Liberator #1 by Matt Miner

Liberator #1 Reviews

• 
  Peacegal

  2.5 stars -- LIBERATOR is one of the few comics out there with an animal rights theme. Unlike the earlier series ANIMAL MAN, this one doesn’t feature superheroes and costumes, but rather ordinary mortals who destroy animal-abusers’ equipment and liberate animals—obviously based on the Animal Liberation Front.
  
  The collection of comics varies in success of execution, but it is entertaining, and may bring certain issues to the attention of comics fans who just pick it up for the cool artwork and explosions. Actually, my favorite parts of this comic weren’t the main stories—but rather a couple in the selection of shorts at the book’s conclusion. One artist imagines a world in which animals and humans have switched roles—WE’RE the ones being slaughtered and tested on, and a vocal minority of anthropomorphic animals is fighting for our freedom. Another really cool story shows the female lead’s growth as an activist when, as a child, she convinces her brother that hunting with a camera is more fun than shooting animals with a gun.
  
  As an animal advocate, it is always interesting to explore art that deals with the subjects that so interest me. However, this doesn’t mean I agree with everything presented here. True, I don’t like property destruction in the name of animal rights, but I’ll discuss another viewpoint promoted in this book that affects far more animal advocates and causes far more destruction—to animal and human lives, not property.
  
  Like a disappointing amount of the animal rights and welfare movement these days, the LIBERATOR comic has allied itself with the pit bull ownership lobby. The pit bull is a type of dog that has been selectively bred for hundreds of years to battle other animals—first bulls, then each other—to the death in a fighting pit for the entertainment of sadistic human beings. In general, they are famously tenacious, with a “grip and shake” bite style that can create much more serious wounds than non-fighting breeds’ more common snap-and-release bites. Most pit bulls eventually exhibit some degree of animal aggression in their lifetimes—pit bulls killed or seriously mauled over
  40,000 other animals in 2013, according to estimates by the animal advocacy site Animals 24-7. This should be of deep concern to animal rights and welfare advocates, but it is chiefly ignored. Pit bulls also kill
  more people than any other breed type—as the breed gains in popularity, deaths attributed to it in the US have grown close to 30 Americans per year.
  
  And as pit bulls cause a disproportionate amount of suffering, they too endure it. For obvious reasons, dogfighting in the Western world uses almost exclusively pit bull-type dogs. Dogfighting is hideously cruel, and the only way out for even a winner is death. Pit bulls are also abused and neglected in such numbers that Pet-Abuse.com has its own separate category for pits—a distinction made for no other breed type.
  
  Animal advocates like those depicted in LIBERATOR should want to see special laws to deal with the special dilemma these dogs present—such as mandatory spay/neuter for pits and rules about how they must be properly kept and maintained. They should also seek to avoid tragedy by being completely honest about the breed type’s heritage, abilities, and special care requirements. However, aside from a few brave examples, this is far from the case in modern animal advocacy.
  
  Like the NRA, pit bull fans make a slippery-slope argument—your right to own this animal is being threatened, “your breed” might be next. Animal rights advocates can ironically now be found making many of the same arguments as the dog breeding and animal ownership organizations. Is this really where the animal advocates wish to be?
  
  There is a full page illustration in LIBERATOR that is ridiculous even by comic-book standards. Two animal liberators walk multiple pit bulls out of a dogfighter’s compound, the scarred fighting dogs trotting out calmly right beside each other, like so many lapdogs with a suburban dog walker. There is a reason fighting pit bulls, when not being matched, are kept in ‘dog yards’ on heavy chains out of each other’s reach. Indeed, dogfighters even employ a device called a
  “rape rack” that allows them to breed their pit bulls without the dogs attacking each other during mating. Every aspect of their breeding, conditioning, and experience has been directed toward the final goal of slaughtering other dogs. At Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, one of Michael Vick’s prized fighting dogs, “Tug,”
  chewed through multiple fences to decapitate one dog and severely maul another.
  
  The book concludes with multiple essays on a variety of animal issues, one of which is from a pit bull ownership advocate railing against breed-specific legislation, which, in its various forms, has the potential to be the only thing that actually
  helps end the cycle of overbreeding and suffering. The writer, Toni Phillips, ironically singles out Denver, CO, with its well-known pit bull law, as a holocaust of dogdom, and paints a picture of pit bull carcasses as far as the eye can see. However, as noted in the animal rights newspaper Animal People, the
  reality of the situation is far different:
  
  The net result is that Denver is among the few major U.S. cities which have had no fatal dog attacks in the past 20 years, while killing fewer impounded dogs of all breeds per 1,000 residents than any other major city between the coasts, and killing less than half as many pit bulls per thousand human residents (.14) as Miami/Dade County, the animal control jurisdiction killing the next fewest pit bulls (.33). Miami/Dade also has breed-specific legislation prohibiting possession of pit bulls.
  
  In the meantime, those cities with no restrictions on pit bull ownership and breeding are the ones
  euthanizing them by the thousands. This is a breed in which less than a quarter of all its members have been spayed and neutered—pit bull owners as a whole have
  proven resistant to voluntarily altering their pets even when discounts and incentives are offered. This is a breed that most appeals to the
  young and transient, often with criminal backgrounds. And this is a breed that routinely gets passed from home to home and flunks shelter evaluations because of
  aggressive behavior. All of this isn’t the doing of BSL supporters. By arguing that fighting breed ownership is a right, telling out-and-out lies about the behavior and history of pit bulls, and fighting every pit bull law as “discrimination,” it is the pit bull advocates who have become the worst enemy of the dogs they say they love. They are, in effect,
  whistling past the pit bull graveyard.
  
  Phillips commands readers to do their research on pit bulls—but when pit bull advocates say this, it is important to realize they mean that people should only read pro-pit bull ownership materials—not that they should explore the other side of the debate. Predictably, the two websites the writer suggests as good places to do research are
  two of the biggest voices in pit bull lobbying. One of these groups is on record haranguing the families of fatal dog attack victims, asking for pedigree papers for their pit bulls. If the survivors do not provide this information, then the dog was, in the group’s eyes, not a pit bull but some mystery breed.
  
  Ironically, despite Phillips’s exhortations that these are not aggressive dogs, her rescue group, Mariah’s Promise, is no stranger to pit bulls with a history of violent behavior. They took in a pit bull named
  Tyson, who, despite being raised with love in a family environment according to his former owners, fought another dog and then bit a little girl in the face. Mariah’s Promise hopes to adopt out Tyson.
  
  Further, it is disturbing to ponder how many young animal advocates are being swept into the pit bull mania without fully exploring its more troubling facets. And then,
  other innocent animals and
  people end up paying the ultimate price when the new pit bull owner suddenly comes face-to-face with the uglier side of their pet’s genetic heritage.
  
• 
  Lorra

  Fucking ace. Good story, good art, and good message. Wish there was gonna be more.
• 
  Akemi

  sometimes you cry, sometimes you hate, sometimes anger is all over you... if you love animals try to read it just as a story, cos rage is a dangerous weapon