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| Review by Lily Fierro |
Written and Illustrated by Miss Lasko-Gross
Published by Z2 Comics
ISBN: 978-1940878027
Pub. Date: January 2015 / $19.99
Following the discourse technique of Ken Russell’s The Devils and Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond The Hills of using hyperbolic scenarios to critique the perversion of faith in organized religion, Henni by Miss Lasko-Gross arrives to the graphic novel world at an opportune moment given current events.
Illustrated with a dour and severe color palette of blacks and blues, Henni opens with a fundamental question of faith: What is faith if one does not attend an organized service run by clergymen?
In Henni’s surroundings, the fictional organized religion and faith have a concrete societal link, and when her own father refuses to attend temple, she must witness the violent repercussions inflicted on her father.
With the nightmarish experience of her father’s mutilation by clergy guards fresh in her mind, Henni begins to doubt and question the law and the rituals of her religion and its institution governing her village.
Henni’s inquiries are not welcomed, and the vicious response of her temple leaders accelerate the erosion of her obedience to the rules she had always questioned but had followed regardless. Then, to exacerbate her skepticism and her distrust of the temple leaders, she uncovers the ritual of food offerings to the temple as a disguise for bribing the leaders to match upcoming potential brides to the wealthiest grooms.
With most of her own belief in the religion she had ascribed to destroyed, Henni must decide whether to stay in her village and abide by the oppressive and corrupt distortion of law by the whims and greed of the temple leaders or to escape. Uncertain of what lies beyond her village, Henni chooses to escape with the risk that whatever is out there could be better or worse.
Unfortunately, her first destination in her fleeing is much worse than her village. The new village is more violent, more oppressive, and uses the word of God to justify the power and success of the higher tiers in their own perverse caste system.
In this village, any hint of independent thought proves to be fatal, so when Henni receives a punishment of mutilation for enjoying the non-secular art of an outsider, she must find a way to escape yet again.
For a coming of age tale, there is little attention given to Henni as a complete character and individual, thus dulling the connection between the reader and the protagonist.
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