Advance Comic Book Review: The Untold Tales of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy
Image courtesy of Dark Horse
About six months ago, I reviewed an overlooked gem called The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonça and Pizza Boy out of Dark Horse.
Well, I was beyond delighted when I learned that there was a follow-up, one-shot in the works.
Enter: The Untold Tales of Dog Mendonça and Pizzaboy.
The Untold Tales of Dog Mendonça and Pizzaboy was originally told in four parts over Dark Horse Presents #4 through 7 and it’s important to remember this when reading. The story feels a little disjointed, but that’s clearly because it’s told in four chapters (well, three chapters and a back-up story, but we’ll come back to that).
So what makes The Untold Tales of Dog Mendonça and Pizzaboy worthy of being on your Halloween reading list? Well, I’m glad you asked.
Well, how about the fact that the title character, Dog Mendonça, is an overweight werewolf and one of his two sidekicks looks like a seven-year-old girl but is in fact a six thousand-year-old demon named Pazuul? I think it qualifies.
Writer Filipe Melo, artist Juan Cavia and colorist Santiago Villa take us on a dark, but funny, journey exploring the humble origins of Mendonça. And it really is a surprising story.
What’s really fun about The Untold Tales of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy is the way the characters keep breaking down the fourth-wall to address the reader directly. This opens the comic up to some very funny moments (like Mendonça proudly showing off the “big fat check” from Dark Horse comics), but that’s not all. Melo and co. bring in stuff like product placement, and even Dark Horse Publisher Mike Richardson isn’t sacred ground.
You can tell that The Untold Tales of Dog Mendonca & Pizzaboy isn’t just another stock-standard comic from the US. What I like is the apparent Portuguese humour and undertones. It really is a breath of fresh air.
The Untold Tales of Dog Mendonca & Pizzaboy one-shot hits shelves around the world on October 24, 2012. If you’re after something a little different and fresh, reserve your copy ASAP.
