Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
Holy Lacrimony
Holy Lacrimony by Michael DeForge, published by Drawn and Quarterly, tells the story of Jackie’s alien abduction. The creatures are truly alien, yet they are still beings that share our universe. Through the graphic novel, DeForge shows that connections with other humans can be just as complicated as those across the stars.
Holy Lacrimony begins with a stymying splash page of an enormous craft, like a series of fang-lined mouths closing in on each other with dangling, horn-tipped tongue, all floating above an average city street. The page is marked with the haunting caption, “The last thing I remember seeing out my apartment window.”
The reader knows little of Jackie at that moment, making him something of an everyman for the experience that is shocking when he awakens in a blue-gray domed room surrounded by strange devices. A head not unlike Ghostface pokes itself out to introduce itself kindly as Kara and explain that Jackie has been taken for an educational and artistic experience.
He is expected to perform a human talent what the aliens find fascinating: emotions ranging into grief and despair. Jackie soon meets other aliens who are excited to see his work as, after a long study, they have determined he is the saddest person in all of Earth. It is enough for Jackie to break down, much to the awe of the aliens, who eagerly film it.
While the tale of the abduction is fascinating, Holy Lacrimony goes beyond to show what happens to Jackie upon his return. Jackie builds a relationship with Kara as he teaches her about embarrassment and panic attacks, and their performances for the other aliens are well received, so of course Jackie is soon returned no longer sad as he was.
He joins an alien abduction support group, where he compares notes with others. Everyone’s experience is wildly different, ranging from the biblical account in Ezekiel to a member who claims squid-like aliens extracting a tooth to aliens playing go with them. One member’s story shadily changes to include details from others’ stories. Suspicions drive Jackie to question another member, who quietness proves to be a cover for something else entirely.
DeForge’s art throughout Holy Lacrimony completes the story’s vibe. It is at-once beautiful, haunting, and surreal. DeForge cleverly uses color to highlight the overwhelming sensation of being aboard an alien vessel, while the rest of the comic on regular Earth is black and white.
His character designs for the humans are fitting to the art with slender bodies, pronounced heads, and small, tender eyes, not unlike some descriptions of extraterrestrials. The alien characters, however, stand out as something never quite seen before. Jackie’s shapeshifting abductors can take on any form like a living oil, leading to new appendages, strange multiple faces, and long, slinky bodies. Each has its own indicating forms, and Kara becomes familiar despite her constant shifting, showing that there are connections even to things we humans cannot understand.
