THIS REVIEW IS SPOILER-FREE.
by Arpad Okay. It could all be metaphor, or none of it. He left the nunnery — exiled, really. Fell madly in love with the first brigand with whom he crossed swords. Life is hard on the margins; everything you’ve got, you’ve got to take. But life on the margins is heaven: robbing the tedious and having a quick one. The Chromatic Fantasy posits that all there is to life is pleasure. No, it doesn’t.
Sorry, am I being clear? HA’s graphic novel Chromatic Fantasy changes properties as it progresses, an alchemical refinement of its concepts that makes the story hard to define without contradicting oneself. The demon that Jules made a deal with is maybe just how Jules feels about himself. Or guilt. How others feel about him. The demon is the hole in him where home should be.
The meaning is complicated, and personal, but the medium is direct. Jules loses the habit and becomes a freebooter. Meet-cute with Casper. Like Jules, he’s another bandit dandy, another trans man. Swashbuckling adventures ensue. Life is hard, stealing to survive. Life is great, swindling the tedious. Living the dream, even if the dream is to do nothing. Mythic or mundane, existence without compromise.
HA’s writing reminds me of The Last Unicorn. Chromatic Fantasy lapses into direct contemporary relatability because why not. Nothing modern intrudes on the fantasy setting. The presence of the comically recognizable just uplifts the experience. Despite the impossible rose garden — or the monastery — ignoring their history and focusing on who they are, Casper and Jules would fit in fine at a house party.
The allowance for contemporary lifestyle moments cuts both ways. The reason is ostensibly because psychotic nuns keep the humors in balance. But the guy who takes twelve (cocaine?) enemas a day and only eats raw beef — that’s not a medieval prince; that’s a social media influencer.
The art does what it wants, just like Jules and Casper. HA’s is a blend of Renaissance grimoire reference art and unabashed anime vibes. It reminds me of Yoshinori Kanada, proto-superflat art. The cartoony origin of the modern style. But also Ralph Bakshi’s horny sword and sorcery stuff. Rotoscoping with animation smears. Flexible, versatile, unpredictable fun.
And what kind of olde story would be compleat without some unhinged cosmic horror? The unpleasantness is flesh-based, a broken snake egg that is all muscles and sinew. “Inside the body” can be the destination of lust, or it can be exposing unspeakable offal to open air. Add a drop of laudanum so the pursuant queen can fly on a living carpet of soldiers.
Chromatic Fantasy’s freaky and loose art style puts the action in action. There’s a lot of getting it on and a general disregard for realism. Rather than capturing the perfect moment, HA’s panels communicate the whole act. The bodies bloom from the point of their connection, a single image that implies the time surrounding it.
Same goes for a sword fight. The connections tell a story before and after the hit. And the words between Jules and Casper while blades cross at the surrealist vanishing point? They’re as much foreplay and intercourse as the subsequent getting flipped over naked and whipped with a switch.
Like I said, living the dream.
8 out of 10
The Chromatic Fantasy comes out on October 18th. You can pre-order it now.
Silver Sprocket / $29.99
Written and illustrated by HA
Check out this 4-page preview of Chromatic Fantasy, courtesy of Silver Sprocket:
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