Bad Dog Books

“Paved With Bad Intentions”
The second volume of the award-winning graphic novel series Heathen City, titled “Paved With Bad Intentions”, has been a year in the making - and it shows. Four stories, half a baker’s dozen of the community’s most talented artists…

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Where Vol. 1 (“Always on the Run”) kicked off a pulse-pounding adventure, this volume aims to broaden the scope, deepen the mythology and peel back the obvious to reveal unexpected layers of the story, and the characters that drive it… and introduce a vast new aspect of the mystery of Maranatha City in the process.


Illustrated by ZooshWolf, Krahnos, Blue_Panther, Vahnfox, Fel and Charha, with a cover by Kaji - the art team reads like a veritable who’s-who of the anthropomorphic art community, each one delivering some of the finest work they’ve done.

Without eschewing the raucous gallow’s humor and scintillating sexuality that helped make the first book such a success, “Paved With Bad Intentions” goes deeper and harder, exploring the intricate and often heart-wrenching decisions and circumstances that brought the rogue’s gallery of characters to where we found them in volume one.

“What It’s All About”
Illustrated and colored by Vahnfox with additional coloring by Charha
Mere hours before the phone-call that reunited him with Owen, Malloy was up to no good. Despite his yearning for peace and family, it seems he has a habit of keeping secrets that drive away the ones he cares about the most.

“La Lune Trop Pâle”
Illustrated by Krahnos, colored by Fel
The world’s oldest profession is not for the faint of heart, nor for the unresourceful. A beautiful moon over night-time Paris, a chance encounter with a charismatic stranger and some on-your-feet thinking is all you need to find yourself plunging headlong into a new destiny.

“From a Darker Place”
Illustrated and colored by Blue_Panther
No-one is born a monster, and a mother can’t help but love her child. But anyone who grows to be such a cruel villain as Tony Caulfield must have had a moment where  they lost their innocence… or had it stolen from them.

“House of the Rising”
Illustrated and colored by ZooshWolf, with additional coloring by Charha
Introducing Tiber Ferrum, a businesshorse in a corporate world dominated by carnivores. How does such a man maintain his sanity, when every natural instinct screams a constant symphony of anxiety and claustrophobia… and how the hell does he fit into the story?

“Always On The Run”

Heathen City burst onto the scene in 2008 with its first volume, “Always on the Run”. Illustrated by Ayato, colored by Distasty, Krahnos, Charha and Fel (and of course written by the creator Alex Vance), the book immediately sold out during its debut at Anthrocon and Eurofurence, and went on to win the Ursa Major Award for Best Graphic Story of 2008. Read on to see what all the fuss was about!

 

It’s the year 2008.

Owen Zelazny, a handsome street hustler who’s finally found a reason to quit the world’s oldest profession, finds that the kind of life he led has a way of catching up with you. It was in the city of Maranatha that he became who he was, and the city, it seems, doesn’t want to be forgotten.

Chased by men willing to kill him for reasons he barely understands, Owen has no choice but to run, and run, and run. He knows there’s only one place he can run, one man who can help him. A man he turned his back on three years ago. A man named Malloy.

Together, they find their past coming back to haunt them, tearing open old wounds, but if they ever stop to let their broken hearts catch up with them, they’re as good as dead.

Heathen City is a struggle for survival in a harsh, sinful, violent urban environment. It’s the world we live in: cities are a tangled mess of plans and failures, ambitions and conspiracies. The rich brush against the poor, criminals attend church, mobsters and family men walk the same streets.

Heathen City is a story about sin and salvation, about the brutal consequences of innocent mistakes, the fatal fall-out of easy choices.

This is the world of Heathen City.

Blue_Panther, who illustrated the story "From a Darker Place" in HC Vol. 2, is a thoroughly European artist who brings a stark, almost clinical aesthetic to his work. Inspired by artists like Hergé, he values clean colors and almost iconic compositions. In real life, Bee_Pee is a trained typographical designer beyond his twenties who does graphics and artwork for the internet  and conventions as a second income. Most of these online projects are related to anthropomorphic illustrations and renders of animals.

"The first Heathen City impressed me very much. From the very first previews bouncing about the net, I was interested in the designs and story of this graphic novel. You can't imagine my thrill, when I was contacted to contribute to the project. The artistic approach to the comic and the illustrations is very varied, with the artists bringing a lot of their own panache to the story and feel. Upon reading the first issue, I had the feeling to see influences from both American and European comics alike, the underlying consistency being the driving story and tight plot."

"Well, the project was like a hike in the swiss alps: a very strenuous experience and the constant fear not reaching the SAC hut in time. Basically I had to wait, till I had nothing on at the office and do all the inking, colouring and layoutwork all at once. Working in a professional surroundings greatly helped me get the project done on time, though I would have liked an hour or two to spare rather than biting my nails asking myself if my pages transfer in time."

"Having a very detailed sketch-phase and strong support from Alex with ide

as, references and script reviews also helped a lot. The main interest for me was trying to have a consistent look over 11 pages as I usually only work on one illustration or a series of pictures over a long period of time. The strict schedule of the project forced me to new artistic decisions and brought me and my hardware to my limits."