EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW: PUG by Derek McCulloch + Greg Espinoza

One of the happy surprises that comes with writing about comics is when you find a great piece of work that you didn't expect.  That happened a few years ago with Stagger Lee, the Eisner nominated graphic novel written by Derek McCulloch  and Shepherd Hendrix.  When Image Comics came over to iFanboy HQ with an exclusive preview of McCulloch's latest work, PUG, we jumped a the chance to share it with you.

For this graphic novel, McCulloch has teamed up with artist Greg Espinoza to provide the art for this tale of of former boxer, Jake, who now works as a collector for a small-time loan shark. McCulloch has shown an ability to write genre stories set in time periods, and by the looks of this work, he's at it again, complete with fedoras and boxing matches and crime.  I'm always up for a heart warming story of a good guy trying to make things right in the world, and it looks like PUG is just that.  

Espinoza's art, which you can see in the exclusive 9 page preview below is cartoony, much in the vein of Jeff Smith at times.  At yet, from the look of these pages, he's nailed the characters and their motivation through their figures with ease.  I'm most intrigued by the format of the book, which appears to be landscape (horizontal) as opposed to the traditional portrait (vertical) orientation. 

PUG is published by Image Comics with a cover price of $14.99 – it ships to comic book stores on July 21, 2010.

Exclusive preview of PUG by Derek McCulloch & Greg Espinoza (Click on a page to enlarge):