Review: Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon

Produced: Vertigo 

Written: Brian K. Vaughan             Artist: Niko Henrichon

Based on a true story, acclaimed writer Brian K. Vaughan (Saga) and artist Niko Henrichon present a tale of love, war... and pride. In war-torn Iraq, many casualties have gone unreported - among them, an escaped pride of lions. This struggling family of four great cats must find a way to stay together and avoid the deadly conflict that's exploding around them in a world they can never hope to comprehend.

Pride of Baghdad isn't the only book to explore what happened when the war and subsequent bombings in Iraq caused animals to escape their encloses at a zoo and roam free around Baghdad. Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo by Lawrence Anthony offers a different take, and is definitely worth a read to get a true account of events, as this graphic novel is more of a concept than an actual report.

I would like to start by saying Pride of Baghdad has the potential to be a really great story - it has an interesting plot and some out-of-this-world art. At face value, this is an extremely well drawn view of what happens when lions are set free into a world they don't understand, reminiscent of the journey in Watership Down.

The problem is Vaughan's writing - every so often he hits you with a nice and subtle anti-war sledge hammer. If Vaughan had just kept to the great story theme of family and the journey into an unknown world and left Henrichon's art to tell the war story in the background, it would be an absolutely perfectly written and delivered story with the quiet undercurrent of an intelligent look at war through the eyes of animals.

Instead Vaughan seems to assume readers are stupid and won't grasp the message. In many ways, it would suit a story written for children-  the animals explain the concept of war to an audience it assumes has no knowledge of it. But then there's the scenes of sex and gang rape amongst lions, so obviously it is aimed at adults. There's even a scene when the the zoo is being bombed and a giraffes head explodes; nothing else, just it's head. But then the next bomb is big enough to send all the lions flying through the air. Where's the consistency? Clearly that scene only occurred to suit Vaughan's sledge hammer of shock, and best demonstrates Vaughan's unsuitability to tell the rest of this story.

The best example of Vaughan's inability to tell either an anti-war story or a simple journey of lions set free, is a scene where a turtle explains how when 'walkers' (people) fought, a 'poison' (oil) escapes and ultimately killed his entire family in the water. You get a full page image of his dead family lying in oil, little turtle babies and all, with a caption carried across from the previous page - the lion cub asks why the 'walkers' are fighting and the turtle responds with "Damned if I know son... Damned if I care."

The very next page shows lions having sex and the lioness demanding she wants more... It almost feels like a teenagers wet dream of sex and violence, for no purpose other than to shock. If you're going to treat the readers like children then remove the sex, violence and rape, and it could be a brilliant child-appropriate story. But if you want it to be a story that conveys a strong message to adults, then treat the reader as if they have the appropriate amount of intelligence.

It's not all bad though, as Niko Henrichon's art is simply stunning. It really is perfectly suited to tell this story through the unusual perspective of animals. He captures full, perfect emotion and reaction in the animals' faces and his art is the the real triumph of Pride of Baghdad. The art is what really drives this story and creates a bond between the reader and the characters. There are a few full page images and also some spread across two pages. These really have to be seen to be appreciated. Henrichon's take on Pride of Baghdad using different panel perspectives and colours schemes to convey the atmosphere of each scene is amazing - I can't speak highly enough of the art, it's truly impressive.

To summarise, it wasn't subtle enough to be smart and it wasn't consistent enough to be a good story. Though Pride of Baghdad is worth a read just for Henrichon's art alone, I would recommend this to somebody that's prepared to view this as a simple, don't ask questions story. A quote from Vaughan's own writing in Pride of Baghdad describes his take on this subject best - 'You ignorant young 'Radicals' disgust me. My dung has a deeper understanding of this world than you.'

Read my (more positive) review of Babylon's Ark, or purchase Pride of Baghdad from Forbidden Planet. 

Review: Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo by Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence

I grabbed this book on one of my 'Whee, look at all the free books!' sprees in the library. You know, where you'll pick up anything that looks even mildly interesting because hey, it's not like you have to pay for this. And just for the record, I did borrow this completely legally and on purpose, as Hannah from Once Upon A Time now blames me for the disappearance of every library book in every library in the entire world.

When the Iraq war began, conservationist Lawrence Anthony could think of only one thing: the fate of the Baghdad Zoo, located in the city centre and caught in the war's crossfire. Once Anthony entered Baghdad he discovered that full-scale combat and uncontrolled looting had killed nearly all the animals of the zoo. But not all of them. U.S. soldiers had taken the time to help care for the remaining animals, and the zoo's staff had returned to work in spite of the constant fire fights. Together, the Americans and Iraqis managed to keep alive the animals that had survived the invasion. "Babylon's Ark" chronicles the zoo's transformation from bombed-out rubble to peaceful park. Along the way, Anthony recounts hair-raising efforts to save a pride of the dictator's lions, close a deplorable black-market zoo, and rescue Saddam's Arabian horses.

To my discredit, I don't know a whole lot about the Iraq war. I watch the news most days but with so much changing information and different points of view, I find it quite hard to keep track of. Thankfully though, this isn't written assuming that you know all the ins and outs of the conflict; it keeps you informed in an easy but not condescending manner.

This is primarily about the animals though. This book actually managed to disgust me - Lawrence's almost-tangible aborhence of the way they're treated and abused filters through the pages and infects you with the desire to run out and stab those responsible yourself. It's horrible, and a sad consequence of war that had never occurred to me. Thing is, it's mostly avoidable. People chose to do those disgusting things to animals and Lawrence really emphasises that in his book.

But then again, a large portion of Babylon's Ark shows how human nature is often responsible for great things. The author admits himself that he couldn't have saved the zoo if he hadn't befriended the American soldiers. They often fed their own meals to the animals and salvaged meat and zoo equipment whenever they were able - just because they knew the plight of those animals wasn't right. Then there's also Iraqi zoo workers who trailed for an hour through an active war zone to work in their zoo. Lawrence never for one minute claims to have saved the zoo by himself; he frequently mentions the hundreds of people who all did their part.

I was a little apprehensive about starting it, because war stories are often a little dry and slow. Not this one. I was sucked in after about three pages. It's half moving animal story and half exciting innocent-in-a-war-zone story; so the book whizzes past. I couldn't put it down.

Even the writing style is more than passable. I'm a pain in the arse for spotting bad writing, but it just wasn't here. The descriptions of the zoo, the animals and the country make you feel as though you were really there, dodging bullets with the author, and his personality shines clearly through with every word.

As you can probably tell, I loved this book. Sometimes it made me so angry I got that tight feeling in my stomach, but mostly it moved me to a ridiculous extent. You don't need to be an animal-lover particularly, nor do you have to like war stories; it's a cliche but there really is something in it for everyone.