Mongrel: S.O.B. is a three-issue comic by artist Andrew Mitchell Kudelka and writer Edward Dunphy, who describes it as a gritty murder mystery, “one part The Howling and one part CSI: Chicago, [that] pits a monstrous werewolf against a veteran Chicago detective.” The first two issues have already been produced, and you might even have them if you were at comic conventions like SDCC 2012, C2E2 or DanCon. The last convention I went to was ECCC 2011, and the Internet’s a big place, so I didn’t know about Mongrel until Tah told me about it this morning, with characteristic brevity. The first two issues have garnered enthusiastic praise, and the werewolf action seems firmly based in the horror genre, which is why the Kickstarter campaign to fund the concluding issue and a graphic novel collecting all three is worth your attention.
The modest $3,500 goal will cover artist fees and production costs for the graphic novel, and the backer rewards span the tried-and-true range of swag, including shirts, artwork, posters, advertising space, and several chances to be drawn into the final issue (either as a speaking character or a werewolf victim). They’re less than a day into the campaign and it’s already halfway funded, so some of those stretch goals (the most exciting of which is a Mongrel resin sculpture) seem likely, too.
I want to reiterate that I haven’t read either of the existing issues, but the first page of the first issue (below) is enough to get my pledge. If you’d like to learn more, hit up the Mongrel web site, Twitter account (@mongrelcomic) or Facebook page, and if you like what you see, kick in a few bucks!
