She dreams that Laika is calling out to her for help. When Comrade Yelena visits Laika for one last time she can hear the dog saying her name with every bark, even when Yelena is too far away to hear them. Laika’s entire story, as conceived by Abadzis, is heartbreaking but there are certain moments towards the end that I found particularly easy to identify with. There are compassionate and kind people throughout, of course, which only increases how sad you feel while reading it. The Cold War, the space race, the USSR during that time, common human cruelty, loss, privation, powerlessness… all these provide a context and backdrop to Laika’s story, so the heavy feeling starts a few pages in and continues to the end of the story. But Laika is really the story of the dog’s - and her people’s - life before she’s launched in Sputnik II’s tiny compartment. It’s not a spoiler to tell you that she doesn’t come back. Laika is the story of the first dog to go up in space. Readers who are new to the genre will be easily caught up in the story that is being told. Readers who are familiar with graphic novels will appreciate the quality of the artwork and dialogue. The graphics and text work in concert to portray the action and emotion in this story, especially in the dream sequences where Laika imagines that she is flying. Laika, is a complex story that focuses on the deep relationships that can be formed between humans and animals. Any preconception that I had about graphic novels presenting simplistic or cartoonish stories was shattered by this book.

Laika by nick abadzis