Good Dog, Bad Dog
Written and Illustrated by
Dave Shelton
Published by David Fickling Books
Before The Phoenix Comic rose magnificently from its ashes, there was "The DFC" - a comic produced by David Fickling Publishing, that features some truly brilliant strips by brit comic luminaries such as Gary Northfield, Neill Cameron and Sarah Mcintyre. Some of the collected DFC strips are now appearing in graphic novel format, hooray!
Dave Shelton's awesome strip "Good Dog, Bad Dog" originally featured in The Guardian and Charlotte couldn't resist grabbing DFC's Volume 1 of the collected strips from the library. She clearly has great taste in comics!
"Good Dog, Bad Dog" features Kirk Bergman and Duncan McBoo, cops on the Pedigree Police Force, maintaining law and order in the sprawling Muttropolis.
With a pinch of noir and plenty of sassy lines, Dave's heroes are dogged (yes we're going to work in plenty of dog puns here) and determined to solve every case that comes their way.
I'm a huge fan of detective noir stuff (even drawing and penning some daft tale about a Seagull gumshoe called George - who never quite got off the ground but is still on the backburner). Charlotte also seems to love this mix of seediness and crime-fighting, and loved the characters (including a rather nasty looking Chihuahua with a huge chip on his shoulder, and a pink poodle temptress!)
It's probably aimed at an older audience than Charlotte, but now and again I'd find her wrapped up in it, cackling to herself. Always a very good sign when it comes to kids' comics.
Charlotte's best bit: Reading out baddie dialogue in crazy voices. I wonder where she gets that from!
Daddy's Favourite bit: Action-packed, dark and noir but also funny as heck, perfectly pooch-tastic!