Beasts of Burden: Occupied Territory #2

Beasts of Burden: Occupied Territory #2

Dark Horse Comics 2021

Written by Evan Dorkin & Sarah Dyer

Illustrated by Benjamin Dewey

Lettered by Nate Piekos of Blambot

After a horrific attack from an army of crawling, disembodied heads threatening Japan; Emrys and his team of canine companions pick up a scent that leads them to bizarre shape-shifting tanuki, a cannibal witch, and a pack of badass Shiba Inus.

Oh yeah this is what I’m talking about because we open up here with Emrys and Mullins being attacked by those ghoul heads with the tendrils coming out the necks and it is as creepy as the day is long during the summer solstice. It’s a great way to open up and to carry on from the last issue’s ending. For those who haven’t had a chance to read any of these yet I encourage you to seek these out because this is just one heck of an all around extremely well told story. Yes the dogs talk, yes Emrys can do magic and the supernatural runs rampant throughout this book and by George if this isn’t one of the coolest books around I dunno what cool is.

I am in love with the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented beautifully. The character development is amazing and to give these dogs human like personalities and to have that translate as well as it does while still having them maintain some of the natural essence the dogs possess. The pacing here is absolutely wonderful. How we see them interact with one another as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter continue to flesh out their personalities.

I like how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story keep growing stronger, strengthening and continuing to emerge. There is something about this story within a story that is being told here which captures the imagination as well as how it engages the reader as it draws them deeper and deeper into this. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved extremely well. So the overall flow of how we see the story being told is sensational and you almost miss how easily this happens.

The interiors here are absolutely gorgeous. The linework is exquisite and how we see these great lines with their varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this amazing detail work blows me away. How we see backgrounds being utilised so well and how they become so integral to how we see the story makes me such a happy camper. With the composition within the panels we get this really strong depth perception, sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the book. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. I am loving the colour work we see here too. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work demonstrate such an amazing eye, talent and skill for how to utilise colour in ways so many don’t understand. I’m in awe of the creativity and imagination that we see throughout the book.

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This is as charming as it is suspenseful and creepy as the dogs find themselves traversing unknown territory filled with the unexpected. You will find yourself getting lost in this and forgetting that they are canines and thinking of them as friends, characters who you’d like to spend time with. Plus there is this originality to what we see here that sets it apart from the crowd and with magic, immortality and a pack that’s as much family as they are friends makes this a pure joy to read.