Battle Pug by Mike Norton
Move over Cringer there is a new cat, or rather dog, in town… it’s ‘Battle Pug’ created by the ever-busy Mike Norton. Battle Pug is a comedic sword and sorcery webcomic released one page at time, every Monday.
The story thus far opens on a breathtaking castle and an equally breathtaking woman and her precious talking puppies. To calm these puppies the woman starts a tale of the Battle Pug. The story is that of a young boy from an Inuit-like snow tribe of the Kimmundy. Most boys of his age are eager to join the men hunting, but this one would rather play with his dolls, much to his father’s chagrin. The boy grows closer to his mother rather than his father and like any good story, tragedy strikes, changing the boy and his Mother’s life; ultimately leading him down a different path in life.
The art is handled by Norton with the exception of lettering by his Crankcast (his weekly podcast) co-conspirator, Crank. Norton is blending all of his styles from previous works giving this webcomic a unique look. Another great art detail is how Norton uses black dots to represent the boys eyes, where as the rest of the tribe has standard looking eyes. This technique of the black dots is very reminiscent of Billy Batson from Shazam, a project Mike worked on in the past, and acts as a way to make the boy further standout from his tribe.
The page layout of Battlepug.com adds to the look and feel of the web comic with its blood like painted border. This border is littered with various shapes of swords, axes and skulls spilling out to the edges. 
As for the panel layouts, often times Norton has one panel that acts as a canvas spilling over the page with the remaining panel being overlaying this panel.
Check out Battle Pug every Monday at www.BattlePug.com its fun, free and is a great way to start your week in comics.
