Advance Review: Tom King Goes To The Dogs In ‘Animal Pound’ #1
by Tom Smithyman
Overview
Ambitious but only partially successful, this story attempts to retell the class novel Animal Farm. From the premiere issue, it’s difficult to understand exactly why. That leaves readers watching cats and dogs unite to fight off some oppressive humans. It’s curious, though hardly compelling – at least for now.
Overall
8/10It takes a lot of chutzpah to believe you can update a 20th century classic novel like George Orwell’s Animal Farm for a modern comic book-reading audience. Then again, Tom King has never lacked for nerve.
It was King, after all, who gave the Vision a murderous family, who made Darkseid a veggie platter double-dipper in Mister Miracle, and whose Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow will be the basis of an upcoming DC movie. In Animal Pound, he seeks to give new life to Orwell’s masterpiece. While he is only partially successful in doing so, one has to question is motivations.
The original story is an allegory and a satire of Soviet communism. Why exactly King is updating it is unclear from the first issue. The Soviet Union is gone, and Vladimir Putin may come off as a dictator, but not much of a communist. So why try to rehash a story that many of us read in high school? One issue into the four-part series and the answer is as murky as a pig’s trough.
King changes some of the details. The action no longer takes place on Manor Farm, but rather The Manfield Pound, a shelter that regularly puts down its unadopted animals. King has replaced Orwell’s pigs and equines with cats and dogs. The cat Fifi is the brains of the organization. She remembers when Lucky the dog was put down and for some reason, years later, is moved to action through an alliance with the other dogs.
The uprising against their human oppressors – the creatures who cut off the animal’s private parts and often forget to fill their water bowls – will be familiar to those who remember the original. And King takes all of this oversized issue to get there. His slow, deliberate pace threatens to lose readers who may feel they are reliving their sophomore English class.
All of this gives artist Peter Gross plenty to illustrate. Each animal has its own look and feel, and Gross captures the pathetic look the dogs have while being confined to their small cages for most of the day. Colorist Tamra Bonvillain paints the pound with those awful institutional blues and greens, which helps the animals blacks, browns and beiges stand out.
In the series announcement, King joked that he felt like a fool for taking on a project this ambitious. The next few issues will determine whether he was right.
Animal Pound #1 will be available for purchase tomorrow.
