Feral #21
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFeral #21 is the series' most formally ambitious issue to date, structured as a completely wordless 'silent interlude' — a deliberate tribute to Larry Hama's landmark G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #21 (1984), one of the most celebrated dialogue-free comics in the medium's history. The creative choice is not merely an homage exercise: by filtering the entire issue through Ghost, a congenitally deaf cat, the silence becomes characterization rather than gimmick, turning the medium's visual grammar into the only possible language for this particular protagonist. The issue also delivers the first in-narrative confirmation that Feral and Stray Dogs occupy the same shared timeline, with the appearance of Sophie, Rusty, and other Stray Dogs characters on the final page — a stealth-sequel reveal that meaningfully expands the shared universe Fleecs and Forstner have been building since 2021. The first printing sold out at the distributor level and required a fast-tracked second printing, reflecting the broad reader engagement the issue generated.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Feral launched in March 2024 from Image Comics as the ongoing-series follow-up to Fleecs and Forstner's breakout five-issue limited series Stray Dogs (2021), itself a near-million-copy seller across all formats. The creative team — writer Tony Fleecs, artist Trish Forstner, additional artist Tone Rodriguez, and colorist Brad Simpson — had already experimented with a mostly silent issue at #6, but Fleecs publicly credited that earlier attempt as a dry run for the fuller, purer execution in #21. The series earned an American Library Association Outstanding Comics Award for Young Adults Series Honor in 2025, and had been translated into French by the time the fifth arc launched. The Stray Dogs crossover element was closely guarded by the entire team prior to publication, with Fleecs describing in Image's official press release the relief of finally letting the secret out after an extended period of protecting it.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Released March 25, 2026 by Image Comics; written by Tony Fleecs, drawn by Trish Forstner and Tone Rodriguez, colored by Brad Simpson.
- The issue is told entirely without dialogue, narration, or captions — a structural homage to G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #21 (1984), the Larry Hama-written 'Silent Interlude,' with a 1:25 variant cover directly homaging that issue's iconic imagery.
- The protagonist is Ghost, a congenitally deaf, light gray-furred battle cat; his deafness is the in-world justification for the wordless format, as the story is rendered from his sensory perspective.
- The final page reveals Sophie, Rusty, and at least three other characters from Stray Dogs imprisoned in the same makeshift CDC laboratory — the first narrative confirmation that Feral takes place after and in the same continuity as Stray Dogs.
- Issue #21 serves as the opening chapter of the series' fifth arc (collected in Feral Vol. 5 TP, scheduled August 19, 2026), which carries the arc description 'The Stray Dogs Return' and runs through issue #25.
- The first printing sold out completely at the distributor level; Image Comics announced a fast-tracked second printing on April 2, 2026.
- The issue launched with a large variant array including a G.I. Joe #21 homage variant (1:25), a 'Don't Breathe' homage Cover B, a 'Friday the 13th' homage variant, an Invincible Team-Up variant, and an Absolute Batman #15 homage retailer exclusive, among others.
- Forstner noted in Image's official press release that the series had previously tested a 'mostly silent' format in issue #6, but #21 represented a fully committed, pure execution of the concept for the first time.
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