UnNatural, originally published in Italy as ControNatura, is Mirka Andolfo’s first major creator-owned series after the success of Sacro/Profano. Set in a brightly coloured world populated by anthropomorphic animals, it initially looks like a playful fantasy. Beneath the surface, however, Andolfo constructs a distinctly dystopian society in which the government regulates intimate relationships and dictates what constitutes an acceptable family.

Leslie (Les), a young pig approaching her twenty-fifth birthday, is dissatisfied with her job and her uneventful life with her best friend Trish. She also has a secret – she repeatedly dreams about a mysterious wolf. Such dreams are potentially dangerous in a society where relationships between different species are forbidden, as are same-sex relationships. Those who break the rules can be punished, while single people reaching twenty-five face pressure to accept a state-approved partner. The apparently cheerful world of anthropomorphic animals conceals an increasingly intrusive system of surveillance and control.

Sexuality is central to UnNatural, and Andolfo uses eroticism to illuminate the story’s larger concerns. Leslie’s fantasies and desires are not simply opportunities for sensual imagery; they are expressions of her dissatisfaction with a society that attempts to define whom its citizens may love and how they should reproduce. The contrast between her voluptuous, highly expressive characters and the oppressive rules governing their lives gives the book much of its distinctive tension.

The mystery surrounding Leslie’s dreams gradually expands into a much larger fantasy adventure, revealing that the rules governing her society have deeper origins than she initially suspects. UnNatural consequently moves beyond its initial premise as an erotic fantasy into a story about conformity, prejudice, sexual freedom and the right to determine one’s own relationships.

ControNatura was originally published in Italy by Panini Comics in three volumes – Il Risveglio (The Awakening, 2016), La Caccia (The Hunt, 2017) and La Rinascita (The Rebirth, 2018). The English edition, UnNatural, was published by Image Comics in 2018 as a twelve-issue series, subsequently collected into three volumes. A French omnibus, Contro Natura, was published by Glénat in 2018.

Here we include the first two volumes of the twelve-issue series, together with a precis of Mirka Andolfo’s introductions to these volumes:

Let me say something about the book you’re going to explore. Leslie’s world is a ‘complicated’ world, and, in some respects, it’s not so different from ours. The fantasy side you’re going to discover is more mysterious than what you can imagine. Leslie, in the end, is a simple, common girl (okay, except she’s a piggy girl): she has a boring life, she is like me and many other girls all over the world. But the message she got on the very last page of this issue is going to totally change her life. How will she react to everything that’s happening?
     In the second issue there are many new elements to observe that are worth reporting. First of all, we discover something about Leslie’s childhood (a not really happy one, as we’ll see): that is really important to understanding who she is today, ‘our’ little pig. We also see why Trish is the friend we all would like to have. A shoulder to cry on, a person who knows how to listen and who cares about us. What would Les do without her?
     But, aside from the relationship between the two friends (which is really important!), we start to see some new plot elements. The mystery on which Trish investigates, for example. Where will it lead her? And, last but not least, who is the mysterious hooded dude we see in the final sequence? Actually, we’ve probably already seen him somewhere.
     I hope that, issue after issue, you will feel the desire to discover a little bit more about her, her friends and the strange and terrible situation that they live in. And above all, I hope you see the passion that moved me, from the first page of the first issue to the end. I hope you’ll love Les even just a tiny bit as much as I adore her, and I hope you’ll join ‘Team Leslie’.