Strong Bonds: Child-Animal Relationships in Comics ed. by Maaheen Ahmed (review)

A multiauthored collection with a thought-provoking proposition that I readily admit has lived rent-free at the back of my mind for some time, Strong Bonds: Child-Animal Relationships in Comics, edited by Maaheen Ahmed, argues that "children and animals are recurrent, favorite characters in comic strips" and that although these "child-animal relationships have been a staple of comics production, [academic study of them] remain[s] overlooked by comics scholarship" (9). Whether it be Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Calvin and Hobbes, or Tintin and Snowy, the volume seeks to bridge considerable academic work on the topics of children in comics by scholars such as Michelle Ann Abate and Gwen Athene Tarbox, Charles Hatfield, et al., and animals in comics by Thierry Groensteen, David Herman, et al. The primary argument of the volume, as occurs with many collections, is more of a collapse of the multiple perspectives offered as it tries to interrogate the similarities, differences, and overlap between children and young adults and anthropomorphized animals in comics as a sort of "entirely new bestiary" and most certainly a taxonomy of such critters (for example: the "funny animal") (10). Throughout children's fare in almost any medium, animals are frequently imbued with anthropocentric characteristics, but this volume's main questions seem to surround what happens when comics introduce children into the equation and juxtapose them against anthropomorphized animals (11).

What follows is a remarkable and noteworthy set of essays exploring the dynamics between childhood and what Ahmed dubs "animalhood" (11), which, if one must consider the notion, is a somewhat dubious consideration given that the animals included in animalhood are already observed and reordered along the lines of anthropocentric representation. The topic provokes an almost immediate question of how animalistic these animals in juxtaposition can be when they are already instilled with human characteristics. Ahmed is well aware of this tension, though, and the essays lean into the peculiarities of the dynamics as opposed to challenging the immediate issue of the animal's representation. Amid the oddity of this discussion is a well-constructed set of theoretical remarks that lean into all manner of comics that possess this juxtaposition, from the saccharine to the decidedly not: for example, Jeff Lemire's Sweet Tooth deals with literal human/animal hybrids, but it is not a comic designed for children. This inescapable issue of anthropocentrically constructed and represented animalia is difficult to circumvent and overlaps with the even odder notion of already anthropomorphized animals who are also very much toys (see Winnie the Pooh or the aforementioned Hobbes.). However, one of the volume's most particular charms comes in discovering the peculiar chambers and eccentric antechambers that are adjacent to the main argument. It seems that to place children and animals into relationships in comics is an invitation to the unusual. As a young girl named Dorothy might say, we are assuredly not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

A major strength of Strong Bonds is its international assets, both by way of its writers and the subject matter covered. These essays are some of the strongest pieces, and it would have only been a further boon to develop some additional thoughts on the differences between cultures and cultural representation of the relationships between children and animals. These matters are largely left underconsidered. There are peeks into Flemish comic strips, Hergé, Italy, etc., but the multicultural representation of international comics, a unique facet of this collection and one of its strongest assets, seems to fall to the side as opposed to examining the work of Jack Kirby or Charles Schulz among other well-known and profusely studied creators. This is less a criticism as much as an observation—the investigations into prominent comics makers are welcome, but it feels like a missed opportunity as the comics scholar today cannot help but trip over scholarly examination and critique of Kirby, Schulz, or Hergé. Theirs are household names, and the essays that considered lesser renowned creators in Strong...