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Karmen #5
Karmen #5
In the moving final issue of GUILLEM MARCH’s gripping tale, the fate of Catalina’s soul and body hang in the balance. Will she be given a kind of amnesty and be born anew as a better person thanks to Karmen’s intervention? Or will she be lost to herself and all those she loves, including Xisco? In this exhilarating dénouement and epilogue, we see what Cata’s future holds for her.
36 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 7, 2021
22 people want to read
About the author
Guillem March
450 books51 followersSeudónimo del historietista español Guillermo March.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 14, 2023
My vote for best comic book series of 2021 goes to Guillem March’s “Karmen”. There are no superheroes, monsters, serial killers, or strong political overtones. It is actually a thoughtful, mature, intelligent examination of some heavy issues: death, grief, suicidal depression, judgmentalism, second chances.
Issue #5 brings the series to a wonderful—-and redemptive—-close, which is good, considering the last issue was super-depressing.
In this issue, we finally discover what Karmen’s job in the afterlife is and why she is causing so much trouble with her superiors. It’s also a race against time as Catalina’s spirit begins to gain some distance from her body, while events on Earth seem to be transpiring in a way that is advantageous for Catalina’s resurrection. She literally has seconds…
This is a beautifully-drawn, beautifully-written comic book series that demonstrates how powerful an artistic medium the genre can be.
Issue #5 brings the series to a wonderful—-and redemptive—-close, which is good, considering the last issue was super-depressing.
In this issue, we finally discover what Karmen’s job in the afterlife is and why she is causing so much trouble with her superiors. It’s also a race against time as Catalina’s spirit begins to gain some distance from her body, while events on Earth seem to be transpiring in a way that is advantageous for Catalina’s resurrection. She literally has seconds…
This is a beautifully-drawn, beautifully-written comic book series that demonstrates how powerful an artistic medium the genre can be.
August 28, 2021
Wow this series was fantastic and I think reading this volume was one of the very few times I felt really emotional about the story.
Spoilers!
Karmen's bitchy, jaded co-workers are featured, discussing their annoyance for Karmen and how she takes much longer to prices her souls than others. But on further discussion, they see that she's actually been able to change the coding of a soul prior to it's reincarnation. This means that she's been able to influence the soul in the short time between death and reincarnation, so instead of the soul (especially in the case of a suicide like Kata's) being reborn into a different, potentially worse life, the soul is reunited with it's own body, allowing that person to come back to life, and actually go forth with a better life than their prior life.
The co-workers look further into it while Karmen is still with Kata, while she's in the tub. Karmen's showing her on an app that there's only 1 circumstance where she could potentially be saved and be rejoined into her body involving a power outage which would start a chain of micro events leading to Kat's roommate finding her and then reviving get with EMTs etc. There's a moment where Karmen looks frustrated then determined, and suddenly we flash to the coworkers who see that another of these special instances is occurring right now (I forgot what it was specifically called, the Bengal effect or some shit lol).
We watch these events occur, wondering how it could be possible. The power goes out. The roommate needs to pee and, awhile lazy af, is prompted by the power outage to go to the bathroom. She discovers Kat and calls for help, the EMTs reviving her.
I had to go back and look at some details here. Kat had slit her wrists in the tub. But when we see the draining, empty tub after Kat had been discovered, the hair dryer is in it! In my opinion, I think the coworkers were a bit wrong in their assumption that the souls go through recoding. Maybe Karmen was somehow able to interact with the corporeal works and put the dryer in the tub which caused the building's power outage, setting forth the chain of events necessary to revive Kat.
Kat is indeed revived. She has slightly cloudy memories of her time with Karmen and writes them down. She is able to help the woman of the man who was hot by the car, retrieving the ring that was in the sewer, and identifying the vehicle that killed him.
The end to this series was great, although I would've loved more details on the inner working of Karmen's workplace hierarchy and what her job actually entails aside from being simply a guide to the afterlife. More details on the rules etc.
But this series was amazing. Beautiful art, vibrantly colored, to tell a really sad and deep story regarding the human mistakes we make when we get tunnel vision and can't get out of our own heads.
Spoilers!
Karmen's bitchy, jaded co-workers are featured, discussing their annoyance for Karmen and how she takes much longer to prices her souls than others. But on further discussion, they see that she's actually been able to change the coding of a soul prior to it's reincarnation. This means that she's been able to influence the soul in the short time between death and reincarnation, so instead of the soul (especially in the case of a suicide like Kata's) being reborn into a different, potentially worse life, the soul is reunited with it's own body, allowing that person to come back to life, and actually go forth with a better life than their prior life.
