Dog Man Unleashed

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness and death.

George Beard and Harold Hutchins explain the backstory of their Dog Man comics so that the reader will understand the upcoming story, which is the second Dog Man adventure. The two elementary-age boys are pictured in the story’s first panel with their arms wide as they greet the reader. The images then shift into recaps of events from their first Dog Man story. The action-filled, cartoonish scenes, with their varying color backgrounds and unevenly hand-lettered text, mimic the style of a child’s drawings. 

Through editorial notes and narration, Harold and George explain that, at one time, Officer Knight and Greg the Dog were both great assets to the police force—until a villainous cat, Petey, planted a bomb and seriously injured the two. At the hospital, the medical staff decided that the only way to save Knight and Greg was to sew Greg’s head onto Knight’s body. This created Dog Man, who became “the greatest cop of ever” because he had the strength, purity of heart, and fighting skills of Knight and the loyalty and enhanced senses of Greg (11).