By Max Huffman. Published by Fantagraphics. Hardcover, 136 pages, Black on coloured paper, 2025. A satirical comedy about an ambitious power couple in a bleak corporate landscape who defy God and nature to create a modern Cerberus for their time. Dogtangle opens with a town hall meeting in a Taco Bell nestled in the bland corporate environment of Business Park. A man, bleating to anyone who will listen about the evils of current zoning laws, meets a woman who works in pharmaceutical marketing. They begin a relationship. They get married. From their union springs the idea of the Hypermutt: a many-headed mass of dogs that absorbs each new dog it encounters. This debut graphic novel from Chicago cartoonist Max Huffman, about an awful power couple who defy God and nature in creating a hound of hell for our times, is at turns a rich satirical fable, a white-collar black comedy, and a stylistic tour de force blending elements of abstraction, cubism, mid-century modernism, and visual sight gags. One of the most visually distinctive and funny graphic novels in recent memory, Dogtangle is also underpinned with a deep mistrust of corporate and cultural hegemony, cementing its relevance in our increasingly oligarchal times. PRAISE "Huffman allows us the satisfaction of seeing terrible people punished for their hubris… He's making science fiction about a world where corporate adventures have rewired the metaphysics of sky and animals." — The Comics Journal "So far as I know, there are not a lot of Vorticist comics out there. Max's comics operate in some/several folded dimensions that are not totally forthcoming but must be captured and deciphered. The stories are zingy, go around impossible corners and I think Wyndham Lewis might have written a blurb for them as well." — Gary Panter "This is Jim Flora-esque, operatic, cartoon world-building, and world-ridiculing, and world-re-enchanting, and it's good." — Kevin Huizenga "What happens when a navel-gazing egocentric corporate creative decides to improve upon mankind's best friend? Horrors beyond comprehension of course! Beneath Dogtangle's beautiful stylized abstraction (I'm a big fan) is a blunt force absurdist critique of the tech-overlords and business elites remaking the world around us without our consent. I love this book!" — Lale Westvind "Between the peculiar art, clever plotting, and general kooky vibe, Max Huffman has created a surrealist masterpiece." — The Newest Rant
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