Duncan the Wonder Dog

by Adam Hines

What if animals could talk? Would some of them form a militant group in reaction to how humans treat them? Would humans treat them different?

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Animals, Fantasy, Comic Book

400 pages, Paperback

First published October 12, 2010

About the author

According to Adam Hines, he began writing award-winning comic Duncan the Wonderdog at age 6 -- inspired by his new dog, Duncan. It was published when he was 26. He plans to make it a 9-part series; the next book is due in 2014.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is everything mike reynolds promised it would be.

i can't even get close to the emotional parts of this book yet, so i will have to start with the artwork. and then i remember that i don't really know anything about art, so don't look for any profound art crit here. all i know is what is skillful, poignant, meaningful. there is a range of styles here, from hyper-detailed to almost unfinished-looking, depending on the mood of that portion of the story. his animals are so expressive in their features, frequently more so than the human characters, and he has a real facility for body language. the scene with the raccoon was so short but so perfect.



(i'm not sure how to cut and paste individual frames from sequential art online - if it moves as one "page" or as individual panels, so that's all the artwork i am going to show.)

(and now i know - it takes the whole page)

there is no duncan the wonder dog. this is not about some heroic dog solving crimes or being cute. it is about the philosophical and psychological burden of the human-animal relationship that occurs when animals are unarguably fully expressive, verbally, and perfectly evolved intellectually. the image of a chimp reading pythagoras' metaphysics behind bars waiting for his turn in the ring of the circus... in the wrong hands, it could be manipulative and schmaltzy, but he has a real skill, and all of his drawings feel *real* and potent. there is so much substance to his work - the pictures have depth and the words have density. when i was reading it, it made me think of church and state. i read that about fifteen years ago, so it is hazy, but i remember reading it (my first exposure to the "graphic novel") and thinking - "holy shit, this is smart." this is the same way. very smart, very textured, very complicated. there is nothing flimsy about this, nothing frivolous.

i mean, the bundles interlude alone was enough to earn this five stars. nicholas sparks could have moistened the hankies of a thousand young girls given that material, but m. hines knows a little something called "restraint," that pulls some of the violins back a little and gives the story room to breathe, all the better to kick your emotional ass.

and he does offer the whole thing online, which is a wonderful thing, but it is massive, and it is a beautifully-designed book, so why wouldn't you want to own it?? he encourages people not to buy it, and instead to read it online and donate money to several animal rights groups features on the site, but honestly - you probably won't do that. you all have good intentions but rarely follow through, right? me, i bought the book, and he can do what he wants with the money. but here is the link, if you are more proactive than me: http://www.geneva-street.com/duncanth....

seriously - big hugs to mike reynolds. a wonderful thing to have brought to the goodreads.com community.

let me know if there is ever a "show two"

come to my blog!

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

If animals could really talk like they do in cute little cartoons--you know if they could rationalize and interact with people as something like equals, but you know they still were treated the way we generally treat animals, they would be probably be pretty fucking angry.

They might start doing things like this:




And could you blame them?

This graphic novel was really good, at first glance it has a sort of Chris Ware kind of look and feel to it, but a bit sloppier Ware, one that isn't quite so geometrical, and allows disorder to sometimes seep into the page. And like Chris Ware this is a gigantic book and it promises to be only the first of eight or nine books that will make up the Duncan the Wonderdog story, and also like Chris Ware you get the feeling that it's quite possible that the story is too big, and that it will never be completed, or if it is quite possibly when you are too old to actually make out all of the great little details in the later volumes because you're old and decrepit and your eyesight aint what it used to be. I like to ignore the fact that this book came out like seven years ago, it doesn't make me feel optimistic that I'll ever get to see where this story is going.

The entire book can be read online, and the quality is pretty great, you can read it here:

http://www.geneva-street.com/duncanth...

or buy a very nice looking print version of the book. I'd recommend buying the book, or finding a nice person who will lend it to you and then only complain a little bit when it takes you months and months to actually read it.

It's violent, and smart, and sad and there are some great animals here and some really despicable humans (and some alright humans, too) and because I'm a big girl I got really sad and felt some of that liquid want to start ooze from my eyes during the journal part of the story.

Thank you Mike Reynolds for bringing this to our attention! And thank you Karen for being so kind in lending me your copy! (click the links, read the reviews, click like, you know the drill! and here is Esteban's too, because he said I look like a sexy roman centurion tonight, and that deserves some shameless plugging of one of his reviews.)

Now go read it yourself.

[Seth T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

[This is a picture of Pompeii, a monkey terrorist/animal rights activist, victoriously wielding automatic weaponry in the midst of a high-speed police chase. That should be enough to sell eight million copies of this book.]

