Comic Review: The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonca and Pizzaboy Volume 3: Requiem TPB from Dark Horse Comics

The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonca and Pizzaboy Volume 3: Requiem TPB
Writer: Filipe Melo

Artist: Juan Cavia

Colorist: Santiago Villa

Cover Artist: Juan Cavia
Genre: Action/Adventure, Horror, Humor
January 20, 2016

Dark Horse Comics

Format: FC, 128 pages; TPB, 6'' x 9''

Price: $12.99

Age range: 14

ISBN-10:1-61655-882-2

ISBN-13:978-1-61655-882-6

Preview

Banding together one final time, a world-weary werewolf, a six-thousand-year-old demon, a nervous gargoyle, and a former pizza-delivery boy face a worldwide monster invasion! Dog Mendonca is a hit sensation in its home country of Portugal, and this English-language edition includes a special making-of section and a foreword by legendary horror director and writer Tobe Hooper!

* A celebrated international team delivers a mash-up of humor, horror, and end-of-days drama!

* The final volume in the Dog Mendonca trilogy!

amazon

I Love Dog Mendonca, Pizzaboy and the rest of the gang. They have saved the world, twice, and at the end of Volume #2 Dog and his six thousand year old partner Pazuul were heroes living the high life as celebrities. Volume 3 Requiem picks up years later. Pizzaboy choose to live the quiet life helping the homeless and raising twins with his wife. Dog finds out he is now homeless and no longer relevant. So he stops by to pay Pizzaboy a visit with Pazuul in tow...and becomes the house guest that never leaves. A past nemesis has come to get revenge by turning the monsters Dog helped save, against him. The gang must get back together to help save Dog!

Like the first two volumes, the artwork is on point, but there isn't a lot of variation in the panel set up. We finally learn about Dog's past through flashbacks, and what shaped who he is today. Lots of things happen in this issue and I don't want to spoil what becomes of Dog and his friends and the monster world, but everything is tied up nicely—the end of the road for Dog and Pizzaboy. This volume isn't as exciting as the first two, but it deals more with the characters and feelings and closure. Still, a must read if you're following the series. 

5 Sheep Review: The Untold Tales of Dog Mendonca & Pizzaboy
5 Sheep Review: The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonca and Pizzaboy

3.75 "cha-cha-cha-changes" Sheep

SharonS

Comic Review (ARC): The Untold Tales of Dog Mendonca & Pizzaboy (One-Shot)

The Untold Tales of Dog Mendonca & Pizzaboy (One-Shot)

Writer: Filipe Melo

Artist: Juan Cavia

Colorist: Santiago Villa

Genre: Action/Adventure, Humor

Publication Date: October 24, 2012

Format: FC, 40 pages

Price: $2.99

UPC: 7 61568 21704 9 00111 

Dark Horse

Flanked by his demonic assistant Pazuul and the “unpaid intern” known as PizzaBoy, overweight Portuguese werewolf “Dog” Mendonça narrates his own bizarre origin story, taking us from a traveling circus to a Nazi laboratory to the depths of Loch Ness! And when we catch up with the present-day Mendonça, can his team adjust to the new fame and outrageous fortune that come from being published by Dark Horse Comics? Bite into the raucous adventure that was first serialized in Dark Horse Presents—now in one comic!

* Find out how Dog Mendonça got his powers!

* Author Filipe Melo deliberately breaks the fourth wall for an ironic commentary on the comics industry itself.

* From the pages of Dark Horse Presents!

 Official website

Back in May 2012, I reviewed a fabulous trade paperback from Dark Horse Comics called The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonca and Pizzaboy, and I ended up giving it five Sheep. I didn't realize it, but in 2011 there was a four-part series of Dog Mendonca and Pizza Boy in Dark Horse Presents #4-7. For those who don’t know, Dark Horse Presents is an 80 page-ish anthology of well-known and new writers/artists where you get a chapter of many different comics. Kind of like a sampler of what Dark Horse has to offer. Anyway…  Dark Horse has taken all four of the Dog Mendonca chapters and put them together in a one-shot comic called The Untold Tales of Dog Mendonca & Pizza Boy.

Because this is a collection of four separate small chapters from DH Presents, they don’t fit together like one cohesive story, but you end up getting the story of who Dog is and how he became a detective.

You also get a sense of the character personalities like Dog, the overweight werewolf, Pazuul, a 6000 year old demon in a six year old girl’s body, and Pizza Boy, who is a dorky and lovable guy. What is so delightful about the one shot is how the characters talk to the reader throughout the action and poke fun at Dark Horse and advertisers with things like product placement and showing the check they got from Dark Horse.

