“On the Farm all animals were equal. In the Castle some are more equal than others.” – Opening Line to Issue 1 of Animal Castle

I have a ravenous appetite for comic books and audiobooks. I love getting immersed and swept away into these worlds of heroes and villians, fantasy and mystery, vikings and dragons – but every so often, a story comes along that pulls me back to reality. Brings me back to the current political climate in the world or to the pain and suffering of those less fortunate. I’ll be the first to admit that I avoid these stories – I don’t want to be reminded most-times. Life is easier when Captain America saves the day, or Frodo carries the ring to Mount Doom. When everything is thickly veiled allegory and just fantastical enough to seem too far-fetched. When I told my local comic book store that I was interested in Animal Castle, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought, naively, that this would be a whimsical story of anthropomorphic animals akin to Sly Cooper or Crash Bandicoot. I cannot understate how wrong I was. Animal Castle by Xavier Dorsion and Felix Delep is one of the best comic books I have read in the last 5 years. Animal Castle made me cry in anguish, made me call out in horror and avert my eyes, made me jump out of my seat in joy. Animal Castle is a story that I would be doing a disservice to you, the reader, if I spoiled a single thing about this book. If you have any interest in “Animal Farm by George Orwell but in comic book form”, stop reading now and go order a copy. For anyone who is not sold on that alone, I will do my best to not spoil anything about the book, but still give it the attention and commendations that it deserves.

I vividly remember the feeling I had when I opened up to this page for the first time. Felix Delep’s artwork is so striking and so unique that I just ended up staring at the page for a few moments before I even started reading. Delep’s composition on this page – starting with a zoom in shot of the castle’s flag, then slowly panning away to a double-page spread – it feels like you are watching an animation. The color choices, the use of a more faded-out palette, work to create a sense of foreboding and tension. I will not be discussing the story, and as you can see I have blocked out the word balloons, but I can assure you that the story is fantastic. The lettering, done by Tom Napolitano, is done in a comic, whimsical style that contrasts starkly with the subject matter, but works well considering it is about talking animals.

The layout on these pages show a more typical scene that you find within the comic. Dorison and Delep present a dense comic in which there is a heavy-reliance on dialogue (though it is not “wordy” in the silver-age sense), and the panels are also dense but heavily detailed. Delep does a great job of setting the background and location, then zooming in for the purpose of the story.

I understand that this article is quite unconventional – I’m recommending a comic without really saying a whole lot about it. But I honestly feel like this comic is worth reading with no prior knowledge. Animal Castle is such a fantastic comic and is so different from anything else in the market recently. I believe, especially with the current political climate in the world, everyone needs to read Animal Castle.