Happy has lived at the Bronx Zoo for most of her 48 years, and for more than a decade has remained largely isolated and lonely. Like all elephants, Happy has a complex mind and a deep social, intellectual, and emotional life; she desires to make choices and has a sense of self-recognition. But like all nonhuman animals, Happy is considered a thing in the eye of the law, with no fundamental rights. Due to a series of groundbreaking legal cases, however, this is beginning to change—and Happy’s liberation is at the forefront. A vibrant and personal graphic novel, Thing: Inside the Struggle for Animal Personhood traces this moving story and makes the legal and scientific case for animal personhood.

Led by lawyer Steven M. Wise and aided by some of the world’s most respected animal behavior and cognition scientists, the Nonhuman Rights Project has filed cases on behalf of nonhuman animals like Happy since 2013. Through this work, they have forced courts to consider the evidence of their clients’ cognitive abilities and their legal arguments for personhood, opening the door for similar cases worldwide. In Thing, comic artists Sam Machado and Cynthia Sousa Machado bring together Wise’s groundbreaking work and their powerful illustrations in the first graphic nonfiction book about the animal personhood movement. Beginning with Happy’s story and the central ideas behind animal rights, Thing then turns to the scientists that are revolutionizing our understanding of the minds of nonhuman animals such as great apes, elephants, dolphins, and whales. As we learn more about these creatures’ inner lives and autonomy, the need for the greater protections provided by legal rights becomes ever more urgent.

With cases like Happy’s growing in number and spanning from Argentina to India, nations around the world are beginning to recognize the rights of animals. Combining legal and social history, innovative science, and illustrated storytelling, Thing presents a visionary new way of relating to the nonhuman world.

Review Quotes

"Acknowledging the personhood of nonhuman animals would go a long way toward strengthening the protection they receive under existing laws, and would hopefully lead to improved laws. These changes are long overdue. Thing dives deep into this fight, enlightening readers while providing an impassioned call to action on behalf of nonhuman animals."
Laurence Tribe, University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus, Harvard University

"In the tradition of groundbreaking works like March and Logicomix, Thing is a nonfiction graphic novel that informs, educates, and entertains all at once. Through pithy captions and expressive illustrations, Thing leads the reader to the inevitable conclusion that ‘a chimpanzee [or an elephant] may or may not be a person. But it is more than a thing.’ This is an important book for our times, told by a talented creative team."
Josh Neufeld, writer and artist of "A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge"

"In Thing, Sam Machado and Cynthia Sousa Machado manage to convey both information and emotion through their beautifully designed and drawn pages. Perhaps the most important aspect of their work is how Cynthia deftly portrays the underlying ‘humanity’ of the animals discussed through her evocative art. Like many important graphic novels of the past, Thing has the power to make an incredible impact with its readers."
Brian Cronin, Senior Writer, CBR (Comic Book Resources)

"Thing: Inside the Struggle for Animal Personhood follows the battle to move Happy, a fifty-year-old Asian elephant, from the Bronx Zoo to sanctuary… I hope that this groundbreaking graphic novel will bring others to see, as I have, that we cannot continue to treat autonomous beings as if they exist for our education or entertainment."
From the foreword by Joyce Poole, Co-Founder and Scientific Director of ElephantVoices

Contents

Foreword by Dr. Joyce Poole
Part One. Manifest Injustice
Chapter 1: The Case for Personhood
Chapter 2: The Great Chain of Being
Chapter 3: Habeas Corpus
Part Two. Unrebutted Evidence
Chapter 4: Self-Awareness
Chapter 5: Communication
Chapter 6: Empathy
Part Three. The End of the Beginning
Chapter 7: Naked Bias
Chapter 8: Una Persona No Humana
Chapter 9: Sanctuary
Afterword by Steven M. Wise
Notebook
About the Authors

Thing

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