Adam Hines is careful to avoid framing the discussion of animal and human interaction in terms of "rights." His concern is both semantic and philosophical. Rights, as he sees them, are human inventions, distributed capriciously as the human society sees fit. He sees no rigourous foundation upon which such a thing as rights can be grounded, so instead he hopes to recast the discussion to focus on animal welfare—which, to his mind, sits in a far more objective sphere than rights do. It's a careful distinction to make and Hines proves himself a careful author.

In fact, Hines takes such care with his story that the curiously named Duncan the Wonder Dog can be roundly considered a triumph of the medium. I've had the pleasure of reading a number of great books this last year, from Daytripper to Moving Pictures to Mother, Come Home to Elmer, and Duncan is quite possibly the best I've yet encountered. (It's a toss-up between that and the phenomenal Daytripper.)

I was hesitant to pick up Duncan the Wonder Dog for two reasons. The first is the title. One could be forgiven for finding it off-putting, trite, and childish. I really didn't have any desire to investigate a book that was a cartoonish serial adventure of some canine in a cape who solves mysteries and flies and maybe makes boo-boo-kitty eyes at a spaniel over a plate of back-alley pasta. The second obstacle was that I had already read Elmer and as that book explores a world in which chickens become sentient and uses the concept to tiptoe through some social issues, I felt I had met my talking-animals-versus-social-dilemmas quota.

Fortunately, neither of these monuments to my reluctance ended up keeping me from the book indefinitely.



Duncan is a large book, in a cornucopia of senses. Certainly its four hundred pages are impressive on their own, but Hines produces a product that expands along the other two common physical dimensions as well. The book—the first volume of a projected eight—carries the height and width of a standard sheet of American notebook paper: 8 ½" x 11". Being so large, the tome is naturally heavy as well, weighing nearly three pounds. And all of that merely touches on the book's physical imposition—where Duncan's true largeness is measured is in its content.

Hines crafts an expansive story with immense value against a tremendous ethical background on broad canvas. This is the story not of the human race but of creaturely existence. And co-existence. And through Hines' masterful technique Duncan—for all its fantastic setting—essays a profoundly moving, astonishing set of stories, each contributing to the question of co-existence in fresh, exciting ways.


[There are a number of horrificly tragic scenes in this book, but this one really hit me for its tit-for-tat retributive nature.]

Duncan's structure is a slow-burn. At first it's not even clear that in this world animals can talk. And not just talk in that Watership Down sort of way, where animals have voices and can communicate amongst themselves but never to man. In Duncan the animals speak as plainly as you or I do. If you ask a whining dog what's the matter, she can simply tell you. Once it becomes clear that this is the kind of world that Hines is populating with his characters, a reader still has a hundred or so pages before the books' protagonists are firmly establish.

Hines uses a lot of collage throughout his book to give it a distinct aesthetic, but the form of collage extends even to his storytelling style. Despite the fact that the book does follow (probably) four main characters through its story, Hines takes frequent, numerous narrative breaks to focus on minor characters or even non-characters for a page or fifteen. Sometimes these excursions paint in an emotional palette while other examples feature a discussion of philosophy. I found myself conflicted, not wanting to be torn from whatever sidebar Hines had just introduced and the excitement of watching the main branch continue to unfurl. Hines balances between his subjects with a virtuosity one has to experience firsthand.


[Hines here does a wonderful job conveying a man's life flashing before his eyes. Click to enlarge.]

Duncan is a dense work. There are a lot of words on a lot of pages, but even more than that, Hines' pages of art demand scrutiny. His art serves his story and his story serves his art. It's possible that this volume represents the most ambitious use of the comics form yet. There may be other contenders, but I don't think I've seen them. This is a book that deserves second and third readings. Which makes it nice that the first reading was such an absolute pleasure.

Note:
I neglected to give any kind of summary of the book's plot or story conceit or anything that might hint at what Duncan the Wonder Dog is actually about. I'm not sure that it's even important for you to know. The book is that good. Good enough that you should go pick it up and sound out its reaches knowing nothing beyond the seal of its quality. Still, some may require a, quote-unquote, low-down.

The world presented in Duncan is one that mirrors ours almost exactly—save for the fact that animals can express themselves in the language of humans. This doesn't change much about the world order. Cattle and pigs are still herded into pens and raised for the slaughter. Dogs and cats still live as pets. And foxes still prey on rabbits. The difference is that now the cows spread rumours about why none of them ever return after leaving for the slaughterhouse while the humans who are slaughtering them lie to them, explaining that the very idea of such murder houses is just silly. Animals (with a few humans) have formed activist groups, some of which have become full-blown terrorist cells. ORAPOST is one such group and it is helmed (for the moment at least) by a golden macaque named Pompeii whose attitude and methodology are as explosive as her name. It's a world with frayed edges, coming undone even as it seeks to forge itself into something worthwhile.

