#droemar

Story ---

The story of Canis is short and straightforward: a young wolf trying to prove himself to be leader material and several of his trusted companions set out to a human ranch to kill some cows and feed their pack during the harsh winter times as a prophecy from one of the wolf's relatives foretold. However, their mission ends in failure and costs them their lives when the rancher's guard dogs, several large and seasoned Rottweilers, defend their master's cattle by killing all of the wolves off.

I was disappointed to find there were only 14 pages to this mini-epic, but mostly because I was enjoying myself with this intriguing little storyline. So many parody wolf comics are about nothing but pointing at trends that appear in tweenager's wolf comics and laughing, and though Droemar does a bit of that herself, Canis is not a hyuck-fest of sparklewolves screaming BAAAWWW every two seconds and stuck-up anti-wolfaboos finding excuses to draw wolves pooping and farting rainbows. Canis is not a parody or a satire in the sense that it exists to use humor to elaborate on stupid things; it is a deconstruction that tackles what would really, truly, and often brutally happen if wolf comics were acted out in the real world. It's not done in a mean spirited or forgettable way, either, as it carries a serious tone in comparison to all the wolf parody comics that have a constant looming presence of LULZ THIS IS WHAT ALL WOLF COMICS ARE. Most parody wolf comics create sparkle characters and dumb plots that are just as forgettable as any genuine article and, because of that, become just as forgotten as any average wolf comic themselves. Canis, however, takes a more objective route, especially with how it tackles anthropomorphism.

Aside from the comic itself being an interesting, honest look at how and why wolf comics are what they are, the artist's comments give a little insight into what the author was thinking and why. There are a few small details of the story in the mix, such as what Hollow and Brazen's courtship is like, but all the necessary details to infer most of these things are in the story itself. The comments below the pages are more an elaboration on why certain wolf comic tropes fail and how the author illustrated that in the story.

The story, though short, is effective and told incredibly efficiently. It ends just when it should and doesn't prattle on and become pretentious. It's brutal in its honesty, and it's the most enjoyable wolf comic criticism done in comic form that I've ever seen.

Writing ---

Most people who make wolf comics (or any amateur comic projects, really) are predominantly good at only one of the two things necessary to make a quality comic: drawing or writing. Most comics with good illustrations fall flat because of their boring, clichéd stories, and most well written stories are produced by people who are writers first and illustrators second, which shows in their lackluster art. Droemar is clearly a writer first and an artist second, but she's not just someone who scribbles down her characters on blue-lined notebook paper and calls it art. She knows what she's doing in both respects, and they compliment each other very nicely.

More on the art in the art section, of course.

The writing is linear but unexpected if you don't know this is a deconstruction.  The pacing, as previously mentioned, is perfect for the length and tone of the story. All the spelling, grammar, and punctuation are correct.

The dialogue is one of the main driving forces in wolf comics, and that usually results in wolves who never shut up, even when they're doing battle. There is a lot of talking in Canis, but the concept of time is taken into account, and not a single line of dialogue is unnecessary or inappropriate for its situation.

The writing is just good, and was clearly done by someone with experience in both writing stories and in writing comics.

Art ---

The art of Canis is not something you'll see in most wolf comics. In fact, it's the first of its kind that I've seen utilize such a visual style. The characters and environments are done in a realistic style with realistic anatomy and realistic perspective, but the real eye-catcher is the fact that the only two colours utilized are black and white. Every character, tree, and speech bubble is in stark contrast with the other visual elements around them, and it guides your eye very well over the composition of each individual panel.

The characters are all canines, and at some point they all seem to don human-esque expressions, but they work. They're just natural enough to not look weird or raise any eyebrows.

There's no issues with perspective, how dynamic poses are, consistent anatomy, or even which character is which. The only complaint I have about the art is that on the rare occasion you'll see a character that clearly took less time to draw then the others, resulting in an odd, sketchy appearance.

The panel layout is very nice. There was never a time when I was confused where to look or read, and I didn't notice any panel to panel tangents. All speech bubbles are plainly readable.

