Percy Gloom

AUTHOR: Malkasian, Cathy

ARTIST: Cathy Malkasian (illustrator)

PUBLISHER: Fantagraphics Books

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 2007

Publication History

Percy Gloom was first published in 2007 by Fantagraphics Books. The book was the first graphic novel by animation director Cathy Malkasian and marks her transition from one method of storytelling to another. Prior to publishing the novel, Malkasian worked on children’s television shows such as The Wild Thornberrys, Rugrats, and As Told by Ginger.

Plot

Percy Gloom tells the story of Percy, a charming old man with a lazy eye who has left home for the first time. He arrives in a small town for an interview with the Safety Now Cautionary Writing Institute. The opportunity is a dream-come-true for Percy, who has written to Safety Now for the past twenty years, inquiring about job openings.

Hungry after his long journey, Percy stops at a bakery for three buckwheat muffins and the juice of thirty lemons. According to Percy, these are the only foods he can ingest without suffering terrible nightmares. While there, he meets Tammy, the first of several characters whose fates Percy affects. Tammy is berating a woman behind the counter. Percy notices her left foot has a terrible infection. Tammy, noticing his stares, turns her aggressions upon him. Percy tries to be helpful by suggesting she treat her infection with medicines. Tammy responds that medicine is poison; when Percy becomes insistent, she violently shoves her foot in his mouth. She states since he does not know of the ancient wisdom of Yagapantha, he need not give her advice.

Percy flees in a panic and searches for a fountain to wash out his mouth. He manages to find one, but before he can gargle, a shepherd with a herd of goats stops him. Distraught, Percy reluctantly heads to Safety Now for his interview.

Arriving late, he fumbles through his interview with Margaret, the supervisor for Safety Now. She grows increasingly agitated with Percy when his only responses stem from his good-natured desire that no one get hurt. Margaret rejects him, and he leaves the office in despair. Fueled by hunger and disappointment, he begins hallucinating the end of his lifelong dreams, and then he faints.

When Percy regains consciousness, he meets Bernard, a kindly employee of Safety Now. Bernard first mistakes Percy for an employee, but he apologizes when he learns of his error. Bernard tries to make amends by buying Percy a meal and rescues Percy when he faints a second time. The pair head to Founder’s Park to enjoy a rejuvenating fountain. Bernard also tells Percy more about Tammy and asks about Percy’s background.

Feeling invigorated, Percy returns to the Visitor House where he is staying. There, he discovers a basket of buckwheat muffins and a note from Tammy. To his dismay, her feelings of contempt have transformed into obsession for him. He retreats to the solace of his room, where he tells his mother his woes over a radio. She calmly reminds him to turn his head and go to sleep, “for tomorrow is another day.”

The next day, Percy discovers Margaret has reconsidered her decision and has hired him. Bursting with excitement, he races toward Safety Now. Before he can continue, he is knocked unconscious by a muffin that is lobbed at his head. When Percy regains consciousness, he discovers he has been taken by Tammy to a vast cavern filled with muffins. Tammy expresses displeasure over his sensitivity and lazy eye, but then she offers him a muffin to eat. She seems delighted and coy, but a random question causes her to lose her temper once more.

After being literally booted from Tammy’s presence, Percy arrives at Safety Now. There, he meets his coworker Leo, a seasoned veteran of the company, and reunites with Bernard. After earning a day off from Margaret, Bernard asks Percy for help in dealing with Tammy. Percy agrees, and Bernard sends him to the Lower Market. There, Percy learns the truth about the cult of Yagapantha: To avoid death, they eat the dying.

Percy also meets Tammy’s parents, who reveal Tammy’s motivations and inspirations for her cult. They also implore Percy to visit their daughter and to help her come to her senses. Percy leaves the catacombs and confronts Tammy, chastising her for being so unkind to her parents and other people’s relatives. He then departs for home to visit his mother. Over tea and birthday presents, he comes to terms with the regret of never having met his father and the grief stemming from his wife’s death.

Filled with renewed confidence, he returns to town to find it destroyed. He also discovers that, in his absence, Tammy has allowed the dying to return to their families. Upon reuniting with Bernard, he learns that Tammy has also found her parents. Percy then visits Margaret, whom he finds weeping over the destruction of Safety Now and her own shortsightedness. Using a telescope his mother invented for his father, he encourages her to let go of her failures and try again. The story ends with the line “in the business of caution . . . we are unprepared for happiness.”

Characters

•Percy Gloom, the protagonist, is an old man with a lazy eye and gap teeth. Polite, kind, and a touch eccentric, he is empathetic and never hesitates to help people. He first comes to the town with the dream of working for Safety Now, but he quickly becomes involved in several of the town’s problems.

