Review by Ian Keogh

Good Good Dog is cross-platform marketing, based on the zombie board game Dead of Winter, and therein lies a problem. As a board game Dead of Winter is recommended, but transfer that scenario to comics, and it’s not as interesting because the participation element has been removed, and there are already very good zombie comics that will immediately draw comparison. It’s not that Kyle Starks doesn’t make an effort, introducing a deluded Santa, the idea that women who’ve survived the zombie apocalypse are going to need sanitary products, and a demented half-zombie policeman, but it’s not enough. Very rapidly Good Good Dog drops into the very obvious territory of a few survivors desperately attempting to escape the zombie horde. Starks takes a sort of sitcom approach, and the best aspect is Sparky the dog, whose past in deliberately poor TV dramas is seen, and boy does he hate zombies.

Artist Gabo has a very nice cartoon style and a good colour sense, keeping the scenes muted to fit the dark winter theme, and occasionally slipping into black and white to present Sparky’s previous escapades. It’s important that Sparky is a loveable hound, and Gabo supplies that without sentimentalising him too much, and the design with the red cape around his neck is a nice touch.

If Good Good Dog is the first zombie graphic novel you ever read, it’ll present as a decent four chapter chase, nicely drawn, with a couple of surprises. Anyone else will just shrug their shoulders.