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Droemar — Canis: Page 11
Published: 2011-08-09 15:30:40 +0000 UTC; Views: 8450; Favourites: 88; Downloads: 33
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Description
Wolf comic wolves often tend to bandy snark around when attacking an enemy. They jeer and scorn the brain-dripping stupidity of the foe dumb enough to stand against their greatness. Also, talking appears to be a free action. Jugulars can be torn and opponents up on their hind legs tearing at each other: they will still be able to iterate the evil of their enemy in loving detail. Philosophy and morality is always a popular subject for their rantings; but it’s never “Why, evil wolf? Why did you have to be different?” but “Your ideas are stupid, evil wolf, and I hate you!” Echoing what most pro wolf, anti-human arguments tend to turn into on the Internet.I think the consensus of many who hail the wolf as transcendental forget that wolves don’t reason like we do. Hungry wolves, given a choice between a free meal and hunting a bull moose will never act in the equivalent of “Screw that, buddy, I’m WILD and FREE! To the moose!” They’d eat the free meal. Wolves, long ago, did in fact make this exact choice: they chose to leave hunting and come to the human fireside. Mankind selected against wolf traits like dominance, and instead opted for trainability and obedience.
Wolves have what they need to survive. Conversely, so do dogs. Dogs’s adaptability and companionship have made them 400 million strong. Dogs put up with more crap from a human than a wolf ever would, and that is what makes them endearing to our species. Dogs can smell the chemical changes in our brains and know our emotion better than we do; our ancestral memory of dogs is so deep-seeded that even one year old children can correctly identify a happy
dog from a sad one, even if they’ve never encountered a dog before in their own lives.
Blind proponents of the wolf argue that wolves have a perception of the human ideal of “freedom.” But it’s only the human perception of an abstract concept that we attempt to project onto wolves, which gets really ironic when you try to define what "freedom" even is.
That’s called “anthropomorphizing”, boys and girls.
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Comments: 45
huh, think this is the first time I saw an argument of being domestic or wild like this. ^^
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"Free from what?"
I remember the "Sight," and I think "Warriors" too, involving an interaction between domesticated and wild. The wild animal will go on about freedom, only to have the domesticated animal point out that this "freedom" comes at a cost: shorter life, starvation, lack of shelter...a harsh life in general. It's odd that I don't see too many wolf comics on here point that out.
This comic at first gives me a tragic vibe, but then you get to the ending and read through it a second time and it changes to an ignorant and impudent vibe from Moonstar.
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Again i agree 100%. Wolves arent bad and neither are dogs. Wolves are good at being wolves, and dogs are good at being dogs. They are very different, similar, and have different abilities. But none is better than the other. Equivalence.
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"It is not stupidity... It is loyalty."
This. This right here, this is what separates the dogs from the wolves. Very well written, I'm loving this comic hardcore.
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Oh dear, talking whilst battling is quite a common trope however and not limited to wolf comics. Probably learned from various anime/tv shows/movies the artist has seen. It's just weirder for wolves and animals that bite as a main form of attack, considering their mouths are otherwise engaged.
I've always been a fan of using animals as symbols in stories and artwork. Wolves are free! Eagles are brave! Stags are proud! That's cool. It's just when people start thinking that the real animal itself has any sense of human concepts that I start facepalming.
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Haha. I have a feeling that Axe has had this conversation with lots of other wolves before. Perhaps he has to have it ever year as winter hits and young wolves break off from the pack to go start their own.
But speaking of pathetic fallacies attached to wolves, one I've seen a lot is the misconception that "a natural born alpha" is always the boldest, bravest, and most adventurous of all the pups born in a litter. In reality, that pup usually gets eaten because it's so bold it wanders away from the safety of the pack. Those that do survive their first few years either develop a sharp learning curve to balance out their temperaments or become "natural born trouble finders" like Moonstar.
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I definitely see Moonstar as that type. Fearless in nature is not rewarded well.
And I have a feeling the whole wolf attack thing is old hat to Axe and Hollow. To the other, younger dogs, maybe it's more a shock.
