Review by Comix
Werewolves have been a staple of human folklore for as long as their been a reason to fear the dark. Even the wise and reasonable Greeks had their own version of the lycanthropes in the form of the Neuri tribe, who once a year, were believed to change into wolves and terrorize the country side for several days. Even now, most countries have a version of a werewolf creature to warn their children about, even if they themselves don’t rightly believe it, and have unfortunately turned the once feared man/animal (or manimal, if you will) into a caricature of its former self. The comic Ferals, on the other hand, takes all that is good and terrifying about werewolves and slams it straight into your face with a rolling epic of blood, guts, and fangs. No more hot boys with stunning abs, no more glued on fake-fur clinging desperately to a C-actors face, and for god’s sakes, no more brooding! This is the comic that brings werewolves back to their natural habitat, killing people in the most brutal way possible.
Ferals starts off pretty normal with a shredded up dead body found splattered all over a mobile home. As tensions fly high between the corpses best friend Dale Chestnutt and the victims former wife, Dale decides to take a dip into the local dive bar and drink his woes away. It is here that he meets a mysterious woman who would change his life forever. He immediately finds himself, lets say, getting acquainted with her, and then stumbles drunk back to his friend’s wife and gets acquainted with her as well. Come morning though, all hell breaks loose. He wakes up find his former lover getting ripped apart by the narliest werewolf this side of London and as he chases it back into the woods, the cops appear and haul him in for the murder of his bar lay, who was also torn up to mincemeat. As he slowly comes to realize that the thing is after him and out to kill anything close, life hits the murder button. The werewolf bursts in and kills the cops, Dale gets bit and starts turning weird, blood and gore fly everywhere! It’s a wild rumpus! Suddenly, all the strange starts coming out of the woods. Who really was that woman who he plowed in the bathroom, what’s up with these bizarre secret agents, and how does this tie back to a weird cult now dead set on hunting him down? Full of twists and turns, Ferals keeps you on your toes all the way to the last page.
Ferals (published by Avatar Press) is just the punch to the gut that the werewolf genre needed. Foregoing any attempt at humanity or civility in the beasts, it takes the classic approach of making the werewolves snarling, savage sons of a bitches with a taste for blood. The writer, David Lapham, does an amazing job at bringing the horror as close to real life as possible. Instead of shying away from the sex and gore, he goes right for it, ensuring that your reading experience is chock-full of guts and titties. But it’s not just some exploitative, grindhouse comic aimed to shock your grandma; it also takes the time to create a great story and some solid characters. Dale’s adventures into werewolf land really stick with you and have you reaching for the next issue before it’s even out, especially when they end every comic on a cliffhanger. By the way, David Lapham is quickly rising up to be the next big horror writer, having taken over for Garth Ennis for a bit on Crossed and proved himself just as capable to write the genre of “fucked-up” as his predecessor. Don’t be shy on picking up his other work.
The art of Feral by Gabriel Andrade is just as kick-ass as the script, bringing to life all the bleeding bits into a fantastic, splash page art that leaves little to the imagination. He’s also credited with doing most of the cover work, and most of the alternate cover work, getting the honor of having a lot of creative control. If you want to grab the comic—which for trust me, you do—every issue is available through the Avatar website and probably your local comic book store. Unfortunately, there isn’t a graphic novel available yet, so you’ll have to satisfy yourself with the single issues, of which each one has at least three alternative covers. If you’re a stickler for collecting alternative covers, by all means, buy each version, but it’s the same story inside. Personally I think having alternative covers is scam grab more money, but who am I to judge? The comic is currently up to issue 12 and it’s in the middle of it’s second story arc, but I definitely recommend starting from the beginning. There’s a lot going on and you want to get the back story before you dive into it. Now go out and get it! Do it before the wolves come.