By Derrik Fish

http://www.dandyandcompany.com/index.html

One Sentence Synopsis: A boy and his socially mal-adjusted talking dog go on adventures together.

Art:
Category: Traditional Comic Strip

Dandy and Company is drawn with a very standard cartoonish style, and would fit in just fine in any syndicated newspaper. While the character designs feel a little cliché, their posings and expressions are fantastic. I think this is one of the main strengths of the comic. It has color strips once a week, and has an interesting artistic design. My only note is that it seems a little bit TOO generically cartoonish, a bit like the drawings you see in a ‘how to draw cartoons’ book. While Derrick is a very talented artist, he doesn’t seem to have much of a personal style or theme to his art.

Story:
Category: Short Story

Dandy and Company is fairly standard in this area. It isn’t particularly impressive in its storylines, and there’s virtually no character progression (as one would expect in a standard newspaper-style comic.) Still, the fact is that it fits with the stereotype of a newspaper comic fairly well.

Fortunately, the webcomic world has left its imprint on Dandy, and the strip (though it starts out as a fairly bland Garfield-style comic) has gained a bit of edginess as its career has progressed. However, it still suffers from a general weakness of plotting and characterization. Most of the plots of the story involve soap-opera-like twists (evil twins, alien abductions, etc.) and since there is little character progression, it was difficult for me to feel involved in anything that was happening.

The characters themselves are well-done stereotypes. Dandy himself, the dog, is the most interesting character (more below), but even he is flat enough to resist empathy.

(Note, recently the comic has been taking a slightly different turn. See below.)

Humor:
Category: Joke-A-Day

The comic has its funny moments, but much of the humor is unextraordinary. There’s generally a punch-line (though recently Mr. Fish has been trying to add more of a ‘comic book’ adventure feel to the strip) and there is some good character inter-play and banter. However, moments of laugh-out-loud humor are rare.

Many of the jokes center around how mean Dandy is to Bernard (his owner.) These grow repetitive fairly quickly, unfortunately, as do most of the other jokes surrounding the character personalities. Occasionally--just briefly--there will be an interesting twist of unsettling humor (such as when Bernard’s mother takes Dandy in to be ‘fixed’), and I found these moments interesting, because these are issues that ‘kid with his pet’ comics generally ignore (more below). However, many of the jokes are of a less-inspired magnitude.

Frequency: Daily, with punctual updating. There is a strong sense of professionalism about the comic.

Website/extras: Good website design with lots of extras.

Overall:

Three clocks for an average comic. Good, with some valid draws, but not one that keeps me refreshing my browser at midnight every night to check for updates.

Archives: Long archives that made a moderately good read. No weekly archive-reading function, however.

Content: PG (Though some of the animals run around naked. . . .)

3 reasons to read Dandy and Company
1) It’s strong in the traditional comic style.
2) It has a really mean doggie in it. (Think Garfield with some actual bite to him.)
3) It is a professional comic with solid art and design.

3 reasons not to read Dandy and Company
1) You can get comics like this one in the newspaper.
2) The comic seems a little confused about where it wants to be going.
3) There’s just not much of an ‘edge’ to it.

So, Dandy and Company is a webcomic about a boy and his dog. Or, at least, that’s the main premise. In actuality, it’s more a study in this single, bad-tempered (yet perhaps a bit lovable) dog who seems to enjoy tormenting his ‘master,’ Bernard.

Unfortunately, many of the jokes and storylines--especially early on--don’t get beyond this premise. Comic after comic deals with Dandy pulling some prank on Bernard. There are other characters, such as Dandy’s little brother ‘Mistake’ (great name, by the way) and a romantic interest for Dandy named Maryweather (an intellectual--the ‘straight man’ of the comic.) People such as these, along with Bernard’s parents, form a cast of characters that are generally unchanging in personality or theme (as can be expected from most ‘newspaper style’ comic strips.)

The comic can generally be humorous, and I enjoyed reading through the archives. There’s an impressive level of professionalism about the comic even from the beginning. The artist style has remained consistently good, if a little cliché, and the posting has been regular and efficient. However, many of the jokes lack the edge that makes true comedic genius--this is a ‘comfortable’ comic, but not an excellent or groundbreaking one.

That said, there are some interesting things to point out about the comic, most of them recent occurrences. It seems that Derrik has a desire to give the comic strip a bit more thematic, story-driven conflicts. Several recent weeks have covered extended storylines, often without punchlines. At the same time, the last year or so of comic strips in general have seemed to move away from making jokes about Dandy’s temperament, covering other interesting storylines--such as when Dandy and Maryweather go on a kind of wilderness retreat to get in touch with their true dog selves. This dealing with the fact that Dandy is a ‘pet’ in a world where animals can talk creates for some very interesting interpersonal relationships (especially when Bernard’s mom takes Dandy off to be ‘fixed’. . . .)

While I applaud Derrik for trying to push his comic a little further, in one area I think he’s been trying just a bit too hard. I feel a little disappointed at the lack of humor in some of the more dramatic storylines. Taking into account the artistic design and general content of the comic, Dandy and Company should be a strip that delivers on its humorous promises. While he often ends such strips with ‘wow, no punchline today’ type quips, it feels to me that the true greats in comicdom can deliver solid laughs along with their drama.

Still, if you are a reader who finds other webcomics to be just a bit too obscure, Dandy and Company is probably the comic for you.

Sample Strips:

Dandy plays a prank

Derrik sometimes plays with making the comic self-aware, but it usually doesn't work as well as this visually interesting strip.

Here the strip starts to get a little more clever with its humor.

But, it always comes back to jokes like this one....

The strip starts to go more 'comic book' style.

And, finally, one that just made me laugh.

Written by EUOL on June 18th, 2004