Hines offers the series online for free. The impressively sized bound volume is for sale, but Hines suggests that "if you are considering purchasing this book, please instead give that money" to one of a number of animal-friendly organizations. Only after you've done that does he present the idea that his book is actually for sale.

[Review courtesy of Good Ok Bad]

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now here is one truly great book, one of the best graphic novels ever, and just the first in what Adam Hines intends to be 8 or 9 of these (400 page!!) tomes. Seth Hahne and others write terrific reviews of this book that will be more extensive and comprehensive than I want to attempt here, so check out their review. Duncan features ambitious and amazing artwork, a great story, very complicated multi-layered storytelling and art work, and some periodic narrative meta-reflection thrown in throughout (and at the end in a section entitled "Review Exercises" Hines would appear to answer in pretty comic fashion some reader questions from readers, questions he poses himself). The style would seem to be pastiche, or collage, or bricolage. There are also several silent pages, some mixed media, with photographs, paintings, the tones gray, black, and white to match the essential grimness of the tale.

To get a sense of Hines's overall purpose you can look to the fact that he specifically does not want to get rich with this project. He offers it all online for free, and suggests that IF you might be inclined to give him money for his efforts that you direct the money you would have spent on the book to any one of several Animal welfare/rights or environmental organizations.

This tale, where Duncan the Wonderdog never appears (maybe in one of the books to come, and presumably based on a dog Hines once owned...) is focused on an animal terrorist organization headed by a Macaque named Pompeii who is the book's most articulate and terrifying spokesperson for rage about what asshole arrogant humans are doing to destroy the planet, including animals, whom we now know are daily going extinct species by species in a rapidly escalating fashion. Pompeii articulates pure and scary rage, and there's so much beauty in the book, so many pure and lovely views of natural creation of art and the outdoors and animal life, but there is also a lot of apeshit crazy terrorist violence. I think Pompeii is one of the greatest characters in all of literature, I really do. Scary and articulate, an animal ecoterrorist.

Now, I write this review less than a week after what appears to be senseless terrorist violence at the Boston Marathon. I'm a pacifist and a conscientious objector. I think I understand Maoist insurrection, rage against the machine, the violent rising up against slavery and fascism on a certain visceral level; I count as a close friend a former Weatherman, (now deeply peaceful teacher educator) Bill Ayers, though I condemn all violent acts in principle. I say all this to let you know that in part because of its disturbing resonance to the Boston bombings, this was still (and maybe partly because of it) a wonderful read, calling up that Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah) rage I hate to feel in my soul. Yet part of me understood the animal terrorism of Pompeii's organization. I grew up in the seventies when activist environmental groups, some of them angry and violent and intent on property destruction, proliferated. And read Ecoterrorist novels and tracts, by Edward Abbey, and others. In part because I know the pure and healthy commitment of long distance running and admire others who do so, I sobbed to think of the loss of life and limbs in Boston, the insanity of it, yet with Hines and in part because of his wonderful and beautiful book, I am also enraged to tears at what we as humankind are doing to the planet. I get that Righteous Rage, and feel it in part because there is so much beauty Hines creates and reflects in the natural world.

In this novel animals, variously named for centuries of philosophers and other great thinkers, often talk and are heard just as any human might be. Sometimes dogs do bark, cats do mew, and much of the time they don't talk at all, they just live. Part of this book is about language and man's use of the Master's Tool of Language to create dominion over the world and destroy it through its domination; for what does the rational, Cartesian approach to language and thought lead to, but destruction, Hines seems to imply. At one point he has Pompeii rail against the naming of animals by humans, the presumption of man's naming of animals and things and mapping the world according to its own (dim and self serving) lights...

In this book we get aphorisms, we get philosophy, we get various back stories of multiple storylines of characters that weave in and out of other stories. We get to know humans and animals as characters, and this is not, in spite of what I imply above, a black and white universe, with Animals as Holy and Humans as Evil. Pompeii and his organization ARE terrorists, after all, which means their bombing of a community college that has ignored ecological principles at the expense of its own profit will harm innocent people; there are good people and bad animals and all across the spectrum. There is a human/animal relationship that is central to the novel, and it's a novel, not just a tract, I promise. And SUCH a novel, a difficult novel just one ninth of the way done to help pave the way to ever new ways of representing ideas and story. (I first read it in April 2013 and read it again in April 2015 with a class).

