Feral #14 // Review
The local cats inside the abandoned shop are understandably a little confused. Their new acquaintances have come in through the roof. Like they’re birds or something. Only they’re not birds. They’re cats. And so it's more than a little bit confusing for them. Naturally, they're going to look a little bit ominous to those who come in looking for shelter. They are going to have some explaining to do to the inhabitants of the derelict pet food superstore in Feral #14. Writer Tony Fleecs continues a remarkably well-balanced anthropomorpised adventure serial with the arts time of Trish Forstner and Tone Rodriguez, Color comes to the page courtesy of Brad Simpson.
The local cats ask the outsiders where the rest of their people are. If they had come from out of the sky, it would stand to reason that the rest of their people would come from out of the sky as well. They're going to have to explain that they are no others. They didn't see anybody outside of the shop. They didn't expect anybody to be inside the shop either. The leader of the group inside the shop identifies himself as Niko. He’s the ruler of all the cats in the shop.
Fleecs shifts deftly along the edge of plausibility with the basic premise of the story. Niko claims that the cats of the store had been born there and don’t necessarily know anything at all about the outside. This stretches the bounds of logic, but it’s an interesting idea to have the cats in question totally out of synch with the rest of everything that’s going on. The cats of the outside find themselves in another uneasy situation...and the idea of a group of feral cats essentially ruling over a post-apocalyptic pet food store iS a great deal of fun.
The art team does a good job of firmly establishing the very narrow confines of a single pet food store ruled-over entirely by a group of cats. It’s a fun idea. It’s a fun visual grounding for an issue that locks-in the drama while making the incredibly mundane look remarkably fantastic. The anthropomorphization of the cats lands another solid mix of human and cat traits for the entire ensemble of characters. Simpson’s colors once again call to mind the basic elements of a cel animated movie. The visuals work quite well throughout the issue.
Once again, it's really fun seeing things progress. It's very inventive. Finding all kinds of different ways for cats to be cats amongst themselves without being in the presence of humans. Manage to maintain a very realistic and earthbound reality about them and what they would be going through without making them seem too human. The thing has achieved and managed to maintain a really good balance on a whole bunch of different levels is remarkable that they managing to maintain it for going to have to come to an end at some point. There's only so long that they can maintain the peril.
