(Indie Comics Writeup #001)
Long Walk to Valhalla
This is the saddest story I've ever read. And I don't mean "tragic." Tragic is Hamlet. Tragic is Oedipus Rex. Everything makes sense at the end, and the world is in order. I still don't know what to make of the ending of Long Walk to Valhalla. And I don't think that I need to derive some lesson from the ending or where protagonist Rory leaves us.
Long Walk to Valhalla tells the story of Rory, mid-Arkansas trailer park boy-now-man, whose car breaks down on his way to Memphis to escape and start a new job. At the side of the road he meets little girl Sylvia wearing a cardboard headband and breastplate, claiming to be a Valkyrie, like in Nordic mythology. "Rory of Arkansas, you're going to die today," she tells him. And she acts as a spirit guide to bring Rory through his life and presumably then to his afterlife.
Long Walk to Valhalla is a retrospective at Rory's life and the people who have come and gone throughout it. His "mentally challenged" brother Joe, childhood friend Tom, ex-girlfriend Katie, and his trailer trash dad. I won't say much more than that, for risk of spoiling key moments throughout. But I would say that the story isn't so much about Rory coming to terms with his history as it is just reliving it and accepting it and coming to a much-more-affecting Goodwill Hunting "It's not your fault" moment.
The art is decent-quality indie art that complements the story and never detracts or distracts, and it features monochromatic blue coloring with some simple shading and inking.
This is a definite recommend from me. I prefer the literal interpretation, that Sylvia is an actual Valkyrie guiding Rory to the Valhalla. But either way, the story contained is memorable.