[Esteban del Mal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm astonished and altogether jealous that this book is the work of one individual.

"This is the defining moment of your LIFE and you're flitting it away! I'll sandpaper your skin off to wake you up! You people...Mark your chest with the cross! You cut him open you get a religion built in tinder and oil -- one SPARK of imagination gets awakened in your lives and the whole thing goes down in flames. I'll give you blood. I'll give you blood and soap and the water to wash away your miserable fears about the meaning of it all and a little sunshine and joy on the side for good measure and you give me questions?! Fuck St. Paul! And fuck Descartes and Confucius too -- it's like they all got together and built a birch, punk wood town for zombies that you could sell off like bonds and soft commodities but only instead of corn or pumpkins or pillows you're selling righteous indignation and the salt mines that follow well I AM RIGHTEOUS! And I'm written in your marrow and drawn in your water. And Honey...that's the only blessing you'll ever find in this world."

-- Pompeii, leader of the animal resistance, just before she shoots a guy in the head

[Andrés Santiago · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind-blowing stuff! Didn't know much about it when I picked it up at my local Library and I still don't know what hit me... The drawing is amazingly beautiful, breathtaking at times, and the author experiments with the framing, time paralelisms and narration techniques: crime investigation, diary, internal monologue....

I believe this is just the first volume in an ongoing collection, although I haven't got a clue how the story will develop. An incredible achievement and an author to follow closely.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by...

[Jan Philipzig · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are already many excellent reviews of this book on GR, so all I am going to say is: magnificent! The originality and complexity and relevance of this graphic novel are absolutely mind-boggling - a transformative reading experience! So how come this is out of print?! How come hardly anybody has ever heard of Adam Hines?!? Fantagraphics, to the rescue!!!

[Erik B.K.K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edit: I reread this again, after wanting to do so for some time. Still as touching as the first time. Made me cry all over again... I simply love this work. And I really wish Hines would publish a sequel...


I cried a lot while reading Duncan...

And afterwards I hugged and cuddled with my dear ones until they probably thought 'what a wimp'.
This is above all a work about the tragedy of the broken bond between humans (still always animals) and animals, hauntingly told, so I couldn't stop. The dharma of man is to tear apart, the dharma of animal is to mend. I cannot fathom the cruel evil in other humans, yet at the same time I understand this to be ever-existing, perpetually and inherently.

Duncan reminds me of my two little babies, my cats.

Duncan reminds me of the ones I've lost, my brother Charlie the dog, who, like Bundle, died of heart failure, when he was 12. It felt like I was reading my own journal, I also sometimes have dreams where one of my dears is surprisingly still alive after all these years, and I find them on the doorstep or in a dusty cage without food or water and neglected and forgotten, and I only just then discover them. Like Bundle in the vacuum cleaner I find them starving or buried underneath old stuff in my house.

For me dreams like these mean that I will always feel a tremendous guilt about my lost ones that I could've done more, thinking I did them wrong.
At the time I did not know that cat food in the supermarkets is really shitty and salty and that the reason my cat Tommie began drinking so much was because of his old kidneys failing.
I only found out recently about good pet food and wish I knew about it when Charlie was still alive, so he wouldn't have had his returning issues with itchy skin, vomiting now and then and diarrhoea.
I could've locked up Hanne and Pip so they wouldn't have been hit by a car, but then they would've lead boring, miserable lives, while they absolutely loved being outside, thrived there, and then again I've had many more cats who never got into peril outside...

Sometimes I really doubt myself-was I really the perfect friend? - even though I should know better- it's a tell-tale sign that I sincerely call Charlie my brother and Hanne and Pip my daughters. That I sacrifice a good night rest every night so that my loved ones get to sleep with me. That I put them before myself. You may find me weird.
I try so hard to make them happy, perhaps because my own life is not that happy. But for all the times I've failed the guilt burns in me like a coal fire just underneath the skin of the earth. And makes me dream.

The reason some of us get these heart-wrenching dreams is simply because we -can't- talk with our pets. We -can't- explain the dangers in life, pain, sickness, death, we -can't- explain the reason why they die so soon while we hopefully live to become old.

Perhaps it was only right that when my old cat Tommie died peacefully in my arms because I said he could lie down and he trusted me completely, he didn't really understand me when I said he could go to sleep now and everything would be al right. It would've frightened him perhaps, to know he was dying. Or perhaps he did have some distant knowledge about it and I was the only one scared, but on some days like these I still wish I could've talked to him. And he to me.

