The Bark in Space: Book 5 (Chicagoland Detective Agency)

Chicagoland can't get much weirder than this: Raf, Megan, and Bradley have been abducted by aliens from the planet Fnarf III! And not just your ordinary, everyday aliens, either. These extraterrestrials are intelligent canines, as smart as Bradley, who come from a world where dogs rule and humans drool. And they have a case Bradley can really sink his teeth into: the Fnarfian princess has gone missing, and the space-dogs need help from planet Earth's home team―the Chicagoland Detective Agency―to track her down. After uncovering zombies, mummies, were-mutts, and ghosts, is the Chicagoland Detective Agency up to the job of investigating their first interstellar caper?

Kirkus Reviews

"There are hundreds of stories about talking dogs, but if this graphic novel is any indication, every book would be better with a dog in it. The math is simple: A Google search for 'dog' brings up 1,430,000,000 results. So Raf's newest invention ought to be an instant success. It's a dog-to-human translator. The only problem is, dogs don't have much to say. Even Raf's (alien) canine friend Bradley, who happens to speak English, says: '…much as I love my Earth doggie buddies, I gotta admit that, unlike me…they're kinda dim bulbs….' The storyline is busy, even for a Chicagoland Detective Agency comic. There's a missing princess, a dog show, a mad scientist and a saucer full of dogs from the planet Fnarf III. The alien dogs get the best lines, by way of Raf's iDog2 translator, including: 'Human person, can you throw the flying saucer of playing fetch?' The art looks a bit more rushed than in previous volumes, but this is still one of the most inventive stories in a consistently innovative series. And even human beings will sympathize when the Fnarfian Princess Zu-La says, 'Earth people are nice enough, but not very smart…none of them understands me.' 'Relax and enjoy,' counsels Bradley. 'It's like a carnival ride.'"

About the Author

Writer and feminist herstorian Trina Robbins has been writing books, comics, and graphic novels for over 30 years. Her most recent books are The Brinkley Girls (Fantagraphics) and Forbidden City: the Golden Age of Chinese Nightclubs (Hampton Press). Her newest graphic novel is the three-part YA series Chicagoland Detective Agency for Graphic Universe™.Tyler Page is an Eisner-nominated and Xeric Grant-winning artist and educator. He illustrated the Graphic Universe series The Chicagoland Detective Agency. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife, author/illustrator Cori Doerrfeld, and their two children.

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