The Heavy Bright

$39.99

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Once, the world lived in harmony. People trusted and aided each other, dreamed freely, and communed with their ancestors. And then one day the eggs appeared. One thousand black eggs, heavy as pure lead, which by some mystical property, provoked greed and violence in all who came in contact with them. A family of brutish men managed to hoard the eggs and build a misogynistic dynasty that held all of the land in an iron grip. Years later, Arna, an orphaned young woman immune to the beguiling power of the eggs, is charged with a monumental mission: hunt down these formidable men, pilfer their eggs, and release the bright from the heavy. Along the way, she falls for the enchanting Sela, who shows her how beautiful the world can be.

In The Heavy Bright, masterful cartoonist and animator Cathy Malkasian propels the reader into a lushly watercolor, Ghibli-esque fantasy world tinged with equal parts whimsy and menace. Her characters are vulnerable and relatable, made real through deep, psychological underpinnings. Perhaps Malkasian's most ambitious and impactful work to date, The Heavy Bright is an allegorical graphic novel that grapples with the themes of greed, corruption, ignorance and bigotry, toxic masculinity, female empowerment, gender and queerness, love, death, and the urgent necessity for all to come together to heal our ailing world.

About the Author

Cathy Malkasian is an animation director and cartoonist. Her credits include Rugrats, The Wild Thornberrys film (for which she received a British Academy Award nomination), and most recently, over 20 episodes of Curious George for PBS since 2008. Fantagraphics has released several of her graphic novels including Percy Gloom (2007), Temperance (2010), Eartha (2017), and NoBody Likes You, Greta Grump (2021).

What works is the world Malkasian has created: soft, swooping vistas seen from a variety of perspectives and frames as rich as the diverse and eccentric cast of characters, and epitomizing the message of the small and local and true being truly the biggest things.-- "Broken Frontier" Malkasian continues to demonstrate bravura storytelling skills.-- "Booklist" Malkasian's gentle pencil drawings, reminiscent of Raymond Briggs's The Snowman, are simultaneously magical and reflective of aspects of humanity. Allegorical, surreal, and thoughtful, [Malkasian's work] is recommended for readers who prefer comics with philosophy as a side.-- "Library Journal" Allegories are thick as fog in Malkasian's gloriously imagined fantastical fables.-- "Publishers Weekly"

Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
Pub date: March 28, 2023
Length: 340 pages
Format: Hardcover