Disclaimer-Every event described here happens in the following book Animal Pound, and this article is describing only those events in a fictional graphic novel. Any similarity to persons or events living or dead is purely coincidental.
Tom King and Peter Gross teamed up last year to give us a break from reality, a light look into animal flights of fancy. They came up with a wacky group of dogs, cats, and rabbits to pal around with in ‘Animal Pound’. For our pernicious pups, we have Lucky (remember Lucky!), Titan (a good boy), and Piggy (he says crazy things, and people just can’t wait to see what he’ll do next!). Our cats are Madame Fifi (she even SOUNDS stuck up, right?), Mitten the Kitten (are you kidding me with that name?), and Raven (the oldest, but SO snotty. She thinks that just because she’s been around the longest, she knows things because of ‘history’ and ‘experience’ and ‘being right’.) My word, what a bunch.
Lucky, Titan, and Piggy
Madame Fifi, Raven, Mitten the Kitten
So our lil’ scrappers are all in a pound (Hey! That word is in the title!) They’re under the watchful eyes of the pound masters, some humans who bring them food. Now Madame Fifi, that stuck up cat I mentioned earlier, breaks all KINDS of rules and talks with a dog. What in the world?!? That dog is Lucky, but not really, because the day after they talk, the pound masters send him to a farm far far away. This has a bunch of the other dogs sad because they might have to go to the farm too. Woof, amiright?
The thought of that gets another dog, Titan, to talk to that CRAZZZZZZY cat Madame Fifi. Against all odds, they come up with a plan to, get this, GET RID OF THE POUND MASTERS. Now, you’ve gotta give King and Gross credit here. An Animal Pound? With no people? That’s crazy! That couldn’t happen you guys. That’s how you know you’re in for fun fun fun! And you are, because when they succeed, the fun REALLY starts. See, the animals now have something called ‘freedom’. They are beholden only to each other for their success and survival.
Not doing what you say you’ll do, always a way to win friends!
That’s a true dilly of a pickle, but after more talking (always talking talking talking with these two) Titan and Madame Fifi decide that they’re going to work to provide a safe environment for all the animals. That means food and protection, even for the rabbits, the lowly, lowly rabbits. So, THEIR version of freedom requires that the animals recognize that they don’t want to merely survive, they want to thrive. To do that they need to acknowledge that ALL OF THEM (whatever) have common goals. Sure, they’re starting with good intentions, but they can’t always see what’s ACTUALLY happening. So they’re going to hold elections! Animal elections, can you believe it??
this seems like a lot of work, doesn’t it?
Now, elections are a whole lot of work, and you can’t just go around thinking what you’re doing is what everyone wants. First, you’ve got all the old animals, like Raven who have their own thoughts on how they spend the rest of their lives. Should we really listen to them? Then you’ve got the young animals. They don’t have the experience or knowledge to actually vote right? What do they know? And the cats, and the rabbits…there’s just SOO MANY OF THEM. Too many. They’re going to get an equal vote? Wow, this IS crazy. I mean, they’d have to agree to be considered ‘less than’ for the big strong dogs to agree to let them vote.
And they do! Their votes will count based on weight! All solved. Cats and rabbits weigh a lot less than dogs, like 3/5ths the weight.
Titan, the saved, Titan, the leader, wins a series of elections, but feels weighed down by a combination of the success and responsibility. He fears both. He fears the control he could have. Crazy dog! He thinks that they don’t need a king. They need a succession of successful animals, each putting their differences aside for the good of all everyone. Titan IS crazy, right???
The elections continue for a time. There’s a rotation of leaders. Some dogs. Some cats. The occasional odd rabbit. A rabbit president? What dog could stand for that? Maybe they all could. After all, the pound was now flush with food. You see, the old pound masters had something called a ‘kitten cam’. If the kittens walked in front of it, people sent them money, and it was still set up! Food would be brought to the shelter. The humans who brought it were paid. This is because capitalism is infallible. Yes, a parade of kittens, and even an occasional dog or two, like say, Piggy.
“Look, its me, my favorite thing!”
Now, there are some that would say that Piggy is a vain thing. A gross thing. A selfish thing. That can’t matter though, right? So entertaining! And not even interested in running for office…at the beginning. But what if he did run, huh? I mean, one wholly unqualified candidate can’t bring down a system that’s worked before. The pound is sound no matter what, that’s what I always say. Silly Piggy in his silly hats! And who would try to change elections? It would be cats and rabbits, that’s who. Starting with Raven.
