By Chris Tresson
Sometimes, a series just hits with you and you end up loving it when you weren’t really sure whether or not it was going to be any good in the first place… It’s happened to me with Rob Cohen’s Red Dog from 451 Media. I’ve been giving this series top marks so far and now we’re halfway through the series with this issue, so if there’s a time it should go wrong, it’ll be this issue.
I noticed upon opening the review PDF that there has been a change to the creative team. We’ve still got Andi Ewington and Rob Cohen writing, John Rauch coloring, Taylor Esposito lettering… but the artist from the previous two issues (Rob Atkins) is gone. He’s been replaced by artist by the name of Alex Cormack… I’m not even past the cover and the alarm bells are going off. Let’s get into this… this is my review of Rob Cohen’s Red Dog #3.
First off, because I’m made such a big deal of the artist change in the introduction, we’ll address that first. I’ve never seen His (could be a Her…?) art before. It’s pretty strange that a new artist has come in at the third issue if a six issue series but you know what? I think I like His (I’m going with “His” from this point on, I apologize if you’re a woman!) artwork in this more than the previous two issues.
I’m not trying to shit on Rob Atkins with this comment but I prefer Alex’s art style to Rob’s. Alex draws some cracking dogs, and His depictions of the aliens just sit better with me. I also feel like the art works a bit better with John Rauch’s colors. The art looked good before but now it looks fantastic. Nice one, art team.
My thoughts on the story now… This is another great issue from Rob Cohen and Andi Ewington. The story advances nicely and it has been doing so at a good pace since the beginning. I think we’re at a good point in the story now where I think I know where it’s going, but there’s a good chance that I’m wrong about it, haha. That’s a great position to be in as a reader and it’s refreshing to be this deep into the series and still feel that way. It keeps making me want more, and I’m still really enjoying reading it. It’s fun and exciting and from what I saw/read in the final scenes in this issue, I’m thinking there’s a good chance I’m going to enjoy the fourth issue. I’ll be sticking with it for sure. A great job from everyone involved with this book again.
As you may have gathered from my review, I don’t really have any complaints about anything in this book… It’s a series which is definitely in my top five comics I’ve read so far this year. I’m hoping you’re reading this series because if you’re not, that’s a damn shame. It’s been great so far, and I’m sure it will continue to be for the remainder of the series.
SCORE: 5/5
Red Dog #3
451 Media