Castle Waiting

AUTHOR: Medley, Linda

ARTIST: Linda Medley (illustrator); Todd Klein (letterer)

PUBLISHER: Olio; Cartoon Books; Fantagraphics Books

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1996-2010

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 2006

Publication History

With a grant from the Xeric Foundation, Linda Medley self-published (under the name Olio Press) the first Castle Waiting publication, Castle Waiting: The Curse of Brambly Hedge, in 1996. That initial publication, a prologue to the series, was followed by seven additional issues and a hiatus issue, all self-published from 1997 to 1999.

In 2000, Cartoon Books published the first four issues of Volume 2 (numbers 8-11 of the 1997-1999 series). In 2001, Medley returned to self-publishing, releasing five more issues of Castle Waiting (Volume 2, numbers 5-9).

In 2006, Fantagraphics Books published a hardback collection, Castle Waiting: Volume I, which included previously published issues and a new epilogue produced specifically for the volume, and relaunched the continuing series in July of that year. Fifteen new issues were published and collected in a second hardcover book, Castle Waiting: Volume II. Fantagraphics also published an expensive, hand-assembled edition of Volume 1.

Critics and readers of Volume 1 have noted the abrupt switch in the story line from the castle setting to the lengthy tale of Sister Peace and the Solicitine Order. In interviews, Medley has revealed that the bearded ladies stories were to come much later in the series, but that Cartoon Books insisted that she change the story line to settings outside the castle. When the second volume of the hardcover edition of Castle Waiting was published in 2010, Medley had her name removed from the spine, cover, and title page. Only a removable sticker next to the bar code on the back cover mentions Medley as the author and artist. The dispute between Medley and Fantagraphics Books has not been identified, but Fantagraphics has stated that the removal of Medley’s name from the second volume was done at her request. Fantagraphics Books has also announced that the series is on hiatus, which has left many story lines unresolved.

Plot

A set of linked tales, Castle Waiting opens with a humorous retelling of the Brothers Grimm classic fairy tale “Briar Rose” (Sleeping Beauty). At a christening for the newborn daughter of the king and queen of Putney, twelve wise witches bestow special gifts upon the infant. Suddenly, an evil witch named Mald, angry at not having been invited to the ceremony, enters and bestows a death curse upon the princess, declaring that on her fifteenth birthday she will prick her finger on a spindle and die. The last good witch, who had yet to give her gift, lifts the death curse by declaring that the princess will instead fall into a deep sleep, protected for one hundred years, to be eventually awakened by a prince. The princess is tricked on her fifteenth birthday into pricking her finger on a spindle, and she and all the inhabitants of the castle fall fast asleep. Townspeople flee the once prosperous and bustling medieval kingdom, and woods claim the castle. After one hundred years, a brave prince passes through the thorns and awakens the sleeping princess; the two immediately leave the castle for his realm.

Years pass, and the abandoned and isolated castle, renamed Castle Waiting, becomes a legendary sanctuary for those who have no other place to reside. The remaining former denizens (Patience, Prudence, and Plenty, the now elderly handmaidens to the princess) along with an eccentric crew of humans and magical beings run the castle.

Escaping an abusive husband, the pregnant Lady Jain flees her home for the refuge of Castle Waiting. After a series of adventures, she arrives at the castle. Jain quickly settles in as the librarian; she teaches Simon, the half-giant, how to read and bears a son named Pindar, who mysteriously appears to be only partly human. As Jain adjusts to the community, the everyday lives of the eccentric characters are explained. Like the participants in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (first transcribed, 1387-1400), the characters tell their stories to one another, often in flashbacks or in stories within stories.

The final third of the graphic novel (seven chapters and the epilogue) focuses on the story of Peaceful Warren as she moves from a pub to a circus to a convent, finally stopping at Castle Waiting. Having developed a beard as a teenager, Warren runs off to join a circus. When she finally finds one, she discovers there already is a beautiful bearded lady known as Mabel or Clytemnestra, Queen of the Nile, serving as the star attraction, and she accepts a position as barmaid.

Clytemnestra and Warren become fast friends. When Mabel discovers that her abusive husband, Lint, is having an affair, the two friends flee to seek refuge at the Abbey at St. Wilgeforte, a convent for bearded women. After fending off Lint and his henchmen, the nuns welcome the two women into the convent. Mabel eventually remarries a farmer, but Warren joins the Solicitine Order, changes her name to Sister Peace, and then has a series of adventures before joining the inhabitants of Castle Waiting.

