{"id":32362,"date":"2025-03-07T18:45:45","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T18:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=32362"},"modified":"2025-03-07T18:46:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T18:46:17","slug":"madwoman-of-the-sacred-heart-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/03\/07\/madwoman-of-the-sacred-heart-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Madwoman of the Sacred Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\" \"\"
\nBy Jodorowsky<\/strong> & Moebius<\/strong>, translated by Natacha Ruck<\/strong> & Ken Grobe<\/strong> (Humanoids\/Sloth Publishing UK)
\nISBN: 978-1-908830-01-2 (Sloth HB 2011), 978-1-59465-046-8 (Humanoids HB 2013),<\/p>\n

978-1643379548 (Jodorowsky Library vol. 6, 2023)<\/p>\n

This book includes Discriminatory Content<\/strong> produced during less enlightened times.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a modern masterpiece of comics creativity, one of the most intriguing and engaging works by two creative legends of sequential narrative. To some people however, this superb piece of thought-provoking fiction might be shocking or blasphemous, so if you hold strong views on sex or religion – particularly Christianity – stop right now, spare yourself some outrage and come back tomorrow.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Born in Tocopilla, Chile in 1929, Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky is a filmmaker, author, playwright, actor, comics writer, world traveller, philosopher and spiritual guru. He is most widely known for films like Fando y Lis<\/em><\/strong>, El Topo<\/em><\/strong>, The Holy Mountain<\/strong>, Sante Sangre<\/em><\/strong>, The Rainbow Thief<\/strong> and the like, as well as a vast comics output, including Anibal 5<\/em><\/strong>, (created whilst living in Mexico) Le Lama blanc<\/em><\/strong>, Aliot<\/em><\/strong>, The Meta-Barons<\/strong>, Borgia<\/em><\/strong> and so much more, co-created with some of South America and Europe\u2019s greatest artists. His nigh decade-long collaboration with M\u00f6ebius on the Tarot-inspired adventure The Incal<\/strong> (1981-1989) completely redefined and reinvented what comics could aspire to and achieve.<\/p>\n

Best known for violently surreal avant-garde films, loaded with highly-charged, inspired imagery blending mysticism and \u201creligious provocation\u201d and his spiritually informed fantasy and science fiction comics, Jodorowsky is also fascinated by the inner realms and has devised his own culture of therapeutic healing: Psychomagic<\/em>, Psychogenealogy<\/em> and Initiatic massage<\/em>. He still remains fully engaged and active in all these creative areas today.<\/p>\n

Jean Henri Gaston Giraud was born in the suburbs of Paris in 1938 and raised by his grandparents. In 1955 he attended the Institut des Arts Appliqu\u00e9s where he became friends with Jean-Claude M\u00e9zi\u00e8res who, at 17, was already selling strips and illustrations to magazines such as Coeurs Valliants<\/em><\/strong>, Fripounet et Marisette<\/em><\/strong> and Le Journal de<\/em> Spirou<\/em><\/strong>. Giraud apparently spent most of his time drawing cowboy comics and left college after a year. In 1956 he travelled to Mexico, staying with his mother for eight months, before returning to France and a full-time career in comics: mostly westerns such as Frank et Jeremie<\/em> for Far West<\/strong> and King of the Buffalo<\/em>, A Giant with the Hurons<\/em> and others in Coeurs Valliants<\/em><\/strong>, all in a style based on French comics legend Joseph \u201cJij\u00e9\u201d Gillain.<\/p>\n

Between 1959 and 1960, Giraud spent his National Service in Algeria, where he worked on military service magazine 5\/5 Forces Fran\u00e7aises<\/em><\/strong>. On returning to civilian life, he became Jij\u00e9\u2019s assistant in 1961, working on the master\u2019s long-running (1954-1977) western epic Jerry Spring<\/em><\/strong>. A year later, Giraud and Belgian writer Jean-Michel Charlier launched the serial Fort Navajo<\/em> in Pilote<\/em><\/strong> #210, and soon its disreputable, anti-hero lead character Lieutenant Blueberry<\/strong> was one of the most popular European strips of modern times. In 1963-1964, Giraud produced strips for satire periodical Hara-Kiri<\/em><\/strong> and – keen to distinguish and separate this material from his serious day job – first coined his pen-name \u201cM\u00f6ebius\u201d.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t use it again until 1975 when he joined Bernard Farkas, Jean-Pierre Dionnet and Philippe Druillet – all rabid science fiction fans – as co-founders of a revolution in narrative graphic arts: Les Humano\u00efdes associ\u00e9s. Their groundbreaking adult fantasy magazine M\u00e9tal Hurlant<\/em><\/strong> utterly enraptured the comics-buying public and Giraud again wanted to utilise a discrete creative persona for the lyrical, experimental, soul-searching material he was crafting: series such as The Airtight Garage<\/em><\/strong>, The Incal<\/em><\/strong> (with Jodorosky) and mystical, dream-world flights of sheer fantasy contained in Arzach<\/strong>…<\/p>\n

