Elsie, Patch, and Lord Fluffy Britches do not understand why they are in an animal control van, but this is only the beginning. What else will upset their world? Find out in Feral #1 from Image Comics!
FERAL #1
Writer: Tony Fleecs
Artist: Trish Forstner and Tone Rodriguez
Colorist: Brad Simpson
Editor: Dennis Culver
Publisher: Image Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: March 27, 2024
Previously in Feral: Elsie, Lord Fluffy Britches, and Patch are three indoor cats whose life was perfect. There were warm patches of sunshine and interesting views out the window. And then one day, everything changed.
FROM COMFORT TO WILDERNESS
As Feral #1 opens, Elsie calls out, trying to get Lord’s attention. She and Patch are in kennels on board an animal control truck. The people in the cab of the truck get a radio call that they have another pickup. But their truck is already full of cats. A sick fox steps out on the road and when the truck swerves to avoid it, it goes off the road and tumbles down a cliff. The crash releases the cats, and Patch and Elsie find themselves in the woods.
Elsie calls for Lord again and wonders aloud what happened. The sarcastic Patch reminds her that they had been at home, then some men came and put them into crates, and then they crashed. He wonders why they have to worry about Lord. He always finds his way back. But Else remembers nights of the family out looking for Lord Fluffy Britches.
Elsie desperately wants to find Lord and return home. Patch thinks they should stay with the truck. The driver knows where to go. Elsie tells him that the driver is missing and the other man is dead. She is uneasy about the other cats and really wants to go home. Patch is convinced that someone will come to find the people and to pick them up and take them home. But Elsie is sure the family did not want them to go, but for some reason the men took them anyway.
The radio crackles to life and the cats spot the other human hanging in a tree, dead. The radio warns them to follow safety precautions and talks about there being a new variant. This is where the penny drops for us as we realize this could be something like an outbreak of rabies. The cats do not understand this. Elsie needs a moment to think and remembers Lord as a kitten. Then she sees another animal. It looks like a cat. She talks to it, asking where they are. It turns around, and it is a raccoon that is foaming at the mouth. Patch rushes in and fights it into the creek, but it is a trio of rabid foxes who barge in to attack it and kill it.
The cats flee. The foxes chase them. The branch that was holding the other human snaps, dropping the body on the foxes, and this drives them off. Patch realizes Elsie was right – they must find Lord and figure out how to get home.
As if on cue, Lord bounds out of the woods. He is full of news. There are trees. There’s a stream, and it leads to a river. There are deer. Then some of the other cats got really angry. And there were badgers, which were angry, and foxes that had something wrong with them. Things just do not feel right around here.
MAKING SENSE OF THE UNKNOWN
The art of Feral #1 fits the story beautifully. The cats are depicted in the cartoon style that allows for human-like facial expressions while the body language and movement is all cat. The main characters are plainly all indoor and we can see their anxiety about being stranded in the woods. Patch seems older, as though he has a lot of experience with the consistency of their humans, who always come back for them. Elsie feels uncomfortable away from home and strongly wants to return. When we finally meet Lord, his enthusiasm is a breath of fresh air. He is young enough to still be adventurous.
Taking a classic outbreak horror story and looking at it through the eyes of animals who do not fully understand what is happening is brilliant and all the more horrifying because we do know and dread all the things that could happen to them. Their introduction to the rabid animals comes as a shock. We see and understand the foaming mouths and the red, angry eyes, but these are cats whose experience with other animals is minimal. Red also becomes part of the background color in encounters with the infected animals, and that splash of contrast helps to heighten the tension.
BOTTOM LINE: THREE CATS ON A MISSION
Feral #1 gives us a horror story with characters we truly like and feel compassion for. Moving the outbreak away from humans gives us space to think about it, considering how recently we have dealt with a medical outbreak of our own.
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Feral #1
To survive in the wild is an adjustment for three indoor cats, but this is only the beginning of their tale.
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Writing9
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Art9
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Coloring9
By day, she’s a mild-mannered bureaucrat and Ms. Know-It-All. By night, she’s a dance teacher and RPG player (although admittedly not on the same nights). On the weekends, she may be found judging Magic, playing Guild Wars 2 (badly), or following other creative pursuits. Holy Lack of Copious Free Time, Batman! While she’s always wished she had teleportation as her superpower, she suspects that super-speed would be much more practical because then she’d have time to finish up those steampunk costumes she’s also working on.