Drake Ullingsworth & Dog return in “Seven Tales from the City of Cruelty”, an anthology of seven unlikely short stories – violence, sex, mystery, death, pain, and other wholesome entertainments served up wrapped in eccentric humour and strange dialogue. Every page in full colour lovingly hand-separated by the artist!
Drake & Dog have always been urban dwellers, but somehow the town around them has now shifted to become an arena where pain, misery, and violence are not only legitimised, but built into the way the city operates. Both characters are carrying guns by now, a hangover from a previous story I had drawn in 2024 called “Too Much Medicine”, about the dangers of binge-drinking. It made sense now to have the city encourage the use of guns, licensing them, and providing ammunition free of charge to its two most effective regulators. Except Drake and Dog can’t regulate anything, and most of their adventures get out of control very quickly.
Drake and his Dog invent their own mysteries to solve. For whatever reason (the authorities have no further use for them) these two characters are so bored that they start writing fictions just to keep themselves engaged on their jobs (Drake might be a private detective, or employed by the City; Dog just does whatever he wants).
Having invented this framing device, I found I could parcel all of my random ideas into short stories, related to this meta-fiction framework. Since the characters themselves were doing the writing, then it seemed very plausible that anything could happen. I felt more liberated. I could start breaking my own rules and give the characters the freedom to say and do anything. This also allowed me to shift drawing styles from one story to the next, as needed.
Six crazy villains for the price of one. Meet “The Second Caligula”, “Count Viral”, “The Wig”, “The Toolbox”, “Emperor Void”, and “The Balloon Hoax”.
The story about the revenge phantoms is probably the most effective in the set. I personally have always been subject to irrational hate, unhealthy rages, and vengeful thoughts. One reason I make art is to try and deal with such dark emotions. Drake & Dog bring these unwelcome forces into being merely by thinking, or by speaking out loud. The results are immediate; they change things around them, just through negative thoughts and words. Troublingly, these occult manifestations of hate are apparently discovered to be at the root of all operations in the city of cruelty. If the cover art means anything, it’s nothing to do with conventional action-adventure images of gunplay. Rather, it’s attempting to exorcise these negative emotions, working in the safety of an artistic arena.
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