Temperance

Cathy Malkasian
Temperance

(Fantagraphics, 2010)

In the first, the shortest, part of this long comic story a man with a very angry face chops down trees by huge ax. He is watched by the two girls, one small with bulbous nose, the second higher, reminding, have put her on the pages of a fantasy novel, a princess of distant kingdom. Little, whose name is Minerva, names a man Pa, the high one says that he is not their father. Soon, Pa beckons to Peggy, the high. Instead of talking on the souls Pa shows the power and, it seems, just about rapes his own daughter. But a traveler in a straw hat, appeared from somewhere, prevents it. The girl hides in the woods, and Pa and wanderer begin to beat each other. Pa however cuts down the defender and makes her daughter to cut off the traveler's leg with an ax. She refuses, and then Pa himself does it, leaving the girl with a young man lying in a pool of blood. All the rest of the book the two of them will play the loving couple: a young man loses memory.

Malkasian`s book contains all the variety of genres. This is quite a traditional fantasy (queen, clans, the expectation of war), and not quite a traditional fairy tale, and sometimes physiological sketch, and surreal painting, and even the kind of superhero comics (Pa here is just as the chief villain). Painted in two colors, the story of most of the book unfolds around the castle, where some people, whom Minerva, one of the daughters of Pa, leads by the nose for decades, live. She also hides from her husband Lester, an amnesiac, how he got into the castle. He does not remember anything and silly runs around the castle at night for the birds, considering them enemy spies.

In the final part of this graphic novel Malkasian seems, like Minerva, which had lost power over the husband and the city, lose the thread of the story. In the end without much logic, the author mixes Pa, Lester, who comeback part of his memories, missing Peggy, trees, birds, wooden doll, so you have to ask yourself: why then were two previous parts needed?

In the end Cathy Malkasian doesn't have enough madness to make the novel truly psychedelic, as well as lacked the ability to construct the plot. It would be a significant book about lies, self-destruction, pervasive evil, but it became just a fairy tale about how dangerous is sometimes to interfere in one's affairs.