Other Voices: ANIMOSITY VOLUME ONE Guest Review By MATT LOWDER

Guest review by MATT LOWDER

  EDITOR’S NOTE: Matt Lowder is a fellow comics collector/reader and a member of the I LOVE COMICS 3000 Challenge on Captain Blue Hen’s Facebook page. 

Animosity Volume 1: THE WAKE  Trade paperback.  ( Aftershock Comics, 2016) 

Rating:  FOUR OUT OF A POSSIBLE FIVE STARS.

Writer: Marguerite Bennett. Artist: Rafael de Latorre. Colors: Rob Schwager.  Letters: Marshall Dillon

     This was a rite of passage book for me. Back during Free Comic Book Day 2019, I heard about this book, and this past winter, Joe (Editor’s Note: Joe Murray, co-owner/manager of Captain Blue Hen Comics) recommended it. When he explained the synopsis in a nutshell, I tucked it away in my mind, but didn't jump at it. I kept seeing it pop-up from time to time, and this spring, after I realized I loved Aftershock, I grabbed Volume One when I recognized the publisher's logo.

     When I jumped in, that first issue really grabbed me. It was outrageously over the top - - -  all the animals, all billion-billion of them. They all suddenly have consciousness, complex thoughts, acute intelligence and the ability to speak. 

     What quickly ensues is an apocalypse where animals and human factions on both sides have conspirators, allies, double agents, and sympathizers of all species in a complex web of food hunting, fortress building, and animal rights.

      It's bloody, it's funny, it's humanistic, compelling, sharp, and completely jumps the shark in its premise. It was honestly a little more of a shark jump than I expected, but when every character, every exchange of uniquely expressed dialog between two animals are so shocking, and mature, and threatening, or full of adoration and love, man oh man, the whole comic jumps the shark, therefore none of it does, ya know? It is just unapologetic in what it is. I see why it's a flagship series for Aftershock.

     It's a standout in every way, but requires the reader to really just go with it. As the situations and the artwork kept getting crazier with tortoises strapped with bazookas and deer with grenades dangling from their antlers, I wasn't sure if I was going to get Volume Two, but now I think I have to give it a go. Ha! 

     The blood hound named Sandor is written like if Sam Elliot was Eeyore. He loves his human girl named Jesse, and they're on a survival road trip to find Jesse's long lost brother. It’s precious and terrifying.

     There are five volumes out so far, and at least 27 issues. (Editor’s Note: Plus Animosity: The Rise, World of Animosity, and an Animosity coloring book.) I can say after accidentally looking at a few panels of those later issues, a LOT happens in this story - like . . . whoa! If I had to rate the four things I look for in a book from strongest to weakest, it goes like this for Animosity: Plot/Concept, Character, Language/Voice, Art. And this is strong through and through.  FOUR STARS.