Animal Pound

This is an updating of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” for the modern era from writer Tom King and artist Peter Gross.  It features some truly lovely art from Gross, not just rich in detail, but in expressiveness.  His characters may be animals, but they emote as convincingly as any human with the bravery, humor, cowardice, and malice they display coming through unmistakably.  It’s remarkable work that conveys the drama, and the steadily escalating depressing horror, of the narrative.  King also has some cute ideas about modernizing the story:  Like having the animals secure funds by having kittens do cute things on a webcam to get people to donate to them.

King also says in his afterword that he wants this story to be put in the hands of readers everywhere.  To be studied in classrooms.  To inspire essays and interpretations.  To cause conversation.  To get people to talk about it in the same way as its inspiration as he intends for it to talk about our era in the same way that Orwell talked about his.  To all of which I can only say, WE ARE COMPLETELY FUCKED!

“Animal Pound” feels like the absolute wrong book at the absolute wrong time for us.  It’s one thing to warn against the dangers of democracy turning into fascism from the inside.  It’s another to do it WHEN THE FASCISTS ARE INSIDE THE HOUSE and destroying, stealing, and profiting off all the work that came before them.  We don’t need warnings – WE NEED SOLUTIONS!  We need stories to tell us how to fight back!  Or, if not that, at least how to endure until things get better.

That’s not what we get here.  King sees the end of all this as us willingly accepting dominance from an outside source that knows better.  That the efforts of those who tried to fight back are rewarded with death and madness.  That villainy will be reduced to buffoonery again, and its transgression quickly forgiven.  None of what goes on in “Animal Pound” makes me want to fight or to think that endurance will do me any good.  If you weren’t already about to curl up in a ball and cry based on what’s going on in the world today then this comic will do its best to help you get the rest of the way there.