A graphic novel by Frederic Brremaud

NOTE: I received a free preliminary, and likely unedited copy of this book from Netgalley for the purposes of providing an honest, unbiased review of the material. Thank you to all involved.

A few weeks ago, I read another graphic novel by Brremaud called Brindille, that I enjoyed quite a bit. It was a simple but effective fantasy book that had great art and interesting characters, in that review I stated that I wanted to get another Brremaud book under my belt, so here we are with Love: The Mastiff. It appears that the author has produced an entire series of these books on various animals, and if this is like the others, they appear to be heroic stories featuring nature as protagonist, antagonist and everything in between. These are marketed to children, but this one does have a small amount of blood in it, so keep that in mind if you plan to purchase this for a younger child. I’m dating myself here, but this reminds me of Benji, Homeward Bound, or Milo & Otis without the spoken dialogue.

A loyal Australian hunting dog finds himself alone in the outback when his master is bitten by a poisonous snake. He must venture across the dangerous outback to find his way home alone. The fifth volume in the lavishly illustrated, award-winning series of wordless wildlife graphic novels, each depicting a day in the life of different wild animals, told through the dramatic lens of Disney-esque storytelling, like a nature documentary in illustration.

“I’m tired of these Motherf%$#% snakes in this Motherf%$#% outback” – The Mastiff, probably. All kidding aside, this book has no text bubbles in any way whatsoever, the book is presented as a silent nature documentary of a hunting dog faced with the plight of making it back home, alone. There are scenes that, despite the subject matter, really stir emotions in the reader. The mastiff has to battle every bad thing we hear about Australia, including all manner of poisonous snakes. Truthfully, if anything, that is my one takeaway about this – Australia seems insanely full of evil snakes, hellbent on killing anything they come across. There’s a side-story involving a platypus taking care of her young, that immediately made me mad at the author in an unfounded way. “You better not…”, I said, to myself, the moment they started being in peril. Thankfully, The Mastiff is basically an animal superhero here and keeps everything safe at his own expense.

In the back of the book, there is a section on the recent Australian wildfires and global warming that was interesting. It’s cool to see a book like this tell what is ostensibly a survival hero story, then come with a PSA at the end GI Joe style, I thought that was a nice touch.

If you have older kids interested in nature, or comics I would definitely recommend this. Even in a classroom, something like this would have been cool when I was younger. I mentioned blood earlier, and largely its all contained to a few instances where the Mastiff has to defend himself from either snakes or Dingos, and takes justice into his own paws. it’s nothing gratuitous, but that does need to be a consideration. I enjoyed this book quite a bit, and hope to read more of these as he produces them!