The art work for this series is fantastic using shading, facial expressions, and backgrounds to their fullest potential to set the mood and tell the story. I highly recommend anything Dog Mendonca for those who like humor, detectives, and quality artwork. It kind of reminds me of Criminal Macabre, only with a fat werewolf and a little sillier.

5 “Pocket knife carrying” Sheep

Sharon Stogner (edit by Kalpar)

There is even a movie. The trailer is in Portuguese, but still pretty funny

Comic Review: The Incredible Adventures of Dog Mendonca and Pizzaboy

*ARC comic review no spoilers*

Writer: Filipe Melo

Artist: Juan Cavia

Genre: Humor

Publisher: Dark Horse

Publication Date: May 23, 2012

Format: FC, 112 pages, TP, 6" x 9"

Age range: 12

What do an overweight Portuguese werewolf, a seven-year-old girl who’s actually a six thousand-year-old demon, and a downtrodden pizza boy have in common? In this smash-hit import, the unlikely team bands together to ward off occult evils, Nazis, and impending global doom!
• Werewolves! Demons! Mad scientists! Pizza!
• Introduction by An American Werewolf in London director John Landis!
• The humor of R.I.P.D. meets the action and excitement of B.P.R.D.!

During World War II, all the supernatural creatures sought refuge in Portugal. Vampires, werewolves, gargoyles and ghosts all live peacefully, in the shadows, alongside humans. However, underground, the worst of all monsters prepares his comeback. A young pizza delivery boy, a middle aged werewolf, a six thousand year old demon and the severed head of a gargoyle will be the only ones capable of facing the forces of evil that threaten mankind.

I loved this graphic novel, the writing is clever, the character interactions are hilarious, and the art work is stunning. Eurico, a pizza delivery boy in Lisbon, Portugal is kind of a nerd. He is picked on by a bully at work and pines secretly for the girl who takes the pizza orders. That all changes when his scooter is stolen by gargoyles and he enlists the help of Occult Detectives Dog Mendonça and his partner, Pazuul. Pazuul looks like a little girl, but is actually a 6000 year old male demon and while he never speaks, his body language tells you all you need to know. Dog’s job is to keep humans safe from the monsters in the world while also protecting the more benign supernatural creatures from violent humans. Dog, Pazuul and Eurico team up with a gargoyle head (Dog kind of ripped it off the body) when they discover a far more sinister plot: someone is kidnapping the children of Lisbon. Along the way we meet Vlad, King of vampires and nightclub owner, a cross-dressing oracle, and an army of zombie Nazis. This is an action-packed snark fest of a read.

The art work is fabulous, especially the backgrounds, which are vividly colored and detailed. There are many panels without dialogue but the action and facial expressions speak volumes. Not only was the dialogue funny, but the text was laid out in a way that enhanced the humorous tone of the story. For example, there is a four page scene where Dog and Eurico are hanging upside down and the text in their dialogue bubbles is upside down too.

At the end of the book there are eleven pages dedicated to how Filipe Melo took his idea from concept to graphic novel including lots of original artwork sketches. The story started out as a screen play, but Portugal doesn’t really have a movie industry so the idea for turning it into a graphic novel was the next best thing. Filipe wanted to pay tribute to all the movies he loved growing up like Big Trouble in Little China, Gremlins, Back to the Future, and John Landis’s An American Werewolf in London. The comic book Dylan Dog also influenced him. John Landis was so impressed with this Portuguese comic that he wrote the forward for it and took it to Dark Horse to see if they would make an American version.

You can order it and see a preview at Dark Horse

5 Sheep!

SharonS (edited by BAK)

Dark Horse

Since 1986, Dark Horse Comics has proven to be a solid example of how integrity and innovation can help broaden a unique storytelling medium and establish a small, homegrown company as an industry giant. The company is known for the progressive and creator-friendly atmosphere it provides for writers and artists. In addition to publishing comics from top talent like Frank Miller, Mike Mignola, Neil Gaiman, Gerard Way, Will Eisner, and best-selling prose author Janet Evanovich, Dark Horse has developed such successful characters as the Mask, Timecop, and the Occultist. Additionally, its highly successful line of comics and products based on popular properties includes Star Wars, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Aliens, Conan the Barbarian, Mass Effect, Serenity,and Domo. Today, Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent comic-book publisher in the United States and is recognized as both an innovator in the cause of creator rights and the comics industry’s leading publisher of licensed material.

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