APOCALYPSE MEOW: Volume 1

This engrossing manga replaces the human characters who fought and died in the Vietnam War with cute anthropomorphic animals, recreating the conflict with its horrific violence and vivid military exploits intact. Kobayashi explains that a standard war comic would be "boring." So he offers American soldiers as rabbits, Vietnamese as cats, Chinese as pandas, etc. Painstakingly rendered and set roughly during the Tet offensive, the story follows the in-country exploits of Sergeants Perky, Rats and Botasky, the "men" (or bunnies, as it were) of Catshit One, a special forces unit engaged in risky missions involving recon patrol, jungle ambushes, tactical assaults and rescue operations. Kobayashi's impressively detailed military research includes a short prose history of the U.S. Special Forces, a prose history of the Vietnam War, notes on military procedures and a careful listing and rendering of period arms and munitions. Much like the mice and cats Art Spiegelman created for his Pulitzer Prize–winning Holocaust memoir, Maus , the animal characters are used to emphasize the horrors of war as well as the transcendent moments of personal courage that follow in its bloody wake. Kobayashi's soldier-bunnies have the tough, profane personas of hardened, dedicated soldiers, and this unusual manga manages to capture the courage, humor and military ingenuity of real soldiers in combat. (July)