As Mable and Warren settle into the convent, Abbess Clarice tells them the story of the founding of the Solicitine Order, which is based on the story of St. Wilgefortis. Nejmah, a beautiful Middle Eastern princess who has converted to Christianity, is forced by her father to marry a pagan prince. The night before her wedding, Nejmah, who has taken a vow of chastity, prays that she will be made repulsive; in answer to her prayers, she sprouts a beard. In anger, Nejmah’s father has her crucified. Nejmah’s remaining six sisters then spread the story of their martyred sister throughout the world and establish the order named Wilgeforte (holy fire).

Abbess Clarice also tells her own remarkable story. Repulsed that their daughter has been born with a beard, Clarice’s parents sell her to Luther and Anna Munrab, owners of a traveling circus. A timid teenager, Clarice is coaxed out of her shyness by a gypsy lion tamer named Nilo, who teaches her to tell fortunes. Clarice and Nilo eventually marry and inherit the circus, and upon Nilo’s death, Clarice enters the convent.

Volume 2 continues the tale of the castle’s odd inhabitants, filling in, with flashbacks, the life stories of Jain, Iron Henry, Dinah Cully, and Dr. Fell. Mrs. Cully tells the story of how she met and married her husband, a gentle giant named Tom. Rackham reveals the horrible events leading up to Dr. Fell’s arrival at Castle Waiting.

A brilliant Venetian surgeon, Dr. Fell had volunteered to assist victims of the Black Death sent to the small island of Poveglia, a lazaretto, during a plague outbreak. A Poveglia native, Dr. Fell believed that he could find a cure that would then lead the doge of Venice to return Poveglia to its rightful people. When Dr. Fell’s friends visit the island months later, they find everyone dead but Dr. Fell, who has gone mad with grief. Transported to Castle Waiting by his friends, Dr. Fell spends his time in search of a cure for the plague.

Tolliver and Dayne, two dwarves, arrive at Castle Waiting seeking clothes for a human fosterling (implied to be Snow White). Jain reveals that she owns a magic trunk that will produce anything she desires and offers to create an entire new wardrobe. Tolliver and Dayne make needed repairs to the castle, discover more hidden passageways, participate in a magical bowling tournament, and try to determine the real identity of Pindar.

Volumes

•Castle Waiting: Volume I (2006). Collects issues from Volumes 1-2 published by Cartoon Books and self-published by Medley from 1996 to 2001.

•Castle Waiting: Volume II (2010). Collects the fifteen issues published by Fantagraphics Books from 2006 to 2009.

Characters

•Jain Solander, posing as the countess of Carbas, is the daughter of a wealthy merchant. She has fled from her abusive husband to seek refuge at Castle Waiting, where she gives birth to Pindar. Her arrival at the castle sets in motion the narrative after the prologue.

•Patience, Prudence, and Plenty are the now elderly former ladies-in-waiting to the princess. The three handmaidens have stayed on at Castle Waiting because they have no other place to go.

•Rackham Adjutant is the kindly “storkman” steward of Castle Waiting. He is named for Arthur Rackham, a children’s book illustrator and one of Medley’s major artistic influences.

•Sir Chess is a horse-headed champion swords-man who stops at Castle Waiting between tournaments.

•Dinah Lucina Cully is the warmhearted and outspoken cook and housekeeper of the castle. A widower, she is the mother of Simon Cully, a slow-witted but sweet half-giant.

•Iron Henry, a devoted friend of the dwarves, is a taciturn blacksmith. He was brought to Castle Waiting dying of a broken heart and is kept alive by three forged iron rings that protect his heart.

•Dr. Hieronymous Fell is a formerly brilliant, but now mentally disturbed, Venetian physician who was driven mad during a Black Death outbreak. He wears a long beak mask adopted by surgeons treating plague victims.

•Peaceful Warren is a former barmaid who joins the Order of Solicitine and takes the name of Sister Peace.

•Clytemnestra, Queen of the Nile, a.k.a. Mabel, is the bearded star attraction of a traveling circus. She and Peaceful Warren, who are close friends, flee the circus to escape Mabel’s abusive husband and seek refuge at the Abbey of St. Wilgeforte.

•Abbess Clarice is a former bearded fortune-teller who heads the Solicitine Order at the Abbey of St. Wilgeforte.

•Tolliver and Dayne, friends of Iron Henry, are dwarves who visit Castle Waiting unexpectedly. Their arrival in Volume 2 sets offs a series of events and adventures within the castle.