Raven, the oldest, declares himself to be opinionated, not wise. Age does not equal wisdom, you see, but Raven is confident that Madame Fifi must declare one vote per animal, not voting by weight. Weight is a false metric. It assigns equal power to minority rule, a few here, a few there, weighted as equals against significantly larger numbers, might use that with ill intent, should someone provide the opportunity. Fifi rejects this opinion, rejects this advice, because she has ‘hope’. Hope, you see, will save them. Hope will keep them equal. Hope will prevail. (Raven = cukoo in brain talk, btw)
With that hope, Fifi stepped down, and a new dog was elected. The rabbits joined with the dogs in voting for their candidate, Rascal. The dogs, whose lives had been infinitely better, first under Titan, second under Fifi, felt that any policy changes that hadn’t been specifically beneficial to dogs maybe weren’t fair. Perhaps they’d been slighted (duh!). After all, the giant improvements seen under Titan were not matched with equal scope under Fifi. Therefore, they would vote ‘dog’, and these wrongs, perceived as they were, would be righted. A new glorious age for dogs would begin, with heavy efforts to improve only their own lives, even if at some minor expense to the whole, and major expense to the other animals.
Trouble followed- UH OH! Thru a succession of both dogs and cats, it could be viewed that not everyone was equal to the job at hand. Apparently, a finite number of animals can only produce a finite number of candidates. Leaders, true leaders, were a rare breed, maybe even less likely to have been in the pound in the first place.
A death, an attack, and the pound, while still whole, was a divided whole again. The cats, you see, had mocked a small group of dogs for being afraid of the weather even after ‘weather’ had been explained to them. They were scared of the storm, scared of what they knew to be harmless to them, and this was endlessly funny to a small group of cats. The dogs held that humiliation in their heads like a bone in their mouths. Can you imagine the suffering those poor dogs had to go through just because they chose not to use the information available to them? How is that their fault?
Endorsements were added in the next election. Popular entertainer Piggy of Kitten Cam fame thought his influence was bottomless, universal, and beyond reproach. Imagine the surprise he had when a cat was elected over his chosen candidate, to two terms no less. A mostly black cat, whose origin was to some, undetermined. Was the cat actually black? Is he even from the pound?? Should that disqualify him from even being a candidate? These are both very reasonable questions. They might still be asking them at the pound today!
And Piggy was just the dog to ask them. See, Piggy knew that the elections had been set up to be unfair to him. It must have been the case if he wasn’t the focus, if he wasn’t winning. Sure, not everything that is good for one dog is good for everyone. And sure, the majority had voted. And yes, they had all agreed on common goals for the pound that would benefit ALL of them, even if Piggy didn’t get the most benefit. The most votes. The most attention.
Now, Piggy had been in the pound the whole time. He was loud, lazy, and oh so dumb. Those last two were selling points to his followers, and he yelled his way right into office. Piggy said things that every dog and cat and rabbit in the pound knew weren’t true, but he said them so often, and with such conviction that it didn’t matter, so that’s like they ARE true, right? So, it didn’t matter that he had not helped the good dog Titan when it came time to simply howl. It didn’t matter that he cowered in his cage. All he had to do was say he was there. He knew his part. He knew what happened. After all, if he’s the one saying what happened and has the power to stop anyone from saying differently, who could argue?
Lying isn’t lying if you say you aren’t lying.
Did it matter when Piggy decided that the rabbits were food? Did it matter when he locked the cats away in cages? It did not! Because they are so smart, most dogs cheered as these things happened! There were even some super-duper smart cats and rabbits who voted to keep Piggy in office. Can you imagine ‘those animals’ being smart enough to make things better for Piggy?? Now, not all of them. Not even most, as you can imagine. This is where King and Gross really go off the rails, because they allow Piggy to cancel any further elections after just the slightest bit of unrest. It could never happen, I tell you! But in this wholly fictional story, Piggy’s final election was the pound’s final election too.
Looks like meats back on the menu, boys!
In the end, Piggy knew that the pound was a bad idea. Freedom was a bad idea. The other animals couldn’t be trusted. The money that came in from the Kitten Cam appearance was all he cared about, because the money could be used by him to make sure his enemies couldn’t hurt him. He brought in his own humans, who answered only to money (kitten cam money!) For money, all his enemies would put back in their cages. For money, he had his own dogs put in kennels. He just couldn’t have one of them even suggest that maybe there SHOULD be another election, maybe someone else SHOULD be in charge. It’s smart to worry that everyone is a threat, and Piggy certainly thought of himself as smart. He’d say as much, unprompted.
Slogans are fun!
And with that, King and Gross leave us with Piggy apparently in charge, because of money. Sure, he was in the position of leadership, but could it really be that there were people, humans, in charge of him? That the money, the humans WITH the money, were the ones that actually had the power? And that as long as Piggy put on a show to distract people, they’d be able to gain unprecedented levels of power and control over the entire pound? Just a crazy fantasy land.
Oh, they also had good boy Titan and Madame Fifi put to sleep.
Many thanks again to Tom King and Peter Gross for their funny, funny comic. Special kudos to Gross for his very realistic art style for such a fantasy-based book. Look for more fun with animal related books this year as we cover Red Rover Charlie, Stray Dogs, and Feral.