Image Comics’ Stray Dogs Tells a Terrifying yet Adorable Tale

When I found out that two of the people behind IDW’s My Little Pony created a horror comic, I had my reservations, but writer Tony Fleecs and artist Trish Forstner quickly destroyed any doubts. Much like their work on My Little Pony, Fleecs and Forstner create a tale about anthropomorphized animals in Stray Dogs; the only difference is that this story is a love letter to horror and suspense stories that is wrapped together in an adorably drawn package.

Image Comics

Stray Dogs starts by introducing the reader to the adorable main character, Sophie, who is sitting at the veterinarian with her owner, who is afraid that Sophie will no longer love her after receiving shots. The veterinarian calms these fears by telling Sophie’s owner that dogs suffer from short-term memory loss and she will forget all about the shots in a few days. Sophie wakes up surrounded by dogs in an unfamiliar place, having forgotten how she got there. Rusty, a bigger dog and the leader of the pack, introduces Sophie to all of these new faces and the house. Sophie is scared and confused; by the time the first chapter ends, Sophie is terrified when she is reminded of her owner and learns that the house she is currently in is the house of the person who killed her owner. Sophie spends the story trying to convince the dogs that their “Master” is actually a killer, but how can she convince them when they all have short-term memory loss?

Stray Dogs can easily be compared to All Dogs Go to Heaven upon first glance at Trish Forstner’s art, but once the story picks up pace, it is one of the most suspenseful comic books from 2021. Tony Fleecs crafts a great script that makes it feel so realistic because all of these dogs have a personality outside of their appearance. Rusty not only looks like the leader with Forstner’s art, but Fleecs is able to make him sound like a leader; he does a similar thing with Sophie, who is always scared throughout the entire story. There are certain panels that are truly terrifying; Brad Simpson’s coloring truly makes the colors pop off the page. The use of the color red is important throughout the whole story—whenever red is on the panel, it symbolizes fear and pain. A great example of this is when Sophie is remembering her owner and it flashes back to the murder through Sophie’s eyes with a red tint over the panel. This method is used in every chapter, and it was one of my favorite parts of the story and something I didn’t realize until a second readthrough.

In the trade paperback format, Stray Dogs is hard to put down, as every chapter ends with a cliffhanger and reads at breakneck speed. It’s a compelling tale that any horror fan could love, but it could also be read by a younger teen audience. The final chapter will have you on the edge of your seat.

Image Comics

Reading Stray Dogs in its trade paperback format was the second time that I visited the world of this story. When the book was being released in single issues, it was difficult to leave the local comic shop without bringing home the horror-film-homage variant covers, including ones inspired by Friday the 13th and Silence of the Lambs. Also, I do recommend checking out the recently released two-part series Stray Dogs: Dog Days, which provides short stories for all of the dogs in this book and how the “Master” stole them and killed their owners. Hopefully we see more of this world, but even if Stray Dogs is all we get, then it is one hell of a thrill ride.