COMICS THAT BITE: Wifwulf by Dailen Ogden
"The hardest lesson a creature can learn...is how to recognize a cage from the inside."
Vault Storyworks, LLC: April 2024
Happy belated New Year to all of you who’ve hung on with me with me this long! If you didn’t notice, I’ve started another publication titled “Monster in Fine Arts,” where I work through some creative writing instruction and document the writing process for my new project. Please join me over there, if you’ve got the notion for some literary commotion (sorry).
I’m also hoping to join a website as a contributor, so bear with me while a unleash this fairly straight-laced review as a practice run. I would’ve loved to have had time to throw in an analysis of female persecution at the hands of the Knights Templar and compare this take on a Lithuanian legend to the ones in nearby Estonia, but, alas. Time is short, and so am I.
Charity Bjornsdotter is the envy of her small village in Civil War-era Montana. She’s set to marry Paul—the most dashing and charming man around for miles. Unfortunately for Charity, her shiny new husband has a dark side. Unfortunately for Paul, Charity’s is darker.
Befriended by a local wolf with unusual power, Charity finds herself trapped between an abusive marriage and the allure of the forest. She slaves over her domestic duties day after day, while Paul downs whisky and canoodles with all the single women in town. As if that weren’t bad enough, Paul becomes increasingly irate over the growing population of wolves in the surrounding forest, using it as a reason to keep Charity under lock and key. Things come to a head when Paul appoints himself judge and executioner for the local canines and Charity is forced into action to protect her one true friend.
Wifwulf is the brain child of artist Dailen Ogden, who is joined by comic-writing duo Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly. The story itself is based on the Lithuanian folk goddess Medeinė, aka the “Forest Mother.” She serves as the guardian of the forest and goes after those who intend to do it harm. It’s by way of this legend that the connection between womanhood and the wild points to repression by man’s domination, but this story also shows one can bounce back from abuse to become someone stronger than before.
Ogden’s art in the book is hauntingly beautiful, and anyone should be loath to miss it.
Indeed, comic writer Jody Houser describes Wifwulf as “a lucious, vicious fever dream of a fairy tale,” and I cannot think of a better description.
But remember this: if you fuck with nature, she will fuck with you.