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Very true there are plenty of videos on the internet of what happens to animals that fearlessly attack an oncoming car or a human with a gun (talk about lame examples, but oh well). I think at least one reason why the misconception of bold=alpha persists is that people confuse boldness/fearlessness with confidence, which is a key trait of an alpha.
Actually, I have a good example of the power of confidence in an alpha type wolf that also fits well with the fact that "wolves are not dogs" that you've mentioned before. Warning: long story follows!
I once met a lady who was a meter reader for an electric company. A few years prior she had gone to examine the meter on the property of a couple who owned an actual full blooded wolf. While she was recording the readings from the meter, the wolf soundless came up behind her and climbed up on a woodpile so that he was eye level with her when she turned around.
Something she stressed to me over and over again while telling this story is that wolf eyes are nothing like a dog's (or anthropomorphic Disney eyes either): they hold your absolute attention. Period. And not in the friendly and trusting way that dogs do, but merely through "the power of presence" as she put it.
The wolf didn't growl at her or use any other aggressive tactics, because in that moment there was a complete understanding between the two of them that he was the alpha and she was not (a humbling experience, to say the least). After he was sure that she wasn't a threat, he left and went to find its owners which were somewhere on the property. She didn't move until the owners of the wolf returned to the house and found her.
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That is badass. I imagine a wolf's eyes would be much the same as a bear or a tiger: the all-too-awareness that something could seriously hurt and kill you if it took it into its head to do so.
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The story gets even better. After the owners of the wolf found her they made a BIG point of being friendly with her -- all the while repeating their claim that they had all of the appropriate licenses and documents to own their wolf (and yet, it was unsupervised and unrestrained when it cornered the meter reader lady). When she opened the door to her truck to leave, the wolf instantly jumped in ahead of her. The couple exclaimed "Oh! He must really like you!"
The lady didn't fall for that, however. She knew that this was the wolf's way of saying "I just pwned you a minute ago, so all of your stuff is now mine, m'kay?" Needless to say, she never went back to that property. XD
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hahaa. yeah. I keep using the eye thing when people ask "what is it about wolves"
"it's the eyes, they are capitating, they burn into your soul and say i own you, they trick us with their gaze."
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Hahaha. True, the gaze of something that powerful and confident would make any sensible person realize how precarious and artificial that "Top of the Food Chain" myth really is.
But still I think the situation had more to do with the fact that wolf had an alpha type personality, and my acquaintance did not. A more submissive animal, while still unpredictable, might have been easier for her to cope with.
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I like the argument. "free from what?" This is really coming good.
I also agree with you on the dialouge. Dialouge during a fight should be more like, for example;"Why are you doing this? What do you accomplish by unleashing Uroborus?" instead of just trash-talking. That gives the reader a chance to understand what's going in the atangonist's mind, assuming the atangonist has the proper dialouge to answer the question properly.
Wolves would definatly take a free meal over hunting. Hunting can be dangerous. If a wolf saw a package of meat on the ground near his right and a deer to his left, i'm sure he wouldn't risk injury and just take the meat.
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Anthropomorphizing actually 
I think I'm starting to understand the deconstruction you're doing though, it's mainly in response to people who have an insanely romanticized view of wolves and believe it as fact rather than well...romanticized, and at the same time don't even tell a very good story if they happen to be trying to tell one?
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that is the essence of wolfaboo. over romanticization.
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Never met a wolfaboo, or read a wolf comic, so I wouldn't know. It never fully dawned on me till just now that there are actually alot of people like that.
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It was hard for me to get, cause I never really have encountered someone that seriously believes the romanticized/stereotyped view of animals in stories as truth. O.o Kind of glad I haven't been exposed to this sort of person, it'd probably aggravate me on some level.
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But without anthropomorphism animal cartoons turn into documentaries (which in itself is a fine thing, I just happen to enjoy my collection of Disney films more ^^').
