Feral #3
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFeral #3 (May 22, 2024) serves as the first appearance of GiGi, a calico housecat who becomes one of the series' most consequential supporting characters — her pregnancy, survival arc, and eventual confrontation with protagonist Elsie drive major story beats across subsequent arcs. The issue also marks the moment the series expands its world beyond woodland survival horror: the introduction of armed, hazmat-suited humans signals that the rabies outbreak has become a civilizational catastrophe, raising the narrative stakes from a cat's odyssey to something closer to an apocalyptic thriller. Within the broader Fleecs-Forstner creative project, it represents the engine of the first arc firing on all cylinders — the trio's rules-of-survival framework established in issue #2 is immediately stress-tested and broken here, with Patch's infection visibly progressing and the group's homeward journey concluding on an unsettling cliffhanger.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Feral was conceived by writer Tony Fleecs and artist Trish Forstner as a deliberate inversion of their breakthrough hit Stray Dogs (2021): where that series confined dogs inside a house for a serial-killer horror, Feral opens the world outward, asking what terror looks like in wide open spaces and building character dynamics first before identifying the worst possible situation to drop them into. Fleecs described the approach publicly during the book's announcement period in late 2023. The series launched March 27, 2024 at Image Comics, with issue #3 following on May 22, 2024; the full creative team across the run includes Fleecs (writer/letterer), Forstner (pencils/cover), Tone Rodriguez (inks), and Brad Simpson (colors). The horror-movie-poster homage variant cover program — a hallmark of Stray Dogs — was carried directly into Feral from issue #1, and #3 features multiple such variants including homages to Terrifier (by Chris Gugliotti) and Malignant (by Rodriguez), alongside a Jenny Frison virgin variant.
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- First appearance of GiGi, a pregnant calico housecat who becomes a major protagonist throughout the series' remaining arcs.
- Released May 22, 2024, by Image Comics; written by Tony Fleecs, pencilled and covered by Trish Forstner, inked by Tone Rodriguez, colored by Brad Simpson.
- Third issue of the first story arc (issues #1–5), later collected in Feral Vol. 1 TP (September 4, 2024).
- The issue introduces armed, hazmat-suited human antagonists in the forest, confirming on-panel that the rabies outbreak has become a nationwide human crisis — not merely a local wildlife event.
- Patch's infection from the feral raccoon scratch in issue #1 visibly worsens here, with bloodshot eyes and early cognitive deterioration depicted.
- Issue concludes with the cat group — now including GiGi — reaching their home only to find it abandoned, bridging directly into issue #4's homecoming arc.
- Carries multiple horror-movie-poster homage variant covers per issue, a signature feature of the Fleecs-Forstner line; documented variants for #3 include a Terrifier homage, a Malignant homage by Tone Rodriguez, and a 1:25 Jenny Frison virgin variant.
- The broader Feral series earned an American Library Association Outstanding Comics Award for Young Adults Series Honor Book designation in 2025, and has been translated into French.
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