This past weekend, I had the exciting opportunity to speak with comic book artist Trish Forstner at Harrisburg Comic & Pop Con in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I admit I’m not much of a comic book reader, but Forstner’s table in the comic book artist alley immediately caught my eye. Her display included large prints of movie posters redrawn using different cartoony cats and dogs, as well as paperback volumes of two comic book series called Stray Dogs and Feral. As a lover of both horror and animals, I was intrigued by the contrast of the dark grisly covers with adorable cats and dogs, so I just had to know more!
Below is a transcription of the face-to-face interview I conducted with Forstner on Sunday.
Fandom Spotlite: Tell me about Feral. What is this? What am I looking at?
Forstner: Okay. So Feral, the ten second pitch is: We have our cats stranded in the wilderness during a rabies outbreak. [The] rabies virus turns all the animals into mutant bloodthirsty monster.
FS: That WAS a ten second pitch! Very good, okay! So when did you begin writing it?
Forstner: I didn’t write it. Tony Felice is the writer. We are the same team, artist team and creative team from Stray Dogs. Massive 2021 hit. So this is our follow-up. Of course, we did the exact opposite of Stray Dogs. What is the exact opposite [of a dog]? A cat. What is the exact opposite of a house? The entire world. And what is the opposite of a serial killer? Zombies again. I guess. But he’s the writer. He started writing this right after or right around the time Stray Dogs was ending. And, of course, since we’re the same creative team, we started creating and drawing along the way.
FS: Can you give me the ten second pitch for Stray Dogs? For anyone who doesn’t know [the story].
Forstner: Sure thing. Stray Dogs is a psychological thriller about a group of dogs who realized that they’re the trophies of a serial killer, and they have to escape. And we don’t care about that man. He is a serial killer. We care about these dogs. And we don’t really go into him too much either. So, you don’t know his backstory. I think it’s more scary that way. You don’t know how he got this way. And he just looks like everyday Mr. Dude. You don’t even know, it could be your neighbor, it could be anybody. I think he kind of looks like a weird version of Hank Hill, but…
FS: So how did you publish? Or, how did you guys get Stray Dogs and Feral published? Did you do it independently?
Forstner: We went through Image Comics. Image Comics allows us to keep our rights, and they distribute the book for us. So Stray Dogs, when it first came out, we optioned the rights to the movie to Paramount Studios. They’ve let it lapse, so now we’re kind of out there again with it. But it’s fine. That always happens, I guess, in comics. But the story wasn’t finished when Paramount optioned it. It’s finished now. So now it’s got a full circle beginning, middle, and end. So it’s out there, and Tony is— I mean, and you’ve seen, I don’t know if you’ve seen, but media wise there’s a whole slew of POV from the animal’s point of view, movies and books and things out there now. We kind of reopened it a little niche.
FS: Right, right. So then do you think having a movie made out of it is still on the table?
Forstner: Yeah. And what we want it to look like, though, is not, like what the current genre of movies. We want it to look like an animated movie that you would see back in the 1980s. Like a Don Bluth, hand drawn animated style type movie. That’s what I want it to look like ideally. But it’s up to whatever studio who purchases it or whatever.
FS: Do you know if they would let you still be on the artistic team for the movie?
Forstner: Yeah. As far as I know, I think that’s what that’s what the deal was with Paramount. Like, we would be consultants, so we would have a hand in at least what it looks like.
FS: How many volumes did Stray Dogs end up being in total?
Forstner: Stray Dogs is just this one volume. It goes [issues] 1 through 5, and that was the mini series. And that’s the whole story. But we had some little things that we kind of couldn’t fit into there. So we did a little anthology after that called Dog Days. That was 10 little short stories that didn’t fit in there. It was the origins of the first dog. Origins of some of the dogs in the book, closure, just little things that you might have missed or didn’t pick up on straight up.
FS: I think you said yesterday that Feral has 16 [issues]?
Forstner: Feral right now is up to issue 16, coming out in a couple of weeks. There’s three trade paperbacks that are the first 16 issues. Each one is like a typical zombie trope. We’ve got the introduction to the world in the first arc. And then the second arc is this cat lady house, so it’s kind of like a cult. And then, the third arc is starting into the Pet City, like, Zooptopia. “Zooptopia,” air quote. But, you know, is it safe? Are they safe? And then we continue with Pet City into this next arc.
FS: How long do you think this one’s going to go on, if you had to guess?
Forstner: We’ve got thoughts for, like, 50 issues right now.
FS: Wow. Okay. Awesome. And is Stray Dogs done-done, or do you think [it] could be revived and have more issues added in the future?
Forstner: I would love to see something happen where we bring some of these dogs into our world for the cats to see how they react and how they do things. It’s not out of the realm of possibility, but, I don’t know of that on the horizon yet. But I would love to draw these dogs again.
FS: You mentioned Zooptopia [and Don Bluth]. Are there any movies or shows or comics or any artists that kind of inspire you, that you kind of take inspiration from?
Forstner: My inspiration comes from the Golden Age of animation, like, the 80s to 90s. Disney, Don Bluth, Amblin Entertainment era of animation. That’s where my style lives. I live in that nostalgia vein. Because not only do I love it, but it’s what I wanted. Like, Stray Dogs and Feral is what I wanted from that at the time, but that they couldn’t do because it was meant for children. You couldn’t just do what what they were doing. But, I mean, Don Bluth’s stories were always darker. They pushed the envelope of darkness. And so ours just takes the Don Bluth movie and turns it up to 11. And Don also said good things about my artwork at one time in in my life. And so I was able to, like, just ascend. And be happy with everything from then on.
FS: That’s amazing! The biggest accomplishment, done. […] I have to ask: Are you familiar with Warrior Cats?
Forstner: I get that all the time.
FS: I thought you would.
Forstner: I tell people that this is not Warrior Cats, and that there’s not clans and tribes and stuff like that. It’s not like that kind of hierarchy or classism. You do get a bit of it. Like, you get the vibe. A lot of people have said [unintelligible] and a couple other things too that are kind of in that same vein with the cats. But I get the Warrior Cat thing. On purpose, I avoided it because I don’t want to have any bleed over at all, I don’t want any of that to happen. Warrior Cats is its own thing, its own beautiful thing, I’m sure. It’s a huge fan base. I get a lot of that. Kids come over all the time, they’re like, “Oh my god. Is this Warrior Cats?!” No. I’m so sorry. Different cat content. If Warrior Cats had zombies.
FS: Where can someone purchase these books if they want to start reading them?
Forstner: Oh, the books are available at your local comic shop on the monthly basis. If you want Feral on the individual issues, local comic shop. Both books are actually available at local comic shops. Amazon, the trade paperbacks are Amazon. Any bookstore will have them.
FS: Anything else you’d like to add?
Forstner: Just keep reading Feral. Keep checking it out. I’m drawing some of the craziest stuff right now. I’m into issue 17, I’m halfway done drawing it. Crazy.
FS: Can you give us a hint about some kind of crazy thing that’s happening?
Forstner: I’ve drawn the goofiest looking page. So, we’ve introduced characters named Moosh and Ghost. Moosh is a giant pit bull and Ghost is a deaf tuxedo cat. And both of them just love killing these zombies. They just love attacking and killing zombies. So look for them to be the bright spot in these stories. They just show up and they’re just the happiest. Like, they’re just so happy to murder these rabid animals. They crack me up so much. But so, yeah, I drew a splash page of just Moosh bursting into the store, and he’s just so happy.
FS: Aw, good for them. Well, thank you so much for your time!
Forstner: Absolutely.
