Review: Ritual #1 - Real Life by Malachi Ward

Ritual #1 - Malachi Ward (w/a)

Revival House Press, $6

Malachi Ward is a strange chameleon of a cartoonist.  Just when you think you have him pinned-down from his various science-fiction and fantasy works, like Expansion and Utu, then along comes a subtle, brooding work like “Real Life” that makes you completely rethink his abilities.  Rather than anything fantastical, this first installment in his Ritual anthology is grounded in quiet domesticity.

A young couple’s strained relationship begins to devolve in the surreal.  After a power-cut, the woman’s dreams seem to be manifesting themselves in her waking life — what could be a generator explosion may also be the work of a god-like hand, and her boyfriend might have beetles crawling under his skin.  There’s a strange blend of psychological horror and magical realism at work that drops the narrative into a strange limnal state.

There is a strong thread of Jungian psychology running through the tale.  In the darkness of the power cut, we see the woman’s insecurities about herself and her ignorance of any problems in her relationship turned back against her in the form of another woman.  And, as her conscious and unconscious lives begin to collide, the darkness of her shadow-shelf only increases, not only threatening her relationship, but her very life.  When she is forced into a struggle for survival, the forces of anima and animus in the couple become not only heightened, but nightmarish, breaking their skin out in oozing pustules.

There is never any definitive explanation given for what is happening, physically, to the couple.  That the plot is so sewn up with psychological phenomena, and follows a surrealistic path, even leaves it unclear as to whether the entire story is actually a dream.  The wavering panel borders of the opening sequence would seem to suggest that only the opening is, but the accompanying caption reads: “This… this feels more…” — a wonderfully pregnant ellipsis that is only completed at the end of the book, and raises more questions than it answers.

The obvious touchstone for “Real Life” is Charles Burns’s Black Hole.  Indeed, Ward’s intensely-detailed illustration of a beetle on the back cover uses the same feathered-inking that Burns has become so innately associated with, and a few panels of the story — particularly the view inside a carton of Chinese food — recall those wandering non-diegetic spreads from Black Hole, with various household items caught in a swirl of wispy tendrils.  It’s likely that “Real Life” is intended as an homage to Burns, but bringing the teenage-angst-as-disease metaphor into early adulthood.

This is a powerful start to the Ritual series, and one that delivers an emotion gut-punch like nothing else Ward has done.  He shows himself here to be a profoundly thoughtful and thought-provoking creator, and one who treats the short-form story with respect, exploiting it to its fullest.  While other cartoonists focus on the “graphic novel” , Ward show us that there are still unexplored depths to the periodical.

-- Gavin Lees

Posted in: Gavin Lees,Review