Prison story in an animal kennel is the premise behind Kennel Block Blues. Our hero dog finds himself wrongfully incarcerated in one of the worst maximum security kennels around. He’s also a little nutters, as anytime anything remotely stressful happens, he breaks into song and imagines the world around him as roses and daisies.

The premise is fine, but the execution falls somewhere in the void between possibilities. Ryan Ferrier (Curb Stomp, D4VE) doesn’t seem to want to nail his vision in place. The themes are slightly too adult for kids, but not outrageous enough for “adults.” There are certainly different character types in this kennel, but they aren’t yet defined enough for it to be satire, but not grounded enough for it to be real world. It’s not silly enough for it to be stupid humor, and not clever enough for it to be smart humor. Meet the Feebles may have been over the top and gross, but it picked a temperature and dressed for it. I feel like there’s a world of promise for this idea going forward, and I’m genuinely curious to see which way it all goes.

The best thing about Kennel is that the artist, Daniel Bayliss (The Storyteller: Dragons), is having a lot of fun drawing anthropomorphic cats and dogs and going a step further to make those cats and dogs feel like something out of the Bettie Boop era whenever a song occurs. And, Adam Metcalfe’s (UFOlogy) coloring is once again exquisite.