•Tammy, the primary antagonist, is a middle-aged woman with long hair. Angry and stubborn, she bullies everyone in town. Her feelings toward Percy shift from disdain to romantic infatuation. She is also the leader of the cult of Yagapantha, a religion she created as a child to defeat death by devouring the dying.

•Bernard is a doctor at the Safety Now Cautionary Writing Institute. Calm and sweet, he quickly befriends Percy. Despite his calm demeanor, he is the leader of an underground group that combats Tammy’s cult, hiding the elderly beneath the city to save them from being devoured by her followers.

•Margaret is the manager at the Safety Now Cautionary Writing Institute. She is tall and broad, wears glasses, and has braces. While she has good intentions, she tends to be overemotional and quick to judge. After the town is destroyed, she feels like she failed to help keep people safe.

•Lila is Percy’s wife, who died many years before the story begins. Described as a startling beauty, she was a member of the Funnelhead sect, led by a man named Finger. While initially lively and happy, she slowly drifts away from Percy and becomes more zealous and obsessed with the Funnelheads’s teachings. In the end, the group is her undoing, as she rolls down a hill to her death, tied to a boulder.

•Leo is a dedicated Safety Now employee who is scarred and missing an eye and a hand. The walls in his office are covered with mementos of his safety achievements. Like Percy, he is an older man. He also appears to be in love with his supervisor, Margaret.

•Tammy’s Parents are a tiny couple with oversized ears who resemble mice. They were once cheese makers, but when Tammy’s cult arose, they had to go into hiding or face death at their daughter’s hand.

Artistic Style

Malkasian’s art strongly reflects her years of working in the animation industry. The architecture and character designs use certain basic shapes to help define and enhance the personalities of both panels and characters.

Percy’s body shape is constructed almost entirely of circles and ovals, reflecting his meek and tender demeanor. Bernard has an overly large head to reflect his intelligence and an expressive face to convey his kindness. Safety Now’s building resembles a giant egg, and Tammy is drawn in sharp angles and harsh lines. The Gloom household is a large estate, full of bizarre contraptions and stately rooms. In contrast, the homes in which the elderly hide are small and cozy, while Tammy lives in a vast cavern, which is reflective of her lonely life.

The panels are another strength in Malkasian’s storytelling; each one manages to further the story without overusing dialogue and to allow the characters to develop and interact naturally. The extra beats and pauses in actions and dialogue give the story an unhurried, natural pace that mirrors human life. Wide shots are used to give a sense of scale and enhance the whimsy by showing off the architecture, and they give depth to the world around Percy and the others. Finally, the choice of sepia tones for the whole comic creates a much warmer feeling than if only stark blacks and whites had been used.

Themes

Percy Gloom’s themes revolve around life, happiness, dying, and dealing with the loss of loved ones. Characters like Tammy and Margaret try to fight against aspects of life they feel “threaten” their existence, namely death and danger. However, in their efforts to combat these immutable facets of human life, they both overlook the most important aspect: to enjoy the time one has with those one cares about. On the other hand, Lila, Percy’s wife, races to end her time in one life in favor of the next, saying her existence was a sham. Percy’s father despaired over the potential for catastrophe and killed himself.

In contrast, Bernard and Tammy’s parents have learned to treasure the moments they have. Percy seems to have never thought much about death. Having accepted it as a part of life, he devotes his time to pursuing his dreams and enjoying simple pleasures. His adventures also teach that a person benefits by being open to new experiences. Percy Gloom never preaches a right or wrong way to live. Rather, it simply asks that people appreciate the time they are given and try to separate the important worries from the trivial.

Impact

Percy Gloom is Malkasian’s first foray into comics after spending many years working in the animation industry for the cable television station Nickelodeon. It was nominated for two Eisner Awards and won the Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award at the 2008 Comic-Con International: San Diego. Percy Gloom is told in a delightful voice; readers find it to be a mature story, full of tender moments and reflections on some of the biggest societal and life questions.

Further Reading

Malkasian, Cathy. Temperance (2010).

Small, David. Stitches (2009).

Thompson, Craig. Blankets (2003).

Bibliography

Barsanti, Chris. “PW Comics Week.” Publishers Weekly 254, no. 23 (June 4, 2007): 36.

Femia, Christine. “Percy Gloom.” Review of Percy Gloom, by Cathy Malkasian. Bust 46 (August/September, 2007): 100.

Goldsmith, Francisca. “Percy Gloom.” Review of Percy Gloom, by Cathy Malkasian. Booklist 103, no. 17 (May 1, 2007): 80.

“Percy Gloom.” Review of Percy Gloom, by Cathy Malkasian. Kirkus Reviews 75, no. 12 (June 15, 2007): 8.

“Percy Gloom.” Review of Percy Gloom, by Cathy Malkasian. Publishers Weekly 254, no. 23 (June 4, 2007): 36.