The look of the comic is so unique and different from all those I've seen before. It was what first caught my eye and lead me to the story in the first place. It's truly interesting, compliments the tone of the story extremely well, and reads very well.

Anthropomorphism ---

The interesting thing about Canis is that the anthropomorphism in the story is not only less apparent then in most wolf comics, but there are realistic consequences to human-like thoughts and actions. For example, Moonstar (lol) believes in a prophecy that was set forth out of the blue, which is clearly a human concept, and ends up losing his life because of it. Before that, though, there's wolves shirking the alleged badguy wolf Ravenwind for breaking off from the pack when times got tough because it benefitted him. His cunning and selfishness are what ultimately lead him to having a more peaceful existence then those of Moonstar and his followers. Moonstar's friends, including his shallow love interest Bluemoss, follow him blindly to the cattle ranch as opposed trying to work with the rest of the pack to find resources. All but Bluemoss are killed by the Rottweilers, and only Bluemoss survives because she took the selfish, intelligent way out by running away.

The extent of how the characters themselves are anthropomorphised is that they can talk. That's pretty much it in terms of being removed from their wolfishness. They can talk and they can have small, short conversations about how dumb it is to live with humans and how no animal is free from its leaders, but they don't use tools or start wars or even come up with super complex strategies. These animals are clearly animals, and in more then just their appearance.

Wolfabooism ---

There isn't any. There just isn't.

It's mighty clear from the very beginning that Droemar is not a wolfaboo, or even much of a wolf fan. She's just somebody who knows how wolves actually function in the real world and, as both someone who understands wolf behavior and writing, is able to write about what she considers faulty in most wolf comic projects.

One incredibly not-wolfaboo'ey thing that's considered in the comic is how cruel and merciless wolves are as predators. In the comments, the writer mentions how wolves, though not intentionally, will devour their prey alive and screaming, and how they will also kill anything that is both considered an enemy and that they feel they have the ability to kill. The characters in the story don't look nearly as heroic or altruistic as most wolf OCs when they're killing new mother Rottweiler Sprawl and her newborn offspring.

The fact is that the author does not refuse to acknowledge the uglier side of the animal, or even nature in general. Wolves can be bastards to each other. Wolves will kill without remorse and sometimes without reason (Google "surplus killing".) Wolves are imperfect animals, and the writer seems very against the idea of celebrating a romantic fantasy of what an animal is as opposed to its reality, so Canis features wolves that are not little angels.

Another note to take about Droemar is that this is not the first time she has addressed faulty artwork among wolf lovers. If you look for long enough in her scraps, you'll likely find something in there regarding how most wolf character designs fail because they don't follow the basic principles of character design such as silhouette. She readily criticized wolf lovers who make mediocre characters simply because they can't think of design elements beyond colour and hair.

Canis is clearly not written by a wolfaboo. It's written by someone who actually does know a thing or two about wolves.

Characters ---

The characters in Canis are a funny thing. Half of them are made to be flat and boring, half of them have at least a little more fleshing out, but none of them are super developed simply because of the length. The characters that don't have much to them are that way because they are meant to represent a cliché and the ones that have more to them have just enough to make their relationships with one another apparent. I feel the story was more to illustrate a point then to parade around pretty wolf OCs, so I'm not super bothered by this. Even so, all of these characters have more to them then most.

Moonstar is the intentionally stupidly named protagonist (?) who, according to a prophecy from a less-then-truthful relative, is going to save his pack from starvation. He is young, full of confidence, and lacks all common sense, which ultimately gets him killed. Moonstar's undoing was his faith in his mission and how he was the main character of his own story (in a metaphorical sense, not a 4th wall sense.) He was so sure that he was something special that he put himself in harm's way and paid for it dearly, much like the young wolf artists who consider them the best thing since sliced bread and end up getting verbally chewed apart once they start gaining fame and becoming too big for their britches. The author's point with Moonstar, I believe, was to illustrate not only how simply labeling a protagonist as a hero doesn't make them heroic (puppy killing is hardly looked upon with respect, after all) but to parallel how young, angsty wolf comic artists look to the rest of the world. I could be wrong, but that's what I got from him.