But a bond like that is rare. If we could really communicate with animals, the scary truth is that it might not change much. Or anything at all. And that is what Duncan The Wonder Dog is about.

I'll patiently wait for the next volume and endlessly ponder over this one. In the presence of the ones who are truly closest to me. And in remembrance of the ones who passed away.

[Dov Zeller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book goes way beyond stars. Why did I give it four and not five? I don't even know. Half the time I don't know why I do the things I do. I imagine in an alternative universe I might give it ten or a hundred or a thousand stars. A sky full of them. And yet, "Duncan The Wonder Dog" is an alternative universe. One in which humans get very few stars. Well, we are neither bad nor good. Philosophically speaking, good and evil is neither here nor there. Compassion and cruelty, though, are explored. In and of itself, this book is both the same universe and a different universe all at once than the one I daily wander through. Today I read an article about coyotes in New York. They've mated with wolves (at some point) and made their way here from the southwest and have found a way to share the city with us without our knowing much about it. Now we know more because we follow them. We're obsessed with their habits and migrations, large and small. They live off the riches of suburb and city, of goose eggs and skunks and perhaps deer. They find whatever thin circulatory systems of greenery they can and, it even seems, cross the street without much catastrophe or fanfare. I love being reminded over and over again that the intelligence so many humans possess is also a form of absurd alienation from our needed habitats. Human intelligence is full of failure and cruelty and laughable structures that cannot hold their own weight. The more we think we know, perhaps the less we do. This book doesn't ask us to take a look at ourselves, but it takes us on a journey like no other, into our own animal hearts. It's all murky and inky and collaged and sometimes the message is brutal and radical and sometimes it's as quiet as a raccoon stealing across a moon-flicked lawn. I like that one of the reviewers called it "a flawed masterpiece." I think that is a great description. It tunnels into the ink-stained coils of our animal, literary, mythical brains and it's funny and powerful and shifty and poetic in and out of its brutality. I hope another installment comes. Either way, there is mystery.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am pretty picky about the "favorites" shelf, but this book is a no-contest addition. Duncan the Wonder Dog, Part 1 (of 8 parts, I believe) is an amazing graphic novel. Set in a world much like ours--with one major exception--animals--all of them--are sentient and can speak to humans--DtWD is a heartbreaking story. There were many points in this VERY LONG and EXTREMELY DETAILED GN where I had to put the over-large book down and just cry.

It reminds me a lot--in tone and in style--of Chris Ware and Jimmy Corrigan. It is also very much a multi-genre kind of novel, with different intersecting stories, kinds of texts, and a mysterious and beautiful interplay of visual and written texts. Adam Hines is CRAZY gifted as storyteller in both media.

I am getting my own copy--and probably the digital copy that Hines made available when the first printing of DtWD sold out. It's the kind of thing I want to have around. I guess it goes without saying that I CANNOT WAIT for the next iteration.

[Liam O'Leary · Rating 5 out of 5]

2020 Update:
I come back here every year to see whether this series was ever continued. It's an enigma — one of the best comics of all time, left unfinished. Adam Hines has become a video games designer in the interim for Night School Studios, that's all we know for now.

Original 2016 review:
I don't think people really know how to appropriately respond to this yet. The structure, art style and plot direction are original to the point of confusing. It's too far ahead, complicated and full of foreshadowing. I think this might be raising the bar of the complexity and seriousness of graphic novel narrative here. If this series maintains its momentum in this initial installment then this might become a classic. But it is too early to speculate; this might bomb or lose its charm. I think Duncan appears on the last page, but I'm not sure. All I can say that this book needs attention because I think it might be 'genre-breaking'. This can be read legally and freely online on the request of the author: Google it, skim it, get back to me.

[Fungus Gnat · Rating 2 out of 5]

This graphic novel—and it’s long enough and wordy enough to warrant the term novel—imagines an alternate present or near future in which animals, mammals and birds anyway, are able to talk to each other and to human beings. Of course, that’s hardly rare in comic books, but this is a serious endeavor, the conversations are articulate and usually involve adult humans, and the world otherwise is identical to our own. The fact that animals exhibit consciousness, however, does not change many of their relaions to human beings—that is, humans still eat them, watch them in circuses, own them as pets. Not surprisingly, a revolutionary cabal of like-minded animals, mostly primates, has come together and, in the name of freedom, has undertaken a string of terrorist activities—bombings, shootings, etc. The story takes place over a few days’ time following the bombing of a California college by our monkey antiheroine and her pals.

