Broken Frontier

The Porter family has their fair share of troubles, but the one saving grace they have is a talking dog named Bluff.

Narwain Publishing returns with another interesting and unique project simply called Bluff and I must say this one is entirely offbeat. It’s a hard series to pin down, but it sort of reminded me of a cross between Family Guy and Howard the Duck. I’m not sure they are fair comparisons, but as I sat and read through the issue those ideas struck me as the closest comparisons in terms of the offbeat humor.

The story opens with the Porter family going about their daily rituals. Mr. Porter is dealing with a serious gambling habit and Mrs. Porter is constantly spending her time in therapy. The Porters also have two teenaged children; a son who hates the world and a daughter who’s cavorting online with a sexual predator. So with this kind of family dynamic you would think the Porters are in dire straights, but luckily for them they have a talking pitbull for a family pet with a penchant for common sense. The Porters have named him Bluff, and he’s the lone beacon of goodness within the hierarchy of the family. The only catch here is that Bluff also has a troubled past, but all that’s being put behind him as he attempts to keep the Porter family from falling into total ruin.

Now with an unusual premise like that, one would think a comic like Bluff is a surefire read. Sadly though Bluff is not and although I did find the story entertaining, I had a hard time pinning it down. At times I thought the story struggled with the supposedly family satire and cute Disney like humor, and it left me wondering what writer Giovanni Masi was trying to say. Clearly he’s an outsider looking into the American family dynamic, but his script lacked the necessary bite to make this work on all levels for me.

The artist chosen to chronicle the adventures of the Porter family was Yoshiko Watanabe. I am not all that familiar with the artist or his work, but it was a fairly homogenized manga style that worked on some of the pages. Overall though, I thought it suffered from having too much of a cutesy kid friendly cartoon look that hampered the final product for my tastes. I also believe a large part of this is due to not having a strong enough script to lift this book out of its humdrum nature, and that’s a shame because this book could have been an all out romp for me.

Sadly though, it wasn’t and I often wonder about the type of audience Narwain was attempting to target with this project. Maybe it’s just me, but if you are going to play with a loaded gun in the beginning then it should be fired at least once or twice when it’s all said and done. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case here.