His "love at first sight" mate Bluemoss is the typical wolf comic significant other in that she hardly has any meaningful interactions with Moonstar outside of their failed hunt. She is different, however, in the fact that she does not stick to the whole "wolves mate for life" myth and abandons her puppy-love sweetheart to die so that she may survive. She develops into the sort of wolf Ravenwind is by the end of the story (i.e. an intelligent, realistic one) and even has his pups.

Ravenwind is the assumed wolf baddie who is only present for the first few pages and the last page. He is supposed to be the generic scheming, rude, manipulative antagonist, but as the author writes, he's only acting like a real wolf. Ravenwind abandoned his pack in the winter when food was scarce so that he would survive, and now he works as a voice of reason that nobody listens to. He assures them all that Moonstar is no leader, that they will surely all die in the valley should they go there, and that he and Bluemoss are very alike and shall inevitably be courting one another and having pups. The other wolves pay him no mind, but he is absolutely right in everything he says.

There are six Rottweiler dogs in the story. They work as guard dogs to a rancher's herd of cows. Sprawl is a mother of newborn puppies and is slaughtered alongside them when the wolves find her nursing. Brash and Brag are the two that first notice the wolves have entered their humans' territory. The Rottweilers that contribute the most to the story, however, are Hollow and his mate Brazen, and Axe, a massive Rottweiler experienced in good ol' fashioned wolf killing.

Hollow and Brazen are an interesting pair because they serve as a sort of parallel to Moonstar and Bluemoss. Whereas neither wolf interacts with each other much, Hollow and Brazen make it known that they're a happy couple who are expecting. Though it's not written about in the comic itself, the artist comments do give us some insight into their relationship: Brazen was to be bred to Hollow, whom she originally feared would be boorish and off-putting but turned out to be a fairly good guy, and she grew more comfortable with their courtship once she got to know him. Wolf comic romance always tends to be an automatic love-at-first-sight deal with any random male and female falling in love simply because they're male and female, the author states, but that's not nearly as interesting as a love that develops.

Axe is likely the most experienced of all of the Rotties, and he is ultimately the one to utter the hard-hitting line "Free from alphas?" while Moonstar tries to assert how wild and free wolves are. I assume Axe is also the dog seen on the first page/cover, and he seems to be a sort of leader to the other dogs. However, he is not their alpha or their superior; that role goes to the humans that the dogs fight so hard to defend and save the livelihood of.

All of the characters that are present address some kind of trope and either play it realistically or twist it into a different angle, and though I didn't find myself growing very attached to any of them, in a way I liked them, even the insufferable protagonist.

Creator ---

There's not much I can say about the creator and her viewpoints that I haven't already said. She's clearly both a seasoned writer and illustrator and has been around long enough to know what most wolf comics are really all about. I haven't heard any complaints about who she is as a person and I don't know her myself, but I figure she's alright. I've got a lot of respect for her go-get-'em attitude and the fact that when she will share any opinion of hers that she finds important to share, which has gotten her some less then savory attention from some wolf fans before for her rants concerning wolf comics and design.

Overview/Conclusion ---

Canis is a unique little feat. It probably didn't take much time or effort from the creator to make, but it's surely a sight to see. The unique visual style makes it interesting to look at and forces you to focus on only the more important of details and the story is short, sweet, and to the point. Out of all of the deconstructions and satirical takes on wolf comics, I think this one is the most effective because it's a story one could take (partially) seriously. It's not taking easy jabs at bad teenaged writers like most wolf parody comics, nor is it executed in such a way that it'll be forgotten like all the anti-Sue wolves made to poke fun.

Canis is very short, but it's special, from the comments the artist left alongside the pages to each individual page. I've never found something in the way of "deconstructive wolf comics" that got its point across nearly as well as this without it turning into condescending, easily-forgotten dreck.

Recommended? ---