Feral #24 // Review
The CDC has set-up a makeshift laboratory in a high school. There’s a single subject who seems to have survived the test. Active immunity. Granted--it’s only just the one subject. They have yet to replicated it in other trials. Of course...that’s going to be difficult when they return to the cats. As it turnsout, they’e all escaped their cages. There’s real danger for everyone involved in Feral #24. Writer Tony Fleecs continues a dark horror thriller that is brought to page and panel by the art team of Trish Forstner and Tone Rodriguez. Color comes to the page courtesy of Brad Simpson.
The CDC is going to scramble to find loose animals...some of them might be infected. They might know where to look if they think to look up: one of the tiles in the drop tile cieing grid is open. The cats have gone into the ceiling and they’re trying to find a way out. They’re relatively safe up there...for now. But there’s going to be a lot of difficulty getting them out of the facility if they can’t work together. Times are tense...but they’re also tense for the stray dogs on the other side of the issue. Their worlds...are about to collide.
The flip book formatting for issue #24 is actually very, very cool. The story of the dogs takes place on one side of the comic book. The story of the cats takes place on the other. They’re both running form the CDC. The two casts of animals meet in the center of the book, which effectively serves as the ending for both ends of the issue. It’s clever formatting that takes the usual tension of an issue of Feral and turns it into something more that also serves as a very cool crossover.
And the whole thing takes place in a high school. And much the specific action takes place in and around small animal cages. Once again: the art team focusses-in on the drama of the animals to such a degree that the actual setting isn’t as much of a feature of the drama even if the escape from the facility is the central conflict. There ARE some beautiful dramatic perspectives in the establishing shots of the issue...and the centerfold splash is a beautiful aerial shot of a room that is entered by the dogs on one side and the cats on the other. The design element of that is really cool.
And then there’s the fact that the CDC seems really close to handling the epidemic. And if the cats and dogs get away, it’s going to be really, really difficult to finish up the work they need to do in curing everyone. On some level, the whole series ends-up making a statement about the cultural backlash against vaccines that threatens to cause a major outbreak. There’s a fundamental lack of communication that threatens a major outbreak of something lethal. Your heart goes out to the animals. If only there was better communication between the animals and the humans.
