Beware False Profits: Reviewing ‘Billionaire Island: Cult Of Dogs’ #6
by Olly MacNamee
Summary
And so the fate of the world’s richest dog comes to an end in ‘Billionaire Island: Cult of Dogs’ #6. But, not just the end of his story but the end to other characters stories too. You may not cry, but you very well may laugh as Mark Russell and Steve Pugh mock those most worth of our scorn, the rich, powerful, but not necessarily the brightest, as we are learning for ourselves in our own world.
Overall
10/10Things take an unexpected turn for the worse in this issue. Well, from the perspective of Machiavellian medic, Reuben. But, as all good villains, he has a plan. It’s just not a plan that easy to execute. While, still all afloat at sea without a paddle, the eponymous hero of our series, Business Dog, continues to be ignorant of a world in meltdown. And all the while, winter Mark Russell uses this narrative to continue to take well aimed pot shots at the supposed sacred cows we have made for ourselves as a byproduct of a failing capitalist system we still cling to. Like the wreckage keeping Business Dog afloat.
Throughout the past series, Russell and partner-in-crime, artist Steve Pugh, have seemed to work close to deadlines, with much of the humour very timely. Even now, the pair take potshots at scared cows like Twitter, which in our own real world is fast becoming a self satirising walking joke without any need for Russell and Pugh to take shots.
Of course, by now I am running out of superlatives by which I can do Pugh’s art justice. But, I will remind readers that his artwork plays up to the various hyperbolic emotions on show throughout this climatic issue. As well as sporting a mean eye for near-future architectural extravagance he capture the seven ages of man, and everything in between, wonderfully and so expressively. A style of art so often associated with mainstream comics, but with just the right twist of caricature about it all to really help land each punchline, explicit of implicit.
But, this has also been a series that uses the central narrative as a way to pin onto it other bugbears and thoughts Russell has. There is even a point where vampires pop up. A fertile allegory even in Stoker’s time, here once more given meaning beyond the literal. It’s one of many ideas floated by Russell that makes this a multi-layered comic book and one I have enjoyed each and every issue.
As for the ending? Well, it will most probably satisfy fans. A bitter-sweet swan-song that is, as ever, one part comedic and overblown and another part thought-provoking. Fun and philosophical from cover to cover.
Billionaire Island: Cult of Dogs #6 is out now from AHOY Comics
