Beasts of Burden Omnibus by Evan Dorkin, Jill Thompson, and Benjamin Dewey
I wanted to write a haunted house story, but not along traditional lines. After a few false starts I hit on the idea of a haunted doghouse, which became my pitch for “Stray.”
Evan Dorkin
The Beasts of Burden Omnibus (2025) brings together all the stories of the supernatural investigators of the town of Burden Hill as written by Evan Dorkin and illustrated by Jill Thompson and Brian Dewey. What separates the protectors of Burden Hill from others in their field like John Silence or Carl Kolchak is that they are animals. Dogs, in fact, mostly, with a few cats enlisted along the way.
Let me start by providing several warnings for this review. First, I love psychic investigator stories. I watched the Kolchak tv show with my mom when it premiered and I was 8, and Manly Wade Wellman’s John the Balladeer is one of my absolute favorite series of stories. Second, I’m very fond of talking animals, from Wind in the Willows to Rita Mae Brown’s Mrs. Murphy books (well, at least the first half-dozen or so). Third, and finally, I’m friends with Evan Dorkin. We’ve known each other for, well, a very long time. Nonetheless, before I go any further, let me say, while I might have been predisposed to enjoy Beasts of Burden, there was no guarantee I’d like it as much as I do. It also means I got to ask him a couple of questions about the his stories and the series’ evolution.
When Evan told me about this series when he was first creating it over twenty years ago, I was hooked at once. As someone who had a dog (Luther, a beagle-border collie mix who was the greatest dog that ever lived, bar none) that led a pack of house dogs around my old neighborhood, this struck me immediately as a perfect ideal. Now, I’d like to think my dog was fighting monsters, but I really only think he was leaving unexpected litters of puppies around the area.
That first story, “Stray,” introduces the main characters of the series right away; Whitey, a Jack Russell, Pugsley, a pug, Rex, a Doberman, Ace, a husky, and Jack, a beagle. And the Orphan, a stray tiger cat who’s not really part of the group, but likes to hang around and kibbitz. They’ve come together to call a wise dog, a dog possessing supernatural knowledge and power, to help them. Jack hasn’t been able to sleep in his doghouse because he thinks it’s haunted.
The wise dog, an Old English Sheepdog named Emrys, does appear after a night of calling (or several nights, as it’s noted, “dogs aren’t known for their sense of time”). The doghouse is indeed haunted. Arising from an unfortunate event, the ghost of a dog named Trixie has become trapped on this side of the afterlife. Avoiding mawkishness, the story comes to a satisfying and poignant conclusion.
When asked to write a story for what became the The Dark House Book of Hauntings (2003), Evan hit on the idea of a haunted dog house. The next step was to find an artist, which he did in Jill Thompson In the book’s afterword, he says:
I wrote “Stray” with Jill’s art in mind, specifically the lovely watercolors she painted for her Scary Godmother books. I wanted “Stray” to have that storybook feel..She also asked that I put a Pug in the cast, something else I’m eternally grateful for. I can’t picture this series without Jill — or Pugs, for that matter.
Thompson’s art is beautiful, sort of misty and diffuse and perfect for the sorts of supernatural tales Evan spun. Benjamin Dewey’s art is sharper edged and seems to bring the stories he illustrated more into the real world.
When I asked him about his inspirations for that first story, he said it “was pretty much Watership Down and things like Poltergeist. A haunted house story with some references to the culture of the neighborhood dogs. And the cat.”
