“And I would search everywhere just to hear your call and walk upon stranger roads than this one in a world I used to know before”
Cathy Malkasian creates fascinating comics, and her latest, The Heavy Bright, which is published by Fantagraphics, is fascinating. Let’s take a look!
The Heavy Bright is, in many ways, typical of a Malkasian book – it’s fantastical, it features odd characters occasionally doing very odd things, and it champions underdogs and emphasizes tolerance in daily living. It’s a bit strange, but nothing too weird – there’s an afterlife populated by naked, angry men, for instance, but there’s a good reason they’re naked – and it features people who, although they live in a slightly odd world, have many of the same issues that we here in the “real” world do. This means that Malkasian often slips into allegory, as her plots take some very abstract things and make them more concrete, and her characters react to them in recognizable ways, but in somewhat bizarre circumstances. In this book, we begin in the afterlife, where a bird with a woman’s head explains that the world is in such dire straits thanks to her kinfolk – all men, who call themselves “commanders” – hoarding egg-shaped stones that cause people to have extremely negative feelings … or, more to the point, enhance negative feelings to extreme degrees. She is on a mission to collect the eggs, but she can’t do it from the afterlife, so she enlists a young girl in the “real” world to help her. This girl, Arna, has lost her father when a town blames him for bringing war to their door, and while she’s wandering around wondering what to do, she accidentally strikes an egg with a spoon, killing the commander and bringing her into contact with the bird-woman, who tells her that she has to do the same thing to all the eggs so that humanity can experience peace again. For a while, she’s joined on the quest by Sela, with whom she falls in love, but when Sela has her first period, she disappears, and the same thing happens to all girls going forward. Thirty years later, Arna is almost done her mission, but the final few eggs are the most difficult to find, naturally. And she’s still looking for Sela, of course!
As usual with a Cathy Malkasian book, there’s a lot going on, but this is the most unsubtle book I’ve read by her, and I have to wonder if the current political climate influenced her – as I have noted recently, it seems subtext has gone out the door because people are too stupid to get it, and creators need to beat the readers over the head with their themes. It’s not that Malkasian is trying to be subtle with her grand theme – be nice to each other, yo – it’s just that a lot of the characters in this book are kind of cardboard villains, and it’s frustrating to read sometimes. Arna and Sela (who’s not in the book that long) are interesting characters, and Arna, especially, gets to be a full and complete character. Even her father, in his brief “screen time,” is developed very well. But the commanders – even the sole female one, the bird-woman – are a bit too archetypal, there to make a point, and it dulls the sense of danger that Arna could be in, as they’re not real characters so we never think she’s going to fail in her quest. It’s unfortunate, because the parts that focus on Arna’s life and world – when she’s not killing the bad dudes – are interesting. As the number of women decrease, men become more and more odd, especially as Arna is taking away their outlets for violence as the commanders aren’t leading people to war anymore. You’d think that would be a good thing, and it is, but Malkasian makes interesting points about humanity’s capacity for violence and mayhem and what might happen if they have nowhere to go with that. They have to change, of course, but she points out how difficult that might be. The men take a lot of their frustrations out on women, naturally (the book is not subtle in that regard), but Malkasian also shows how some men try to deal with the fact that their daughters will disappear when they “become” women, and it’s not always negatively.
Meanwhile, the older women, who are “worthless,” seem to have easier lives because they don’t attract the attention of men anymore. As noted, not subtle, but it’s still an interesting society that Malkasian constructs, as it resembles our own thematically, but of course most of what we hint around about Malkasian brings out into the open. The lack of subtlety is frustrating, because even the most idiotic politicians in our world know, generally, know not to say the quiet part loud. Malkasian dispenses with that, which is fine because, as I noted, perhaps readers need that, but it does make this a bit less compelling. At least that’s my opinion.
Malkasian’s art continues to be wonderful, as it fits her odd and weird worlds perfectly. Her characters are often slightly out of proportion, but her cartoony style makes it so that it’s not a big deal and it’s done to emphasize certain aspects of their personalities. Her stories feel a bit like soap operas or even telenovelas, as her characters’ rubbery faces go through so many intense emotions that it’s both a bit comical and also heart-wrenching. Despite delving into serious topics, Malkasian has always been adept at poking fun at sacred cows, and her beautiful line work makes both those parts of her artwork. She’s able to show the pain Arna feels when her father dies or when Sela disappears, but she’s also able to show how ridiculous the commanders are, both in the real world and the afterlife, when they eventually have a change of heart about their lives on earth. Malkasian’s Arna is a terrific character, often amused by the silliness around her, but still carrying the pain of her losses. Malkasian uses very precise pencil lines for the people and human-built things in this book, and Arna’s final destination, a raucous Las Vegas-style place, is drawn wonderfully, as it’s glitzy and obnoxious but also slightly rotting underneath, as it’s built near ever-eroding water, and it’s also a liminal place, where people re-invent themselves or hide their true natures, which gets at the heart of Arna’s story. Meanwhile, Malkasian’s “nature” work is done with sweeping watercolors, so that it all becomes a bit gauzy and ethereal, separating itself from the manmade structures that intrude on it. It’s beautiful artwork, but that’s not surprising, given that Malkasian is a very good artist.
I’m a bit torn over the book and will probably have to think more about it to really give it the attention it deserves. It feels like the kind of book that you’ll enjoy the more you think about it, which isn’t always the case. I do like it, but I also think it’s a bit too Manichean, which is frustrating. It’s still a fascinating book, and it looks superb, so that’s certainly nice!
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