How Dog Man teaches us to connect theme to our audience
Plus, why I love Petey
I never expected the antagonist in a kid’s comic book to inspire my personal motto for 2025, but that’s exactly what just happened. A grouchy cartoon cat and his clone son helped me rethink how I’m living my life. That revelation only occurred because Dav Pilkey is a master of theme.
Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man is my son’s favorite easy reader comics series. At first, I wasn’t sure I’d connect with stories about a cop with a dog’s head and the body of a man. Nor was my first choice of books for my young son one filled with such slangy lingo: Hiya! ‘Sup? Hooray for supa powers!
Now that my son and I are about to embark on the tenth book in the series, Dog Man has converted me into a true fan. The series is irreverent, but good-hearted. Dav Pilkey employs every trick in the book to encourage young kids to explore their own creativity. Kids instantly connect with his brightly colored artwork, characters, scenarios, and supa silly world building.
I’m most intrigued by the journey of the series nemesis who is, naturally, a cat. More accurately, he’s a bad cat learning to become good. Petey’s journey is far from black-and-white. He’s got reasons for being a bad cat, and those reasons don’t evaporate just because Petey wants to a better dad than his father was.
Dog Man speaks to me and my kids on different levels, but Pilkey always speaks loud and clear by seizing one clear theme with both hands, layering it on, then connecting it to his readers. Let’s check out how he does it.
Love vs. Hate
In our latest read, Grime and Punishment, the story begins when Dog Man digs up the roses in the Mayor’s garden, hoping to honor a friend with flowers. This clumsy attempt at affection catapults Dog Man into a catastrophic mess of trouble that ends with the Mayor kicking him off the police force. Dog Man crawls back to his dog house, whimpering.
From the very first page of the story, with Dog Man digging out those red roses for his beloved friend, the first half of the theme is right in our face: love. Alas, love, alone, does not a theme make. Aiming directly at his target audience, Pilkey whips up an ingenious theme: love vs. hate.
How do I know this is the theme of Grime and Punishment? A better question would be, how could I miss it?
State your theme
When in doubt, writers can always announce their theme at the top of their literary lungs. This works great, especially when communicating with first graders. Pilkey inserts his theme none-too-subtly into the title of Chapter 11: Love vs. Hate. Who will win?
Bake the theme into your plots and subplots
Actually, isn’t this what all of us who write are trying to do every time we sit down and bang a story? I know I am. It’s harder than it sounds, but Dav Pilkey makes it look easy.
The A Story
Brokenhearted, Dog Man determines to get his old job back. He disguises himself as Cat Man, gets back on the force, then dives undercover to defend the city from a threatening villain.
As for the villian? He’s actually Petey’s father, Gramps, who became a supa villain by donning a personality amplifier. It turned Gramp’s buddy into a snuggle monster. But when Gramps wears the personality amplifier, he trashes the whole city--and makes a larger-than-life monster.
The B Story
Petey doesn’t know when Gramps is going to strike next, but he’s been around the block, and he has to protect his son, L’il Petey, from whatever his heartless father has in store for them next. L’il Petey is nonplussed. He’s already forgiven Gramps for his villainy.
Aghast, Petey tries to explain some people don’t deserve forgiveness. “Sometimes, you gotta hate.”
But what about love? Li’l Petey asks. “Hate has caused a lot of problems in this word, but it hasn’t solved one, yet.”
Holy. Theme. Batman.
The C Story
Remember how Gramps was about to create a mega monster? Meet Munchy, a giant lunch bag capable of eating skyscrapers and belching atomic flame. He’s hate incarnate.
How, exactly, is love gonna save the city from Munchy?
Well, now we’re back to Chapter 11: Love vs. Hate. Who will win?
Make your theme appear impossible to prove
Gramps has tied up all the heroes. Munchy’s flame-thrower burps are turning the city to ashes. Who’s gonna save the day?
Petey, dragged in to help, points out the overwhelming likelihood of defeat to L’il Petey: “You’re Mr. Love when when everything is going well, but when something bad happens, you suit up and fight. Only hate can defeat hate.”
Hate is looking way stronger than love. Unless...
Prove your theme
Grime and Punishment provides three endings for its readers. I’ll do the same.
The C Story
A group of psychokinetic, artistic young frogs get their webbed hands on Munchy and color his enormous paper bag body with love. Literally. They crayon up and color him with their favorite foods, their best friends, their happiest memories. Once Munchy is plastered with drawings of love, he stops tearing up the city and becomes a cuddly, lovable giant.
The B Story
Saving the day comes down to a showdown between Gramps and Petey. L’il Petey tells his daddy how to defeat Gramps: forgive him. Petey digs deep to unearth love and forgiveness for the dad who abandoned him and his dying mother. Gramps gets so darn mad that Petey has the gall to forgive him, he deflates back into normal old Gramps.
The A Story
While Petey takes on Gramps, Dog Man races off to rescue citizens whose homes are on fire. He rushes inside the inferno of the Mayor’s house seconds before it collapses, and rescues the Mayor’s beloved teddy bear. The Mayor is so grateful, he not only forgives Dog Man, but reinstates him on the force.
Connect your audience to the theme at the climax, then back it up with a killer denouement
Back at the climax, when L’il Petey urged Petey to forgive Gramps, Petey complained he didn’t know how. The answer? L’il Petey explained Petey was responsible for his own emotions. “It’s your story, Papa,” L’il Petey said. “You can color it any way you like.”
During the denouement, when L’il Petey asks how he should feel visiting the grave of the Gramma he never met, Petey repeats the same advice: “It’s your story, kid. You can color it any way you like.”
Love vs. hate. Who will win? Love won this time--but it wouldn’t have if Petey hadn’t been able to change the way he felt about a situation he could not change. In order to sell your theme, you need to provide a path for integrating it into your readers’ lives. The coloring metaphor provides a road map for how regular people can change their mindset and make it possible to choose love. Supa powerful.
No matter what comes at us, we can choose how we feel about it. Thanks to the timely reminder, my motto for 2025 is to choose how I want to color my story.