Conklin Knows About Dogs

The first review of the Killing the Buddha pamphlet The Living Cain has just appeared over at Optical Sloth. It begins, actually, with some warm words about KtB itself:

Before I get to the comic, I wanted to relay to you the mission statement of the publisher, Killing the Buddha, because it’s fascinating: “…an online magazine of religion and culture for people made anxious by churches, people embarrassed to be caught in the “spirituality” section of a bookstore, people both hostile and drawn to talk of God.”  As someone who has had a lifetime to work up a healthy distrust of organized religion of all stripes (definitely in the “hostile” camp), I approve, and the site looks like a nice assortment of interesting topics.

And then, on to the pamphlet itself:

it’s the simply told story of a woman (Lydia) who, after an awful break-up in college, decided that she wanted to get exactly one kind of dog to fill the hole in her life.  The dog would look at her a certain way, go on trips with her, hold her at night, all the things a missing significant other wouldn’t be there to do.  This quest of hers didn’t go exactly as planned, as the dog she got was a danger to everyone around her, but she eventually moved to New York and has seemed to make a habit of rescuing all sorts of dogs, considering it a win if she’s able to stave off execution of these animals even for a little while. [… W]hen I said earlier that it was a simply told story I didn’t mean that it was simplistic.  Granted, backgrounds are sparse, but she captures a lot in facial expressions or the sudden acts of dog violence.

Our favorite line, taken out of context:

I’d say she qualifies as being an expert on dogs.

We would too. Buy The Living Cain today.