The co-workers look further into it while Karmen is still with Kata, while she's in the tub. Karmen's showing her on an app that there's only 1 circumstance where she could potentially be saved and be rejoined into her body involving a power outage which would start a chain of micro events leading to Kat's roommate finding her and then reviving get with EMTs etc. There's a moment where Karmen looks frustrated then determined, and suddenly we flash to the coworkers who see that another of these special instances is occurring right now (I forgot what it was specifically called, the Bengal effect or some shit lol).
We watch these events occur, wondering how it could be possible. The power goes out. The roommate needs to pee and, awhile lazy af, is prompted by the power outage to go to the bathroom. She discovers Kat and calls for help, the EMTs reviving her.
I had to go back and look at some details here. Kat had slit her wrists in the tub. But when we see the draining, empty tub after Kat had been discovered, the hair dryer is in it! In my opinion, I think the coworkers were a bit wrong in their assumption that the souls go through recoding. Maybe Karmen was somehow able to interact with the corporeal works and put the dryer in the tub which caused the building's power outage, setting forth the chain of events necessary to revive Kat.
Kat is indeed revived. She has slightly cloudy memories of her time with Karmen and writes them down. She is able to help the woman of the man who was hot by the car, retrieving the ring that was in the sewer, and identifying the vehicle that killed him.
The end to this series was great, although I would've loved more details on the inner working of Karmen's workplace hierarchy and what her job actually entails aside from being simply a guide to the afterlife. More details on the rules etc.
But this series was amazing. Beautiful art, vibrantly colored, to tell a really sad and deep story regarding the human mistakes we make when we get tunnel vision and can't get out of our own heads.
July 20, 2021
guillem march is a real weirdo for drawing cata naked the entire story
this story also had really problematic depiction of suicide
i wish we had seen more from karmen than cata bc i really did not find cata to be very likable
also the resolution definitely couldve resolved more things!! but whatever
this story also had really problematic depiction of suicide
i wish we had seen more from karmen than cata bc i really did not find cata to be very likable
also the resolution definitely couldve resolved more things!! but whatever
January 7, 2022
TW: self-harm, suicide
I've been so intrigued since the introduction of this Karma Afterlife Bureau, as I've been calling them, and I feel like the information released in this issue finally paid off. I understand why the Karma henchpeople operate the way they do, and why they have it out so much for Karmen. The concept of helping souls who've made mistakes is really compelling, I'm just not convinced that self-harm was the best way to showcase it, especially considering how Cata is portrayed as selfish instead of in need of help. I have to admit though, the ending of this series was really satisfying for the plot and character arc March set up.
Thoughts on the series overall:
I really loved it. Yes, I had my issues with how some of the plot was handled and what drove Cata to her initial demize, but it still resonated with me very deeply and moved me quite a lot. I LOVE those lines and colors, my God they were magnificent! And the characters were overall memorable (with the exception of Xisco). Overall, I enjoyed the sort of dystopian, techy Afterlife Bureau A Lot, and philosophizing about death and morality.
I've been so intrigued since the introduction of this Karma Afterlife Bureau, as I've been calling them, and I feel like the information released in this issue finally paid off. I understand why the Karma henchpeople operate the way they do, and why they have it out so much for Karmen. The concept of helping souls who've made mistakes is really compelling, I'm just not convinced that self-harm was the best way to showcase it, especially considering how Cata is portrayed as selfish instead of in need of help. I have to admit though, the ending of this series was really satisfying for the plot and character arc March set up.
Thoughts on the series overall:
I really loved it. Yes, I had my issues with how some of the plot was handled and what drove Cata to her initial demize, but it still resonated with me very deeply and moved me quite a lot. I LOVE those lines and colors, my God they were magnificent! And the characters were overall memorable (with the exception of Xisco). Overall, I enjoyed the sort of dystopian, techy Afterlife Bureau A Lot, and philosophizing about death and morality.
July 14, 2021
The pacing is just whacky across the four issues, but it’s a relief to finally see the one character escape persistent nudity, to get even just scraps of the cosmic world-building (too late and not super well done, but whatever), and the visual verve really carries out a quite beautiful freeing ending couple panels. Wish the whole comic was at least of this quality, and I’m not sure I’d necessarily recommend it to many people overall, but I’m glad I stuck with it at least.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews