"Laika" (First Second, 205 pp., paperback, $17.95) is the tale of the Moscow street mutt that served as the first guinea pig of space travel. Strapped into Sputnik II, which the Communists launched 50 years ago to herald the 40th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, Laika died of stress and overheating after mere hours in space. By braiding and embellishing her story and those of chief Sputnik II designer Sergei Pavlovich Korolev and Yelena Dubrosky, the nurse who came to be Laika's chief caretaker, Abadzis conjures the complex, scary period known as the Cold War. His colors are vivid, his pages dense — most are 12 frames deep though varied in verbosity — and his line is vigorous, if not detailed. Verve and variety, not finesse, are his watchwords. So is the emotional genuineness that makes this kind treatment of an iconic dog so strong.