Hines scores various points in favor of animal rights and welfare while not undermining the loving regard some humans have for their animal companions, though he sees that as not always enthusiastically received. One of his main themes is the likelihood that animal consciousness would be a lot different from our own, in ways that would be difficult for us to understand, but their trains of thought might be approximated as “nonlinear.” It may be in recognition of that that Hines presents his material in fragmented style. Only about half the book is in the form of actions or (much more often) conversations depicted in serial comic-style panels. It is through these exchanges that much of the story is told, with the events often “off screen.” But these are hardly in narrative order. There are extended flashbacks, gaps in the train of events, and digressions among characters who show up only briefly – including a bird that sings only what we would call nonsense. The other half of the book is divided between running prose in the form of a fairy tale or a diary or rumination of some sort and pictures of meadow, shore, and woods, mostly at night. In fact, most of the book is set in the dark – you get your money’s worth of ink in this volume. And outside the comic book panels, there is a great deal of art in the drawings – what look to me like black-and-white, or black-and-gray, renditions of water colors or color washes, and/or copious intricate line art. It certainly strikes me as a coherent, distinctive vision.

I have to say, though, that while I could appreciate Hines’s intent and execution, this book was not greatly to my taste. I liked the art, I liked the conversations (Hines has a good ear for speech) panel by panel, but the conversations often added up to nothing, or nothing intelligible -- like I dropped into the middle of something, then was pulled out of it before I could tell what was going on. My patience was also tried by the desultory nature of the plot, the arbitrariness of many vignettes, the sudden entrances and early exits of what turn out to be minor characters. I take the time for maybe one graphic novel a year, and had I known how I was to react to this one, I would have chosen something else. Where books are concerned, I finish what I start, and it doesn’t take a lot to hold my attention, but there was a time or two when I felt like giving up on this one.

[Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update: still one of the greatest achievements in comics, and one of its biggest losses...

Original review: This... This is nothing like what I expected.

Adam Hines' first (and, sadly, only) published work, Duncan the Wonder Dog exudes more creativity than a lot of artists' entire careers. It's constantly experimenting with both form and content, doing things things with the medium that I don't think I've ever done before. But even so, even through the disjointed narrative structure and the borderline abstract interludes, the story remains fairly straightforward. Or at least enough to be palatable. There's a lot of things that I don't understand about this book. But while I'm sure I missed some of the experience, no vital information is lost in the process.

As a quick side note though, I find his actual art to be kinda ugly and almost amateurish at times, on a purely technical level. But it does the job well enough. And the constant formal experimentation doesn't alway stick the landing for me. Some of it actively detracts from the reading experience (he even had to resort to numbering panels a few too many times, because his layouts can be counterintuitive). But I guess that comes with the package as far as experimentation goes. And if the other aspects are strong enough, I'm willing to excuse it.

And boy, are they...

The story is set in a world where animals speak the same language as humans and are aware of their global subjection to humanity. Some animals choose to work with us, some choose to work against us, but largely, the status quo is largely the same. Cattle are still being sent to slaughterhouses. Exotic animals are still being kept in cages. Shampoo brands still use mice to test their product and schools still cut open frogs to teach their students about anatomy. One thing changed though, animal welfare is at the center of the political debate.

Hines compellingly explores our confusing and often hypocritical relationship with animals, through a sprawling political drama. It's sometimes very funny, often heartwrenching, and always eye opening. And the despite the incredibly innovative aspects of his art this is where he shines most in my opinion. I first came accross his work in the incredible Oxenfree, a story-driven scifi mystery game with a heavy focus on naturalistic dialogue. And I found a lot of what I loved about that game in this book. The expertly planned, slowly unraveling narrative. The tight dialogue sometimes witty, sometimes profound, always realistic. And we're talking about animal here.. The characters are all interesting, with convincing motivations. It's just a complete package.

My only hope is that people walk away from this book reevaluating some of their ideals.

It's a shame that he moved on to different pastures, as this was pitched as a (I think) nine part series, that we'll probably never see the continuation of. But Duncan stands on its own at least, I guess we'll have to make due with that

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I tasted a latte in Seattle, it spoiled all other lattes I'd ever have because I learned how the penultimate latte should taste. This book about life in a world shared with talking, intelligent animals may well do the same for me in terms of graphic novels. Its 400 pages packs in so much imagination, insight, characterization, intrigue and wonder, I can say I've now seen what it looks like when "sequential fiction" (funnybooks to you old folks) reaches its full potential. Still, at times it was a bit too much. There were pages filled with insane scrawl that I wanted to fully take in, but I was so overwhelmed I may have skipped some important bits hidden in all the detail. The upside of that is, it's a book that welcomes you back for multiple readings. I'm pretty sure this book is a work of pure genius, but I would like to see a bit more restraint in Adam Hines' next effort - just to see what such a thing would look like - before I make that decision.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the more visually stunning and narratively complex graphic works I've come across. That the author is 26, this is his first book, that it's the first in a planned nine volumes, and that his production rate is about one book (granted, one MASSIVE book) every five years, we're probably looking at a Bayeaux tapestry (exaggeration) style masterpiece decades in the making.

