One Last Mission Goes Horribly Wrong in New Spy Series Old Dog
The upcoming Image Comics series Old Dog combines action, thrills, and spies in an ongoing adventure. Creator Declan Shalvey (Moon Knight, Thunderbolts, X-Men Unlimited) will be writing and drawing the series with letters by Eisner-nominated letterer Clayton Cowles (Batman, Star Wars, Eternals). This will be Shalvey's third crime-related title for Image.
Shalvey began as a comic book artist with the title Hero Killers, which won an Eagle Award in 2006 for "Favourite Black and White British Comicbook." He has an assortment of art credits from both Marvel and DC Comics, including Batman and Deadpool. At Image Comics, he worked on the art for the science-fiction series Injection. In terms of writing, for Image he's written crime comics set in his home country of Ireland such as Savage Town and Bog Bodies. Recently, he contributed a cover to the upcoming vampire series from Image, Blood-Stained Teeth.
The Image Comics press release about Old Dog compares the book to the spy series Sleeper by Ed Brubaker (Captain America) and Sean Phillips (Hellblazer) as well as the television show The Americans in the style of Jason Bourne. The protagonist of Old Dog, Jack Lynch, has one last mission to do before he retires from the CIA. Unfortunately, like most people a week away from retirement, things go horribly wrong. Then, he awakens years later a changed person in a very different world with only a shadowy group's offer giving him another chance at adventure, which will involve changing his ways with a new partner. So far, only the main cover for the book by Shalvey has been revealed.
Old Dog takes the unique approach of focusing on an old spy at seemingly the end of his career versus the younger action heroes who usually take on the role of protagonist in spy stories. Declan Shalvey will be doing a majority of the duties on Old Dog, including writing, artwork, and colors. He talks about the extent of his work on Old Dog: "I'm so unbelievably excited to let Old Dog off its leash. For a long time I've been itching to develop my own solo series from scratch; one that I write, draw, color, design and it feels great to finally be doing so with Clayton Cowles as my right-hand man on letters..." Declan goes on to compare this work to his run on Moon Knight: "This feels like the next creative step for me, one which is both terrifying and exhilarating. Anyone who was a fan of the kinetic, done-in-one storytelling I employed on Moon Knight will enjoy this series. It's full of mysteries, conspiracies and every now and then, someone gets a serious beating, often the main character."
Readers will be able to see what new tricks Lynch can learn when the first issue of Old Dog releases in comic book stores and on digital platforms in June 2022. It will join fellow crime and spy series from Image Comics on the shelves like Mark Millar's King of Spies as well as Brubaker and Phillips' Reckless, taking its own shot at the genres.
Source: Image Comics