As you know from my last review, I could not stop raving about Teen Dog and how clever it was. It took simple ideas from a teenagers’ head and made it into a comic. I love when simplicity can rule over all. It was deliciously funny, meaning the pizza everywhere did make me crave it and Teen Dog made me laugh the whole way through. Well Jake Lawrence has kept it up in issue 2 as well. If you are a fan of the 90s and couldn’t get enough cut off jean and confetti patterns, you have got to give Teen Dog a try. Again Lawrence grabs me with his little doodles in the background. The first thing we see is a dinosaur bush in someone’s yard, and then we upgrade to a living onion in Teen Dog’s locker. It is so cute. And yes this whole comic comes off as a doodle done in some sophomore’s notebook, but so adorably perfect that it must be shown. The whole comic is just relatable. It reminds me of how Bryan Lee O'Malley writes his graphic novels. It has a huge theme covered up with funny thoughts and quirky excuses. Although I am not quite sure what Teen Dog’s theme is, I think we will get there in time.
The story has some clear fun between Dog and his bff, Mariella. But the story mostly focuses on his punishment for exploding the science classroom. He gets sentenced to join the Chess Club. Not that bad, but for Dog this is hell. See Maya runs Chess Club. We don’t know what beef Dog has with Maya and not even Mariella knows. After meeting her though, it seems that she is a ruler and embodies the female version of Dog... he is way less aggressive about it. Knowing that Maya is like Dog, I already like this chick. She is a tuff girl. The other big plot point revolves around his locker. Clearly Dog has some sort of power that we saw in the first issue, but now that Lawrence has mentioned his locker and the void in his locker twice, it must have significance.
So Teen Dog is still in high regards for me. It has those light hearted stories with flavorful writing. I can’t stop laughing, and I can’t put down this comic that explains every child of the 90s. Once you pick this up, you will not want to put it down. And now that we have some consistent stories between Maya and Dog, I think that the comic will only grow with its themes and with the humor.
Score: 5/5
Writer/Artist/Creator: Jake Lawrence Publisher: BOOM!/BOOM Box Price: $3.99 Release Date: 10/8/14 Format: Mini-Series; Print/Digital