I won't dig into the complexities of the story but I will crib from the New York Times to give a sense of the subject matter: "Dr. Doolittle meets Baader-Meinhoff." Animals are philosophers (and philosophical terrorists) while humans are expressions of their Dharma. We're not dealing with simple talking animals here - investigations of western / eastern philosophy, ethical systems, validity of different forms of protest, action versus thought, etc. Beautifully, and elliptically, put into word and image.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

A big heavy book (which could have been bigger and heavier had it been printed in a nice hardcover edition). At times photo-realistic art, at times doodle-like, and at times cartoony. Most of it takes place at night or in in dark rooms, so you do need to read it in a well-lighted environment if you want to be able to appreciate the dark-grey artwork, I guess it would be better read off a monitor than printed. However, the paper quality is very nice thick-stock glossy paper.

A strange graphic novel with strange art and a strange story. A lot of existantial philosophy. Even the violence is filtered thru intelectualist text.

Some of what was in this went right over my head, but alls I know is that I'm looking forward to getting Show Two if that ever comes out.

5-Stars +

[Tanya Wadley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have loved every graphic novel I have read until now.

I only read 1/4 of the book, and it seemed like a complete waste of time... I couldn't remember what it was about and still had no clue after reading the first 100 pages. I gave up... perhaps the genius was yet to come.

Here's why I didn't like it:
1) Couldn't figure out what it was about (the point) after 100 pages in.
2) Not cohesive.
3) What appears to be gratuitous bad language.
4) I can only say that in all honesty it seems the rambling work of someone under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

That being said, I acknowledge the possibility that others consider great what I found to be intolerable.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

If there's such a thing as a flawed masterpiece, this is one of them. Though, when someone steps so far outside the bounds of normal, they deserve a lot of credit for even trying. The story and characters were good--not great. Pretty standard thriller stuff. The art was mostly excellent. I didn't really care for the way Hines draws humans. They're a little too cartoony and bring me out of the aesthetic of the rest of the book. Maybe that was intentional. It would fit the theme of the book if humans felt unnatural.

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first glance, I thought this was a shameless "Jimmy Corrigan" rip-off. But Hines pushes Chris Ware's aesthetic in new directions, opening up different types of narrative space and storytelling possibilities. A really flabbergasting debut - the sort of book that would've been an instant legend 15-20 years ago. And amazingly enough, this sizable tome is only part one of nine.

[Julian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretentious and ill-thought-out. Anthropomorphization is here, as it is so often, a mirror to humanity rather than a window to the animal kingdom. The non-linear storytelling and art are nice treats but can't make up for a confused conceit that makes suspension of disbelief impossible.

[Rich Barrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me over 100 pages to get into this book but once I did I was kind of blown away. It's a challenging read with lots of vignettes, asides, and many characters some of which only appear for a page or two. At times it seems over-indulgent with the way it will break from a scene with a seemingly disconnected full page mix-media image or a handwritten fable. But other times it is sublime like an extended diary sequence that shows you the fully-envisioned life of a character we never even meet in the main story. It's a heartbreaking sequence that totally won me over. Animal lovers especially will find a lot to love and get angry over in this book as it portrays a world in which animals can talk but are still considered a lesser class of species to human beings.

This is Adam Hines' first book and is inconceivably meant as the first of 9 books which will take him about 25 years to complete. This book completely stands on its own though and will probably reward multiple re-reads. I've already started going back through those first 100 pages that didn't initially grab me.

[Dawn]

Since I didn't finish this, I don't feel I can accurately rate it. I thought the concept was interesting, but I had a hard time getting into it and understanding what was going on at the beginning. The other thing that bothered me was that there are many pages of imagery that don't really add anything... images that are very dark where hardly anything can be made out, and images that look like really bad collage (a few words in extremely large fonts over more dark images). But, there are many pages where the images & text that are conversations are no larger than my thumb. And the text in these boxes is extremely small, which made it difficult for me to read. In such a large graphic novel with so many pages, it would have been nice to sacrifice some of the unnecessary imagery for readability. I'm sure it's brilliant, but I could not get into it.

[Raina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried.

