and unnatural here. It shows us ourselves in a mirror. Darkly.

This is not a book for children. It will give them nightmares! Kids seldom have the subtlety to see the warmth and power of friendship that balances the darkness here. But for adults, it's a bittersweet touch of childhood's wonder and fear of the dark, coupled with the grown up's realization of the bonds and social ties that help us survive such things, more than any heroics could. The heroics that are here, and there are plenty, are the kind of every day heroics that the reader can identify with, even if presented by a dog a or a cat. This book is about what's dark us, but also what's light.

Wonderful and I would LOVE to see more.

Jylene Livengood

The mixture of utterly beautiful watercolors, unforgettable characters,and mesmerizing storylines filled with heroism, horror, and H P Lovecraft and you have this incredibly unique book. It centers around a cadre of suburban dogs (complete with backyards and owners) and one orphan cat who must contend with the supernatural forces including werewolves and witches who are constantly trying to conquer the natural world. What is amazing - aside from the fantastic watercolor illustrations - is the depth of emotions, purposes, goals of each of the dogs and the cat as they try to defend each other and the unsuspecting town in which they live. And, all the more remarkable, despite the horror - and there is a lot - what is remembered mostly is the courage, the camaraderie, the humor of the main characters as manifested in these wonderfully expressive watercolours and text. Highly recommended.

I read my share of books and comics, but frankly, I was stunned by how powerful this mini-series was. I've sinced picked up the graphic novel, which contains the earlier shorts, and -- wow -- this has gone to my top ten all-time great list. It's that remarkable. In part, it's because the characters are well-delineated, likeable and real, as if the author can genuinely read the thoughts, barks and meows of our favorite domestic animals. In addition, their interactions are hilarious, yet believable, and grounded in a very stark sense of earthiness. This may be a funny book (thought not in a corny, juvenile kind of way), but it deals very seriously with death, transmigration, loss, abandonment and cruelty, as well as courage, hope and compassion. Some of these stories will leave you speechless, and that's not an easy thing to accomplish in a day and age of media overload.

In certain ways, Beast of Burden is like the offspring of Watership Down and Toy Story. It has the heart and soul of those books and films, which is what makes it so endearing. I also can't say enough about the artwork. It's got a storybook quality that's not commonly seen in comics (unfortunately, because it's so effective), elegiac and earthy (which I've said before in regards to the storytelling), a perfect rendering of these characters and their fascinating world, which is both realistic and overrun with bizarre and malevolent entities.

Seriously, do yourself a favor and grab this book! This is going to be one of those that's recognized years later as one of the greats. Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson, take a bow! You guys have created a masterpiece! Now, can you keep it going? Please?

Length:: 0:38 Mins

It's rare to see animals as main characters in comics. That's one of the main reason I picked up the book. The other reason is because the art from Jill Thompson looks good.

The general premise is about a group of dogs and cats dealing with seemingly supernatural events that are happening around their neighbourhood. The story is darker than I thought but well written and told. The characters have personalities and the stories are fun and exciting.

One thing that really bugged me is the lettering used. The whole story is told in a series of short chapters - maybe that was how the original comic was released but I'm not sure. The lettering is inconsistent throughout the chapters. There are the all uppercase (typical), sentence case (not so bad), sentence case but with uppercase height (worst of the lot in terms of legibility), and sometimes the animals will have their own unique lettering style. The inconsistency of lettering is quite jarring across chapters.

The comic overall is entertaining but the lettering takes away a bit of the experience.

What if there were a world of magic and terror surrounding us, but humans were too wrapped up in their busy little lives to notice? Who would protect us? Well, in Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson's Beasts of Burden series, our protectors are our best friends: a pack of neighborhood dogs (and one tag-along cat).

It's a great concept. Dorkin (best known for writing and drawing Milk & Cheese) fills his scripts with wonderful characters, intriguing situations, humor, pathos and more than a few scares. Thompson (Scary Godmother) paints the stories, bringing them to life (and/or un-life) in gorgeous watercolors. Together, the two creators have turned in some of the most inspired work of their careers.

This oversized, affordable hardcover collects eight of the nine Beasts of Burden stories to date (a ninth--teaming the characters up with Mike Mignola's Hellboy--was published in pamphlet form in October 2010), including four short stories from anthologies and the four-part comic series from 2009 and 2010. Just in terms of production values, it's a good-looking book, both nicely designed and beautifully printed. And only twenty bucks? A bargain.

But what about the stories? The book kicks off with "Stray," an eight-page story first published in The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings back in 2003. Here we meet the main characters--including the enigmatic Wise Dog, who leads our characters into their lives of magic and mystery. "Stray" is a neat little ghost story, and it's a nice hint at what's to come later in the book. The lettering is a little rough here, but that's the only criticism I have of this smart little introduction.

Dorkin and Thompson got 12 pages for their second Beasts story, "The Unfamiliar" (from 2004's The Dark Horse Book of Witchcraft), which sets up a theme of human witches that will come back to haunt our characters. Things get worse in the third story, "Let Sleeping Dogs Lie," where a witch's familiar is responsible for some very bad voodoo.

Rex, Pugs, and other dogs finally get some real human interaction in the fourth story, "A Dog and His Boy," when the pack encounters a boy who really does not deserve to be a werewolf. Dorkin and Thompson take us in some really tragic territory here, and the ending will bring a tear to your eye.

The four short stories set things in motion for the rest of the book, which gives us four longer stories that each stand on their own but continue to grow to a satisfying and powerful conclusion. We get demonic frogs, vengeful ghosts, killer rats, and a witch who just won't stay dead. The monsters in the final story are a bit over the top, but all four stories maintain a high level of mystery, fear, magic, and wonder.

All told, Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites is comics at its best. We can only hope for more volumes of this great series in the future.

-- John R. Platt

This was a very good read. The characters kept me interested, and they had distinct traits and where well developed. The book does a good job of setting up the universe they live in and fleshing it out to create a world where you should be afraid of the things that go bump in the night.