Comix Influx Blog: The Trial of the Sober Dog

More big happenings in UK Comics – today, Monday 2nd June, the Times starts a weekly one page strip by Nick Abadzis called “The Trial of Sober Dog” which will run for 6 months. This is great news, on the back of a great year for UK comics so far, and another sign of the growing mainstream appreciation of comics. The strip will be online at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/soberdog the day after publication in the paper.

This rather feels like the Times copying the Guardian, and Posy Simmonds’ strips. If that is what they’re doing I’m all for it, and Nick is an excellent choice to take on the challenge.

The strip itself takes up about three-quarters of page 2 in the Times2 pull-out supplement, sharing the page with the contents listing. This is a very prominent spot for a new comic strip. There is no over-simplification for the non-comics-reading public – no cast of characters, and the necessary scene-setting is accomplished subtly. Perhaps the one concession is that the narration is all in a typed font – presumably to distinguish from the dialogue – and the narrator’s name, Marco Albini, is announced, minimising confusion.

In the first episode Albini attends a gallery opening with an artist friend and bumps into an old acquaintance of them both: Joe Chase, the “Sober Dog” of the comics’ title. Chase is apparently effortlessly successful, engendering resentment in Albini. Not much more is revealed beyond this, but it seems likely that the artistic world will provide a significant backdrop in future episodes.

Abadzis works in a dig at the relationship between commerce and art in his opening paragraph: Albini describes the gallery opening as a place where art and commerce “shag”. I found this acknowledgement of a more complex interaction between art and money – rather than the traditional dichotomy – interesting. And this relationship is echoed in the complexity of the briefly sketched characters – none are out-and-out dislikable, nor purely sympathetic.

This is a sophisticated comic, promising a rich narrative, and given a hitherto unheard of prominence in The Times. I eagerly await future installments.