To further separate his creative bipolarity, Giraud worked in inks with a brush whilst the futurist M\u00f6ebius rendered with pens. Both of him passed away on March 10th<\/sup> 2012.<\/p>\n

Jodorowsky & M\u00f6ebius\u2019 second groundbreaking co-creation was originally released as 3 albums from Les Humano\u00efdes associ\u00e9s – La Folle du Sacree Coeur<\/em><\/strong> (1992), Le pi\u00e8ge de l’irrationnel<\/em><\/strong> (1993) and Le Fou de la Sorbonne<\/em><\/strong> (1998) – before the saga was initially collected into one massive, ecstatic and revolutionary volume in 2004. The company\u2019s American arm Humanoids, Inc. translated it into English in 2006, and it\u2019s resurfaced on occasion ever since.<\/p>\n

Professor Alan Mangel<\/em> is a world-renowned aesthete, deep thinker and chief lecturer at the Sorbonne. As such he is the focus of much student attention – particularly female – but none as fervent as that of insular, fanatically, deeply disturbed bible-bashing Christian Elisabeth<\/em>.<\/p>\n

When the educator\u2019s shrewish wife Myra<\/em> denounces, shames and impoverishes him at the moment of his greatest triumph, the arrogantly cerebral, proudly austere, violently chaste and determinedly sexually-abstinent Mangel loses the awed respect of his once-doting students and disciples. They now shun his once overcrowded classes, mock and even assault him.
\n\"\"
\nOnly Elisabeth remains devoted to him, but she has designs both carnal and divine on the aging, flabby, secular, lapsed and born-again Jew. To make matters worse, when she throws herself at him and is repulsed, this awakens the philosopher\u2019s own lustful youthful libido which takes form as a gadfly ghost constantly urging him to indulge in acts of vile debauchery and rampant lust. Eventually the pressure is too great and Mangel agrees to meet Elisabeth at the Church of the Sacred Heart. The journey there is awful: even the universe seems set against him as rude taxi-drivers, a mad old lady tramp and even dogs further humiliate the broken old man.<\/p>\n

In the holiest part of the church Elisabeth again attempts to seduce the long sterile and wilfully impotent Alan, explaining that her researches have revealed him to be the biblical Zacharias<\/em> reborn, destined to impregnate her with a son: the Prophet John<\/em> who would in turn herald the rebirth of Jesus…
\n\"\"
\nAgain the rational scientist baulks at her words but Elisabeth promises a miracle and when Mangel\u2019s horny, ghostly other self \u201cpossesses\u201d him the dotard loses control and finally gives the mad girl what she\u2019s been begging for…<\/p>\n

Plagued with shame, despondent with remorse, still tormented by his inner letch and so very broke, Mangel resumes lecturing, gradually rebuilding his reputation until one day Elisabeth returns, her nude body declaring her to be forever the property of Alan Zacharias Mangel. She is three months pregnant with the sterile man\u2019s baby and has already recruited a \u201cSt. Joseph<\/em>\u201d who will help them fulfil their sacred mission…<\/p>\n

The divinely-dispatched protector, a drug addict and petty criminal previously called Muhammad<\/em>, already has a line on \u201cThe Mary<\/em>\u201d: she\u2019s his girlfriend Rosaura<\/em>, currently imprisoned in a secure mental hospital. She\u2019s also in a coma.<\/p>\n

Dragged against the will he no longer seems capable of exerting, Mangel experiences his latest ongoing tribulation when St. Joseph breaks The Mary out with the aid of a gun and his distressed guts give way to what will be, for all of the chosen ones, an uncomfortable and prolonged period of stress-related explosive diarrhoea. Against all his rational protests and worries, things just seem to keep falling into place for the pilgrims. Rosura is no longer comatose, and they get away without a single problem… if you don\u2019t count the olfactory punishment the Professor\u2019s rebellious innards are repeatedly inflicting upon them all…<\/p>\n

\u201cMary\u201d is the most ravishing creature he has ever seen, but just as crazy as her friends. When she cavorts naked in a field during a midnight thunderstorm, frantically imploring God to impregnate her with the second Jesus, Mangel\u2019s lustful ghost again overtakes him and he surreptitiously copulates with the wildly-bucking \u201clascivious loon\u201d. One day later reality hits hard when the lecturer reads of two nurses executed when the comatose daughter of an infamous Columbian drug baron was abducted from a certain institution…<\/p>\n

The second chapter opens with the four fugitives hiding out in a lavish seaside house and Mangel – as always – arguing with both his priapic phantom and rationalist conscience. His so impossibly, imperturbably persuasive companions are untroubled: they are simply passing the days until the birth of John the Baptist<\/em> and imminently impending Second Coming of Christ.<\/p>\n

The next crisis is pecuniary as the lavish spending of the trio soon exhausts the Professor\u2019s funds and they are reduced to their last 100 franc note…<\/p>\n

