Title: Roy & Al Author: Ralf König Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press Publish Date: 2006 Pages: 62 Genres:: Humor, Gay, Graphic Novels Reviewer: Chris R. Morgan

Rating:

There are those who say that beast has a small percentage more insight and understanding of the world around us.  Though I pretty much just made that up, God knows why someone would ever come to that conclusion with the utmost frankness. Nevertheless, animals have been key in helping artists use a kind of observation of human folly that's not entirely human but not entirely alien, either.

In this case, German cartoonist Ralf König makes use of two dogs—Roy and Al—who are owned by a pair of gay lovers. An unusual combination for a comic cartoon indeed; however, the allure of König is centered around his take on gay life that is, all at once, absurdly comedic, consistently raunchy and with a tinge of social awareness. The cartoons in Roy and Al are drawn with the same exaggerated, light-hearted approach of most Sunday funnies. Dialogue bubbles are handwritten and fairly straightforward in setting up the situation and delivering a punchline, however dry, when it's right. The book is divided up into brief episodes that have many panels and are a few pages in length. Within the episodes, the actions of the two human masters, both young and muscular, with shaved heads and seemingly unstoppable libidos and the two dogs: Al, who is an uptight snob, and Roy who is rather large and more easygoing. 

The comics contrast the lives of two gay men living together against the two pets who more or less deal with it. A good percentage of König's humor is scatological, with images of rough sex, excrement and various linguistics of a coarse nature that should be obvious by now. König does not depend entirely on dirty humor. Though it's, for the most part, entrenched in the excessive in many respects, a good deal of the subject matter can be as mundane as it is perverted. Like, say, playing catch with one's pets, which a dog like Al is less enthusiastic about, hence the comedy. 

It's easy to assume that König is one of the Europe's leading cartoonists of gay subject matter considering all of the languages his work is printed in. This, however, is one of the first of his efforts to be translated into English. His reception in America might turn out to be interesting as homosexuality is still considered subversive, at least in some mainstream and not-so-mainstream circles. König's depiction of homosexuality in this particular work relies much on absurdity, slapstick and playfulness. Characterization is more injected into the dogs who, at least from my point of view, are more than sitting observers.