THE SCARLET SHEDDER

Dog Man takes on AI in his latest adventure. Guess who wins.

Since AI is built on predictive models, it hasn’t got a chance in the Pilkeyverse. The story gleefully whipsaws readers from Chief and Nurse Lady’s nuptials (not an eye will be dry after Li’l Petey and Molly’s rendition of the traditional wedding theme) to Dog Man’s encounter with a skunk (his subsequent tomato-juice bath turns him red, leading to his new Supa Buddy incarnation as the Scarlet Shedder) to Dog Man’s imprisonment for the crime of “moral turpitude” to Dr. Scum’s evil plot to “crush the world” with an army of AI robots to Petey’s poignant flashbacks to his childhood experience with homelessness. Add in some truly inspired Flip-O-Rama sequences and many terrible jokes, and it’s clear that Pilkey’s in top form here. In between gales of helpless laughter, readers will engage with serious themes. The author leverages the silliness to explore the algorithm’s dark side with the AI robots’ plot to “distract, divide, [and] dominate” humanity, using stratagems readers may well recognize from real life. Hilariously, the robots’ dialogue is rendered in a pixelated typeface straight from 1980s computing, undermining their boasts that they’re “SMARTER… / …FASTER… / …and STRONGER than” humans. A concluding page of thoughtful notes provides some additional context (and defines turpitude). Human characters are racially diverse; Dr. Scum is a sickly green.

Wise foolishness from the master.