Elisabeth is unconcerned and simply places a bet with it. Operating under divine guidance the horse race wins the quartet 3.5 million Francs, but before the reeling rationalist can grasp that, there\u2019s another insane development as The Mary\/Rosaura declares herself to be the Androgynous Christ – both male and female – reborn and made manifest to save us all…<\/p>\n

She still looks devastatingly all-woman however, and when she kisses the old fool and sends him back to the Church of the Sacred Heart to \u201cobtain\u201d a vial of holy Baptismal oil, he goes despite himself, arguing all the way with his imaginary sex-obsessed younger self. It\u2019s all another humiliating and deranged debacle. The famous house of worship is hosting an ecumenical convention of argumentative theologians of all religions and that self-same crazy woman is still there, claiming to be God and challenging them all. After driving them away she even tries to have sex with the utterly bemused and bewildered fallen philosopher who barely escapes with the stolen oil.
\n\"\"
\nThe worst of it all is that, based on recent evidence, Mangel can\u2019t even say with any certainty that the vile-smelling harridan isn\u2019t telling the truth…<\/p>\n

Driving back through the fleshpots of the city with his ghost tempting him every inch of the way, the weary savant is dragged back to appalling reality by a newspaper headline declaring that the police have a witness in the murder\/abduction of Rosaura Molinares<\/em>, daughter of the most wanted drug trafficker on Earth. However, when the nigh-unhinged thinker reaches his sanctuary from reason, the true believers already know. They taped the TV news and show him the witness describing a completely different killer: El Perro<\/em>, chief hitman of Pedro Molinares<\/em>\u2019 Medellin<\/em> Cartel<\/em>…<\/p>\n

With the last foundations of precious logic crumbling, Mangel reaches an emotional tipping point and when The Androgynous Christ demands he make love to her, the old fool submits to stress – and his ever-horny spectral alter ego – by surrendering to his lusts. Before long he is in the throes of a bizarre, eye-opening, life-altering four-way love session with all the mad people he has wronged in his head and heart. The epiphanic moment is rather spoiled when the wall explodes and a cadre of mercenaries working for a rival cartel burst in, seeking Rosaura\u2019s dad. They\u2019re followed by the Columbian Secret Service, also hunting the drug lord and quite prepared to kill everybody to find him.<\/p>\n

… And they in turn are ambushed by American DEA agents who slaughter everybody in their sights in their desperation to capture Molinares\u2019 daughter and her weirdo friends. The illegally operating Yanks drag their captives to a submarine waiting offshore just as French police hit the beach and El Perro attacks the sub, spectacularly rescuing the quartet and transporting them to safety by helicopter and cargo plane…<\/p>\n

The concluding chapter of the blasphemous, ever-escalating cosmic farce opens with all of France astonished by the kidnapping of its most beloved thinker even as, in a Columbian Garden of Eden, a newly-enlightened and happy Mangel and his heavily pregnant Elisabeth prepare for the birth of The Child. The Androgynous Christ too has changed and grown, easily converting the hard-bitten drug gangsters into a holy army of believers in the redeemer Jesusa<\/em>…<\/p>\n

Top dog Pedro Molinares is dying from cancer and his devoted army are fully, fanatically in tune with Jesusa\u2019s plans, especially after an impossible blood miracle seemingly proves their new leader\u2019s earthbound divinity. Equally astounded, Mangel too reaches a spiritual crisis as he accompanies Elisabeth deep into the jungle to give birth.<\/p>\n

Mangel\u2019s journey and ultimate transformation at the hands of rainforest shaman Do<\/em>\u00f1a Paz<\/em> then lead to even more astonishing revelations, changes and shocks that I\u2019m just not prepared to spoil for you\u2026
\n\"\"
\nAfter years of exile by exclusion the tale was translated for English readers in 2004, and has since been seen many times, such as the sterling UK edition published by Sloth Comics, and most recently in 2023, when it was rereleased under the prestigious Jodorowsky Library imprint (specifically as Book Six: Madwoman of the Sacred Heart \u2022 Twisted Tales<\/strong>) paired with \u201cSelected Stories\u201d and mindbending short Twisted Tales<\/strong>…<\/p>\n

Controversial, shocking, challenging, fanciful, enchanting and incredibly cruelly funny in an Armando Iannucci manner, this a parable you must read and will always remember.
\n\u2122 & \u00a9 Les Humano\u00efdes associ\u00e9s, SAS, Paris. English version \u00a9 2011 Humanoids, Inc., Los Angeles. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jodorowsky & Moebius, translated by Natacha Ruck & Ken Grobe (Humanoids\/Sloth Publishing UK) ISBN: 978-1-908830-01-2 (Sloth HB 2011), 978-1-59465-046-8 (Humanoids HB 2013), 978-1643379548 (Jodorowsky Library vol. 6, 2023) This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times. Here\u2019s a modern masterpiece of comics creativity, one of the most intriguing and engaging works by … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Madwoman of the Sacred Heart”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[64,75,63,102,125,105,111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adulterotica","category-crime-comics","category-european-classics","category-fantasy","category-humour","category-mature-reading","category-satirepolitics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8pY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32362"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32378,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32362\/revisions\/32378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}