First Impressions: Ferals #1

Title: Ferals

Writer: David Lapham

Illustrator: Gabriel Andrade

Publisher: Avatar Press

Pages: 22

WARNING POSSIBLE SPOILERS.

I’m always struck with excitement when a new werewolf story comes around so when I saw new release of Ferals at my local comic shop, you can bet your ass that I snatched a copy. The cover on this book just screams for attention for while I was not aware of this new series, out of almost fifty new releases on the wall, this one still managed to catch my eye. It’s easy to suspect that this will be a true horror tale of lycanthropy as we see a poor bloody woman about to meet her demise with the story’s long fanged beast.

Spanning across twenty two pages, this book does manage to create a solid foundation as we learn a little bit about the town involved, and the main character Dale who’s a cop patrolling an area of less then five hundred residents. Brutality shows up on the first page forcing Dale to investigate and soon our hero runs into a female character who I suspect is the main werewolf though it’s not spelled out for us yet. Later on Dale is caught off guard by the murderous animal escaping with his life but not before getting injured foreshadowing the curse falling on him.

At this point and time while the story is interesting, I must say that I have yet to find any of the characters likable. So far all we have going on for the good guys is a coroner who bitches about being called out to a crime scene and Dale, who gets drunk off his ass and uses his badge to prey on skirts in the local tavern managing to score tail twice in one night. That’s a lot of sex for just twenty two pages and makes me ponder if its going to be a constant reoccurring theme in future installments. I know werewolves and sex go hand and hand but when dealing in this medium I hope more actual story takes precedence. Dale even goes as far as to flat out punch a woman when she says something that pisses him off bringing my respect for this guy down to almost zilch.  

The artwork, like the cover remained impressive throughout. Graphically it is not for the faint of heart as gore and genitals on corpses occur here. This is going to be a gritty series holding nothing back which hopefully will drive the horror element up to eleven. The werewolf design here is awesome looking. It walks on two legs but still manages to look more beast than human with a unique muscle structure and intimadating facial features.

           Overall this first issue does a good job of establishing an origin story of the main character. The dialog is easy to follow and understand keeping conversations short and sweet for the most part but sometimes comes off a little forced. It does show right off the line though that this is going to be an adult gore fest and so far seems to be staying close to the classic lycanthropy mythos. I will be giving this one another shot.


Ryan Pierce