Exactly how big IS that dog? It's humongous O_O
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Axe has more Mossolor in him than the other Rotts, was my musing. This is a medieval Germany setting, perhaps back when the breed was still being established. I like to think of Axe as 250+ lbs, closer to mastiff than Rottweiler.
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Ah, that clears things up a bit. Someone's done their homework I see 
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No animal has any notion of or gives a damn about "freedom". Another romantic human notion, and the only reason humans are so attached to it is that they lack it so desperately they have to constantly try to convince themselves they are free. Anyway, back to animals, give them their basic needs (food, mate, appropriate territory) and see if they care if there are bars all around.
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ahhaa. I'd love to use that aginst animal rights people XD
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If only they would READ before protesting.
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Freedom is the ability to choose what is good for you. License is the ability to do whatever you want.
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In a well-managed zoo, enclosures are more about keeping people OUT than keeping animals IN. That lazy tiger there isn't exactly tearing down the walls try to get out. At worst, maybe it would prefer a bit more space so it wouldn't have to listen to noisy humans all day, but its got food and shelter and no other tigers bothering it. Great apes probably have a better understanding of "freedom", seeing as they're well known for being master escape artists and can clearly tell the difference between "me in here" and "them out there", the "them" walking around with all that nice stuff they can't have.
Freedom, for an animal, might be more about what needs are met than vague concepts like freedom of expression or choice. Wanting freedom is getting pissed off about lack of mating opportunities, the inability to mark your territory, or inability to fully express instinct. As such, the definition of freedom would vary wildly from animal to animal. A wolf would get real pissed if a human tried to assert authority over it (if that human doesn't have the physical or mental presence of an alpha, as the wolf sees it) or keep it from killing that tasty cow or pissing all over the furniture. Inevitably you'd find a wolf at odds with a dog, who's got a much much different set of priorities.
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Just wondering- how was the book? I've been meaning to pick up a copy at my library but I haven't had time to. I thought the movie was phenomenal.
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The book is amazing. I tend not to like literary as a genre, because it's too much "life's terrible and then you die". But Life of Pi is the exception to that. It's the only literary novel on my shelves at home.
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I've been meaning to, I've heard good things and ought to pick up a copy.
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Just when you mentioned that good zoos keep people out, there's a whole chapter dedicated to talking about that exact thing.
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There's this extremely vulnerable meerkat enclosure at the LA Zoo that has barely any separation between visitors and meerkats. The meerkats (if they so chose) could get out easily but are too terrified of everything* to attempt such. But the people, well it would take even less effort on a human's part to get in. I've seen visitors throw popcorn at the wee beasties and I won't be surprised if there's an incident in the paper one day.
*Meerkats are like the stoners of the natural world. Paranoid and fascinated by every weird thing. And happy to sit still for hours looking out for "danger".
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"Free from what?"
Hahaha, what the hell could they possibly answer that with? XD
Awesome.
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Try it on a wolfaboo sometime.
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Yeah totally.
Free from that lovely air conditioning you have on a hot summer day? Free from taking a shower whenever you want? Free from having to struggle every single day to simply eat?
Sounds like a great life! We humans should all go live like wolves and be free.
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I have to say, one concept I'd be interested in seeing you cover is that of the practice of using eagles to hunt wolves, most commonly seen today in Mongolia I think(though I could be wrong about this.) Of course it depends on whether it would fit in your current setting, but all the same it's not a very well-known practice and I think it could fit in to this series if you wanted to check it out.
Just a thought 8)
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I wish I could cover that, because it is freaking AWESOME to watch, but I can't. Only so many pages.
Love to see yours, though.
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It did occur to me, haha! I have been considering some giant eagles in my comic, but it all depends on where the story takes me. Since you can't I'd love to try it myself though.
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You guys have might have already seen this video on youtube: there's a couple of different versions titled "Golden/Giant Eagle drags goats off a cliff." If you haven't seen it, I would recommend it for several reasons. Mostly to show how eagles could handle prey far larger than themselves, but also there's a scene were an eagle hover-dives straight towards the camera man. It could come in handy if either of you wanted to do perspective shots from the prey's point of view.
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