Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment

Hitching A Ride To The Fourth Beast Wagon

By Olly MacNamee

With a tour supporting this penultimate issue of Beast Wagon now over, and the book just about to hit the shelves of comic book stores for a week or so now, it was about time we looked at this independent UK title we have been following since the first issue. Here's my review of their fourth issue ahead of its general release. Go hunt it out, why not.

In this penultimate issue, the animals continue to revolt, but it is still their human keepers that are the most revolting, as you cannot hide from the sense that things are coming to a head, one way or the other. And not everyone will stand victorious. Like any revolution, there will be victims, but as to how large the body count will be is anyone's guess at this point as this fourth issue offers up a bleak penultimate chapter and an explosion of revelations that will leave you stunned and sick to the stomach. Just how Johnson andPearson would want it, I imagine.

Zoos can be perceived as a dodgy business in the first place, locking up animals and often in confined, disgraceful habitats too, but as the machinations of the zoo keepers continue to be revealed, Beast Wagon can never be seen as an advocate of such places. This is hardly a zoo that prides itself on the conservation work it does. Far from it, when the fate of Sherman the shamanic tortoise is revealed.

But, this wasn't the worst of it.

I was genuinely repulsed at one point, and that is a compliment to the writing of Owen Michael Johnson. It's not often a comic nowadays has that strong an effect on me. I've become too desensitised to certain tropes. But, when gorilla meets girl, as is the case in this issue, a sick inevitability arises that will leave you genuinely queasy.  Of course, in the hands of a lesser artist, this scene would come off as somewhat silly, unbelievable even, but the artwork of John Pearson gives the proceedings of this issue a grim disturbing reality that saves this whole series from being farcical. The adherence to a photorealistic style is a sensible and absolutely essential element when telling this tale of savage animals and savage satire. Pearson's pages are a cornucopia of different colour palates, depending on the gravitas of the situation he is illustrating. Earthy reds and claggy clay-like oranges dominate, however, used to create a stifling sense of the heat which envelopes Whipsnarl Zoo on this the hottest day of the year, which also coincides with the zoo's new attraction, the Lion Lounge. With the building thoughts of revolution and building heat, no doubt it will all end it tears; animals and humans alike.

As I've said before, this is a comic in keeping with the likes of Animal Farm, with it's similar theme of would-be revolution and a corrupt bourgeoise, and as such needs to rely on a realistic depiction of our modern world. And, just as the pigs begin to transform at the end of Orwell's novel, thanks to some pretty good hallucinogens our would-be author, Patrick, wandering the zoo in a drug induced haze, witnesses a similar Kafkaesque transformation take place as the security guards descending on him become savage anthropomorphic anomalies right in front of his very eyes. Definitely a bad trip, man, that only reaches an even worse conclusion as he falls backwards only to be met with the sight of the girl-on-gorilla action previously alluded to. Ugh, there goes my stomach again, just thinking about it! This is just as much about the unsavoury, unchecked savage side of humanity, repressed through social norms, checks and balances usually, as it is about the ethics of modern day zoos. The zoo is somewhat like the island in The Lord of the Flies; a microcosm in which the heart of darkness within us all, is given a perverse free reign. Unlike The Lord of the Flies, however, the ending is not met with fire, but with rain.

As the tensions begin to boil over, the rain breaks, and fittingly so do the animals. Is this their moment? Are they on the brink of a new world order? Only the final issue will answer these questions. I have buy favourites, as I'm sure others will, but I also know who I want punished by the closing curtain. Whether that will happen or not, I won't know until the next issue, but as the lines between the animal world and the human world continue to blur and shift (uncomfortably) and the Battle for Whipsnarl Zoo is threatened.

Olly MacNamee teaches English and Media, for his sins, in a school somewhere in Birmingham. Some days, even he doesn't know where it is. Follow him on twitter@ollymacnamee or read about his exploits at olly.macnamee@blogspot.co.uk. Or don't. 

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