Karmen
by Guillem March
translated by Dan Christensen
2022
Karmem collects a comic miniseries by Guillem March. The title character, Karmen, has a human face and hair, but her body is a black silhouette with only the skeleton visible. Karmen is a psychopomp, a supernatural being who accompanies to souls of the dead to the afterlife, or rather, to their next incarnation. In this case, she's accompanying Cata, a young woman who just committed suicide in the bath. For the time they're together, Cata continues to look as she did at the moment of death, that is, completely naked.
It's fair to say this is a comic for adults! But this is not only an adult comic because of the nudity and self-harm. It's also about that most adult of topics - regret.
It's fair to say this is a comic for adults! But this is not only an adult comic because of the nudity and self-harm. It's also about that most adult of topics - regret.
And yet, Cata is still a very young adult, still inexperienced, still becoming. What Cata's death does in this story then, is to arrest her at that inflection point. To stop her life as it's still just beginning, and to ask, what if that's all there is? Cata mostly regrets what she hasn't done, but after her time with Karmen, she also learns to regret at least one thing she has done - she regrets her suicide, and wants to live again, not to be reincarnated, but to continue her life.
In a way, Karmen reminds me of The Good Place and Hazbin Hotel, because all three appear to ask whether a soul's quality remains fixed at the time of death, or whether any sort of redemption can be earned in the afterlife. Is becoming a better person reserved only for the living? Or can we still grow and change and mature after the end?
I might be wrong, but I don't think any of these are really about the theology of salvation or eternal damnation. I think they're about being an adult, about getting older, about feeling trapped, feeling that your past decisions have already been set in stone, and wondering whether there's still any fresh clay before you to make new marks in, to mold into a new shape. These stories aren't really about a literal afterlife, but about the life you continue to live after you've seemingly already finished living your life. Perhaps especially after you've made a mistake, something you think you can't get over, something you think you'll never live down.
Over the course of their afternoon together, Karmen helps Cata to see the world from a new perspective, literally, by flying like swimming through the air, helps her to empathize with others, and to correctly understand the situation she was fleeing through suicide, a seemingly unrequited crush on her childhood best friend. Even though Cata's life is over, Karmen thinks there's still time. Not much, but enough, if Cata will finally open herself up enough to use it.
In a way, Karmen reminds me of The Good Place and Hazbin Hotel, because all three appear to ask whether a soul's quality remains fixed at the time of death, or whether any sort of redemption can be earned in the afterlife. Is becoming a better person reserved only for the living? Or can we still grow and change and mature after the end?
I might be wrong, but I don't think any of these are really about the theology of salvation or eternal damnation. I think they're about being an adult, about getting older, about feeling trapped, feeling that your past decisions have already been set in stone, and wondering whether there's still any fresh clay before you to make new marks in, to mold into a new shape. These stories aren't really about a literal afterlife, but about the life you continue to live after you've seemingly already finished living your life. Perhaps especially after you've made a mistake, something you think you can't get over, something you think you'll never live down.
Over the course of their afternoon together, Karmen helps Cata to see the world from a new perspective, literally, by flying like swimming through the air, helps her to empathize with others, and to correctly understand the situation she was fleeing through suicide, a seemingly unrequited crush on her childhood best friend. Even though Cata's life is over, Karmen thinks there's still time. Not much, but enough, if Cata will finally open herself up enough to use it.
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