A surreal and fantastical new graphic novel, The Heavy Bright by Cathy Malkasian is unlike anything this writer has read before, weaving together a provocative and haunting allegorical tale of toxic masculinity, the cruelty of humanity, and the horrors of war, while also highlighting the beauty and power of friendship, womanhood, and queer love. The graphic novel, published by indie comics publisher Fantagraphics, is an absolutely beautiful examination of the human condition, and the type of empathy and healing that humanity must lean into if we are to survive into the future. While the nuanced allegories contained within Malkasian’s writing are not subtle, they are also not overly heavy handed, making the novel a digestible read that will leave you reflecting on its messages for days to come.
Fantagraphics
Cathy Malkasian, a multi-award winning animation director and cartoonist known for Rugrats, The Wild Thornberrys Movie, and the Percy Gloom series, weaves a powerful and unique vision of a world suffering from male violence, that can only be saved through the combined efforts of a refreshingly queer protagonist with the support of her ancestors. Described by Fantagraphics as, “a lushly watercolor, Ghibli-esque fantasy world tinged with equal parts whimsy and menace,” Malkasian’s feminist writing and stunning watercolor art makes for a fantastical experience with deeply real psychological underpinnings, tasked with taking on heavy topics like political corruption, capitalistic greed, and gender-based violence, while showing the power of a girl’s journey into womanhood and the strength of harmonious community.
Fantagraphics
The Heavy Bright begins in a Limbo-like realm filled with the dead souls of the “Commanders,” a multi-generational group of vicious men who have destroyed the world through war, violence, and greed, with the help of the “heavy,” 999 black “eggs” that causes humanity’s worst impulses to come to the surface when places near people. This realm is guarded and ruled by “Old Bird,” the only female in the Limbo realm, and one of the first people to discover the heavy, a hopeful woman who is dedicated to eradicating the eggs in the real world, and restoring humanity’s connection to their ancestors. Eventually, the young Arna, after experiencing a great tragedy at the hands of a Commander’s egg, is able to make contact with Old Bird, learning the history of her world and the only way to transform the “heavy” into the “bright.”
Fantagraphics
Thus begins Arna’s years-long hunt, using intelligence gained through the Commanders in Old Bird’s realm to locate where each of the 999 eggs are, destroying them and killing the Commanders through the power of her ancestors, legacy, and family. While a reader could attempt to read The Heavy Bright as a purely fantastical novel, it would be difficult to ignore the rich allegories Malkasian applies to Arna’s journey, the cruelty of the Commanders, and the powerfully beautiful way in which the story concludes. Yet, there is also a likelihood that a reader would need to read the novel at least twice to fully grasp and appreciate the nuances of the allegories and themes Malkasian illustrates, a fact acknowledged by the writer herself in the dedication page, where she dedicates the book to “anyone willing to read it more than once.” While some readers might be turned off by the need to read The Heavy Bright more than once to gain a full, deep appreciation for the story – one of the only potential “negatives” this reader could find with the story – more than likely anyone who enjoys the novel the first time around would be more than happy to read it again to see scenes in a new light.
Fantagraphics
Malkasian paints a depressingly realistic vision of society’s current values, vices, and shortcomings, while also instilling in the reader a sense of hopefulness at what the world could become, if folks were able to increase their empathy and acceptance of others. That being said, Malkasian makes no attempt to show that there is a “miracle cure” for the poison that has infected Arna’s, or our, world, with Arna’s “destruction” of the black eggs, turning the “heavy” into the “bright,” being more an example of the ongoing healing that must be done to repair the generations of harm caused by horrific misogyny, corporate greed, warmongering, and toxic attitudes around masculinity and vulnerability. Another major theme of the graphic novel is the power of female friendship, queer love, and womanhood, with the gender non-conforming Arna – who lives a secret life of “gender deception” – entering into a queer romantic relationship with a young woman named Sela that gives her the strength to keep on fighting the battle against the Commanders for years.
The Heavy Bright is being sold by Fantagraphics in a gorgeously bound and textured hard cover novel, over 300 pages in length, a truly beautiful addition to anyone’s collection of novels, graphic or not. The impressionistic watercolor art in The Heavy Bright is one of the highlights of the emotionally impactful graphic novel, grounding the surreal story in a soft, flowing, yet solid environment that, while very different than our modern world, allows the reader to easily extrapolate Arna’s experiences into our own. Described by other readers as a fantastical blending of The Handmaid’s Tale, The Chronicles of Narnia, and the works of Tim Burton and Studio Ghibli, The Heavy Bright is a graphic novel unlike any other, pushing the boundaries of art, narrative, and philosophy to grant the reader a nuanced, haunting, and beautiful glimpse at what the world is like, and what it could be.
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