Teen Dog (BOOM! Box)
It would be easy to ascribe the success of Teen Dog to simple nostalgia, and it’s true that the series is a straight-down-the-middle pitch for people of a certain demographic, those who (like me) grew up in an age of stonewashed denim, John Hughes movies, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, when skate fashion ruled the world and everything was totally radical. But writer/artist Jake Lawrence never makes the mistake of simply lying back and letting faux-familiarity do all the work – he creates a cast of classmates that emerge as likeable figures unto themselves, and ensures that the humor spins out of the characters’ personalities, not just from pop-culture checkpoints. He grounds the proceedings in a universally recognizable high-school environment, and crafts a canine cartoon that everyone can appreciate.
And that’s the key to Teen Dog’s appeal. It does what it loves and pulls you along for the ride, whether or not you’re aware of the cultural context – it’s equally accessible to thirtysomethings who grew up on Kids In The Hall, and eight-year-olds who think it’s cool to see a dog on a skateboard. Lawrence evokes the feeling of a bygone dayglo era, and he mixes straight-ahead punchlines and understated whimsy in a way that ensures we’re not just reading a reverential/referential revival of late ’80s awesomeness, but a funny and funky-fresh work unto itself.
