BLOOD OF THE VIRGIN - Serio Comics 32
BLOOD OF THE VIRGIN written and drawn by Sammy Harkham, published by Pantheon
A Graphic Novel About Filmmaking And Family
I recently started a new day job at the Oscar Academy Museum, working as part of the theater staff for the David Geffen and Ted Mann theaters.
So filmmaking and Hollywood have been on my mind.
And I recently booked a trip to visit the person I’ve been dating’s family.
So relationship and family have been on my mind as well.
These themes are at the heart of the 2023 graphic novel BLOOD OF THE VIRGIN, written and drawn by Sammy Harkham.
Art Spiegelman of MAUS celebrates how it:
“Conjures up the grindhouse movie-making scene in 1970s Los Angeles and tracks an ambitious young man’s flailing attempts to build a family and a career as a film arteest in that debased world…A book with a lot of heart.”
Sammy Harkham
Harkham is an award-winning cartoonist and editor, born and raised in Los Angeles. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts and the Mayanot Institute in Jerusalem, where he created and edited the ongoing comics anthology Kramers Ergot, considered to be one of the most influential publications of its kind. His first collection of short comics stories, Everything Together, won the 2012 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Graphic Novel. Harkham’s work has been published in The Best American Comics, The New York Times, Vice, and McSweeney’s, among many other publications. He also was a co-owner of Family Bookstore and co-founder of Cinefamily, both in the Fairfax neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Fourteen Years In The Making
This graphic novel is also fourteen years in the making!
Much like ASTERIOS POLYP’S David Mazzucchelli from Serio Comics 27, who was also renowned and beloved, but hadn’t yet published a full-length graphic novel.
Harkham has finally delivered his epic story of artistic ambition, the heartbreak it can bring, and what it means to be human.
The feat was covered twice by The New Yorker.
First by Françoise Mouly and Genevieve Bormes:
“The new book by cartoonist Sammy Harkham, “Blood of the Virgin,” a nearly three-hundred-page magnum opus to be published this spring by Pantheon, is a labor of love. It took fourteen years to complete. Fittingly, it follows its main character, Seymour, through his desire and struggle to realize a creative dream, and details his romantic and familial entanglements in all their messy glory.”
And then by Sam Thielman:
“Every novel is, in one way or another, about the passage of time, but Sammy Harkham’s comic-book epic is more so than most…. There is…the structured frustration of making art…the tedium of family life…And, always, there is the choice to spend all-too-limited moments on one but not the other.”
BLOOD OF THE VIRGIN
Set primarily in Los Angeles in 1971, BLOOD OF THE VIRGIN is the story of twenty‑seven‑year‑old Seymour, an Iraqi Jewish immigrant film editor who works for an exploitation film production company.
It’s the underbelly of Los Angeles during a crucial evolutionary moment in the industry from the last wheeze of the studio system to the rise of independent cinema.
Seymour, his wife, and their new baby struggle.
As he tries to make it in the movie business, writing screenplays on spec and pining for the chance to direct.
When his boss buys one of his scripts for a project called Blood of the Virgin.
What follows is a surreal, tragicomic making-of journey.
As Seymour’s blind ambition propels the movie, his home life grows increasingly fraught.
The film’s production becomes a means to spiral out into time and space, resulting in an epic graphic novel that explores the intersection of twentieth‑century America, parenthood, sex, the immigrant experience, the dawn of early Hollywood, and more…
Like a cosmic kaleidoscope, Blood of the Virgin shifts and evolves with each panel, widening its context as the story unfolds, building an intricate web of dreams and heartbreak, allowing the reader to zoom in to the novel’s core: the bittersweet cost of coming into one’s own.
Success vs. Self-Sabotage
One of the best themes of the story is how thin the line is between success.
And sabotage or self-sabotage.
As well as how far you can fall.
Or rise.
And all for what?
Commitments vs. Freedom
Another theme I enjoyed is the internal rift between relationship obligations and creative solitude.
Personal freedom as well as familial responsibilities.
Along with perhaps the chance to repair them…
Limited Tone Vs Full Color
Perhaps the most striking formal quality of Harkham’s work is how the vast majority of the book is in limited, basically black and white tones.
But then there are moments of full color.
Splash pages that follow Seymour’s wife as she leaves LA for her hometown back in New Zealand.
As well as a brief completely separate interlude story about the origins of Hollywood through the lens of a rising executive who started with nothing.
This tactic of mixing full color and limited color is something that has been done by others to great effect as well.
For instance…
For instance, Frank Miller’s SIN CITY is mostly in black and white.
But then has pops of full color in certain panels.
In SHOULD WE BUY A GUN?…
My illustrator Gabriel Wexler and I employed a visual device in the dream and fantasy sequences in SHOULD WE BUY A GUN? going from full color to black and white.
The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Graphic Novel/Comics
The Graphic Novel/Comics category of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize was established in 2009.
With the aforementioned many years in the making masterpiece ASTERIOS POLYP nominated and winning.
This was 14 years before 2023.
Which is when Sammy Harkham started BLOOD OF THE VIRGIN.
Which also was nominated for the same award in 2023.
Along with CARTOONSHOW which was enthused about in Serio Comics 24.
But they did not win…
Emily Carroll’s A GUEST IN THE HOUSE had the honor.
Which I hope to enthuse about at some point too!
But, you may have caught this in the bio, Sammy won in 2012 for his collection of shorts, EVERYTHING TOGETHER.
So.
Congrats to Sammy on his many achievements…
No matter the costs ;)
BLOOD OF THE VIRGIN written and drawn by Sammy Harkham is available from Goodreads, local indie stores at Bookshop.org, the publisher Pantheon, and Amazon.
Thank you to
who is recommending Serio Comics to her Substack Go Get Em Tiger Go subscribers.
I’m a fan of her work too!