But I need graphic novels to have a little more story and not quite this much tripping. I needed a framework, and I wasn't getting it when I gave up after about fifty pages. It's beautiful, but I just didn't want to keep reading. And it was due back at the library, so I'll let those looking for things this deep and structure-less enjoy it.

The visuals are beautiful and the figures are accessible - I just could not connect.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Jan 2015 i wrote, "I'm definitely gonna read this again."
As of Aug 1, 2016, i have lived up to that promise.
And i'll add that i'm almost certainly gonna read this yet again.
A very strong 4.5 stars.
I wanna ask Adam Hines whether he's working on the second installment. Also, why do so many of the transitional scenery panels appear to be nighttime? Are you simply more comfortable drawing them that way? Or is this world really that benighted?

[Tanya · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed in the book. I am giving it 2 stars only for the monkey drawings, some of which I liked. It is a poorly executed story manipulated in photoshop with "found objects" and some drawings and tracings. I can only chalk up all the art praise to people who don't actually know how to draw. Who can't see the lazy duplication and reliance on photoshop. I think people are hasty to label something complex when they don't understand it. Murky waters don't indicate depth.

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book is important. I think it was amazingly well done. That is almost all I can coherently say about it because my emotions are raw and feeling everything all because of this book. You should read it.

[Edmund Davis-Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unique and bizarre book.

Makes you think about the relationship between man and animals.

One of the many books out there which makes you wonder how the graphic novel will change in the next few years.

Fascinating.

[Sean Davy · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the things I am happiest to have on my book shelf. There's a lot to unpack here and I'm not sure it all really comes together to form a cohesive whole. I wish the plans for the series had really come to fruition but it is really like nothing I've ever read before.

[Zedsdead · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the author's version of the world, animals think, and reason, and talk. They are sentient but still they are treated like animals. It's a Jim Crow reality; there are some human sympathizers but generally animals are either distractedly exploited or casually and deliberately oppressed.

An animal-rights terrorist organization has taken to blowing up civilian targets then kidnapping human drivers to escape. The leader, a murderous macaque named Pompeii, is articulate, seething with hatred, and filled with a rage that she at least has come by honestly. (Pompeii is a terrifyingly convincing character and sells the world Adam Hines has created.)

When this is good it is amazing. Personalities resonate and conversations ring true. The voices of the large cast of characters are each unique. A calm caged tiger and a nervous caged monkey discussing the meaning of a parable and the nature of man. A fisherman casually reneging on an agreement with a pelican, convinced that his needs justify whatever he does. A demoralized FBI agent. A wealthy but bitter mandrill and his human girlfriend and the complications and insecurities that accompany such a bilaterally unequal partnership. And always Pompeii and her gorilla bodyguard taking human prisoners and waxing furiously eloquent on the blind, destructive, self-centered sins of humanity.

But it's not always good. The massive (8.5 x 11) pages often contain tons of white space, or four-point fonts, or unparsable handwriting, or whole pages that are just static. In sections the illustration style is that of b&w Xeroxes of photographs, which is sometimes unique and creative and other times useless. It drifts into indecipherability. Occasionally too abstruse for its own good.

But it sucked me in. It articulately considers the world from the POV of non-human animals (and indirectly from that of repressed real-world human groups). It breathes life into an array of distinct characters with consistent motivations and inner lives. I'll happily consume the next eight planned volumes if they ever materialize.

[Titus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Duncan the Wonder Dog is probably the most experimental comic I’ve read so far. For fans of the medium, it’s worth reading purely for the innovative and exciting ways in which it pushes the envelope. Hines creates a unique and enchanting aesthetic by combining different techniques (including drawing, painting, collage and digital effects) and mixing different artistic styles (some elements are more cartoony, others more realistic, some more impressionistic or expressionistic). He also experiments narratively, taking the story on strange tangents, flitting between scenes that are often only thematically related, and interspersing conventional comic pages with landscape paintings and evocative abstractions.

The comic’s sheer ambition and creativity make me want to love it. I want to join the ranks of the comic fans who count Duncan the Wonder Dog among their favourites. However, although I very much enjoy it, there’s something that doesn’t quite click for me. I can’t point to anything that I dislike, and I find some sections incredibly powerful (for example the diary part that makes up pages 294–329). However, considering the work as a whole, I feel that it doesn’t fully resonate with me – that I don’t quite “get it”.

This is a dense work that feels like it has a lot going on below the surface, and I guess I haven’t quite managed to penetrate it and connect with it as much as I’d like to. Despite this, I enjoyed it greatly. It has fantastic art, intriguing characters, emotional depth, philosophical nuance and occasional moments of brilliant humour.