New Verona is the only home that he’s ever known. It’s a domed city. They keep saying that...as bad as it is inside, it’s a whole lot worse outside. He’s a dog. He’s going on patrol with an older, heavier dog named Tank. He’s just a dog, but he’s the title character in Scrapper #1. Writers Cliff Bleszinski and Alex de Campi open a new series that plays a bit like a sci-fi canine cyberpunk variation of Hero Cats. The debut is drawn to the page by artist Sandy Jarrell. Dogs patrol a dangerous city controlled by a big evil corporation in a dystopian future. It’s a fun premise that pounces on the page with a bit of style. 

Scrapper and Tank run across a group of people in an alley who are being accosted by a six-legged robot. Scrapper wants to help, but Tank advises against it. “An enforcer bot ain’t a fight you can win.” Tank’s been through enough fights to know what he’s talking about. Any thoughts of helping out are completely dashed when a nearby kid gets abducted by a drug dealer. Scrapper and Tank shoot out after the kid. Bringing her back to her family gets Scrapper thinking about the family he lost to the enforcer bots when he was a far younger dog.

Bleszinski and de Campi open their six-issue mini-series with a fun introduction to the title character. Though Scrapper is pretty solidly anthropomorphized, there’s more than enough darkness in the story to suggest something a lot darker than your standard Disney movie. That being said, the crime in New Verona has a blank, dystopian black-and-white sort of feel to it that’s going to have to broaden into something a little more complex in the issues to come if Scrapper is going to be anywhere near satisfying. 

The skyline in the background of New Verona looks gleaming and futuristic...like something that might have been found in the backdrop to a side-scrolling video game at some point in the late 1980s. Doesn’t feel at all realistic, but it DOES provide some contrast between the loftiness of the city’s wealth and the grittiness that is patrolled by Scrapper and Tank. There’s been a lot of thought put into the way that Scrapper is going to look on the page. In more casual moments, he looks approachable and suitably cartoonish...(a bit like the Tramp from Lady and the Tramp.) When he springs to action and gets aggressive, he’s much more animalistic. It’s a nice dichotomy that speaks to a potentially engaging complexity for the rest of the series. 

The series could go in a whole bunch of different directions. The hint at bigger mysteries in future issues may lie in the fact that the kid is surprised when Scrapper talks. When she’s returned, her parents assure her that dogs can’t talk. So there’s something special about Scrapper and Tank...and all those weird, little talking pigeons and rats that are lurking about.

Grade: B