Pride of Baghdad Roars

The war in Iraq has dominated American news and lives since the invasion, and it seems to be that a person hears more about over there than over here nowadays. Every morning there are headlines in that edition's paper, and every day there's someone on the radio talking about it, and every night there's mention of it on the television. Hasn't America had enough of Iraq? Not enough yet, apparently, for Vertigo comics has published a new trade paperback Pride of Baghdad.

Pride of Baghdad is penned by, the award winning comic book writer, Brian K. Vaughn. Vaughn also wrote Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina. His newest effort follows four lions that escape the Baghdad zoo, after a bombing made by the Americans in 2003. It's based loosely off of a true story, for four lions did escape that zoo in April 2003-because of the American bombing.

The graphic novel revolves around these lions as they grapple with their newfound freedom and what, then, to do with it. The four lions are a thinly veiled portrait of the Iraqi people. Is it better to have been a kept prisoner but provided for freely without self reliance or responsibility, or is it better to be free but ultimately sole inheritor of one's fate? This is the question Pride of Baghdad asks and does beautifully; Niko Henrichon's artwork is stunning.

Henrichon brings Iraq home more than the pictures in the papers or scenes on television, maybe because overexposure has deafened America to those mediums. His art is beautiful and alive, but at the same time dark. The graphic novel as a whole is dark. The story, the art-everything. And it moves quickly.

However, it ends surprisingly fast and unexpectedly. This, perhaps, is the single flaw to it. But with thought, there was no other way for it to end. So, then, Pride of Baghdad does end well, although the reader may wish for a better one. It is a fitting end for the story it serves, and the reader has to remember that this graphic novel is based off of a true event. However, it makes one wonder how the war in Iraq itself will end.

A read that's refreshing in its difference and its audacity to be unafraid, Pride of Baghdad is worth the $20. After finishing this graphic novel, a person won't look at the news about Iraq the same or even lions. Highly recommended but only for mature (adult) readers, since the content is what it is. Go pick up a copy at your local comic shop today or your nearest bookstore.