Artistic Style

In the afterword to the first issue of Castle Waiting, Medley reveals that while studying children’s book illustration at college, she had wanted to illustrate the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, but she abandoned the idea when she discovered that what really interested her were “the background characters—their unexplained pasts, and their unresolved tales.” Castle Waiting is her attempt to create a fairyland world of characters left behind after Sleeping Beauty and Prince Charming have abandoned the castle. To create her fantastical world, Medley blends storytelling elements—fairy tales, nursery rhymes, fables, folklore, mythology, and chivalric tales—while evoking a visual style reminiscent of classical fairy tales.

The two hardcover volumes of Castle Waiting physically look like collections of fairy tales, similar to Andrew Lang’s colored fairy tale books. The volumes recall the artwork of such classical children’s book authors as Rackham and William Heath Robinson, two of Medley’s major influences. Her exquisitely detailed black-and-white art evokes medieval-style woodcuts, but with a much more charming and playful approach.

Medley’s strong line work is clear and crisp and particularly suited to creating detailed backgrounds and the expressive faces of her eccentric characters. The tales within Castle Waiting are character-driven, and Medley takes the time to make each figure distinct and instantly identifiable. She did historical research on the medieval period, and all of the finely drawn details help to create a fully realized world. To force readers to reflect upon something that has happened within the story, on occasion, Medley will repeat identical panels, such as the four-panel sequence at the end of the prologue in which the characters slowly realize that the prince and princess have really left and will not be returning.

Themes

Although Linda Medley’s setting and characters arise from fairy tales and fantasy, her themes are hearth-centered and leave no room for the dark uncanny. The story revolves around a group of eccentric societal misfits with troubled pasts who seek refuge in Sleeping Beauty’s deserted castle, which takes on a new identity as their haven. At the castle, they live comfortable, everyday lives, and the theme of communal living prevails. The reader sees the characters eating dinner together, doing the dishes and other mundane tasks. Themes of acceptance come into play. Though Jain’s son is born green with a snout and tail, everyone loves and accepts the infant without question.

Gender roles are often reversed or spoofed, and the theme of strong, independent women who have overcome oppression is stressed. A large portion of the first volume is devoted to the story of Sister Peace, who formerly belonged to an order of bearded nuns called the Solicitines. These beautiful bearded women joined this order to escape the misogynistic culture of their time. While both the female and male characters have harrowing adventures, it is the women who prevail, while the men crumble.

The theme of domestic violence against women runs through the work. Jain comes to the castle to flee her abusive husband’s wrath. (She is pregnant, and the child is not his.) Mable escapes her equally abusive husband. While the interlinked stories take place in a medieval fantasy world, the individual story lines have a modern feminist point of view. Her female-oriented themes, which stress relationships over adventures, give the tales a modern feel.

Medley’s themes are highlighted by her graphic art, featuring strong but simple drawings with much attention to detail. Her themes are best communicated in her large graphic panels where she omits words and delineates character through detailed facial expressions alone. The graphics are sometimes quite light and humorous even when the story line is serious.

Impact

When the Castle Waiting series began publication in 1996, it quickly developed a small but devoted following, especially with women readers, and went on to win prestigious Eisner and Harvey awards. Medley promoted her series at comic conventions, but because the issues were self-published and often difficult to obtain, her work remained largely unrecognized and underappreciated. All of that changed in 2006 when the first hardcover collection of the tales was published by Fantagraphics Books. Volume 1 was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Graphic Novel, and the two hardback volumes received uniformly glowing reviews from such mainstream sources as Fantasy and Science Fiction, Time, Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and Library Journal.

A writer, colorist, penciller, and children’s book illustrator, Medley is a successful female graphic novelist in a field dominated by male authors and artists. Her work is often singled out for its women-centered narratives. While the adaptation of classic fairy tales to a graphic novel format is common, Medley’s tales are unique in that they reimage or reinvent the traditional stories with a feminist slant.

Further Reading

Shannon, Hale, Dean Hale, and Nathan Hale. Rapunzel’s Revenge (2008).

Spiegelman, Art, and Françoise Mouly. Big Fat Little Lit (2006).

Willingham, Bill. Fables (2002- ).

Bibliography

Coale, Mark. Breaking the Panels: Over Seventy-Five Short Interviews from Around the Comics Industry. Colora, Md.: O-Ghoshi Studios, 1998.

Furey, Emmett. “CCI Xtra: Spotlight on Linda Medley.” Comic Book Resources, July 25, 2006. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=7689.

Medley, Linda. “Linda Medley Interview.” Interview by Eric Evans. The Comics Journal 218 (December, 1999): 93-105.

Robins, Trina. From Girls to Grrrlz: A History of [Women’s] Comics from Teens to Zines. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1999.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Great Women Cartoonists. New York: Watson-Guptill, 2001.