Blacksad

It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, especially if you’re a cat.

Quiet as a mouse, sly as a fox, busy as a beaver – animals carry a lot of meaning for us humans. So when your comic book is made up solely of anthropomorphized animals, you’re going to be able to cover a lot of ground, story-wise, without having to rely on as much leg work.

Blacksad is a film noir comic book series where all of the characters’ species reflect their personality and part in the story. Set in 1950s America, Blacksad was created by writer Juan Diaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido – both from Spain – and the books were originally published for the French comics market.

Guarnido uses watercolor drawings to create a gritty, dark world that is somehow very realistic – despite the fact that the dogs wear trench coats. Guarnido started out in animation, where talking animals are just about more common than talking humans, working on Disney’s Tarzan and Brother Bear, among other animal stories. 

The Blacksad stories themselves are rich and engaging, but the images are so moving… Curl up with one of the books and you’ll be purring in no time.