“You can’t handle the truth!” Jack Nicholson famously shouts these words through gritted teeth and signature sneer in the classic 1990’s film, “A Few Good Men.” I love that scene. Not merely because it’s the thrilling climax of an intense court drama starring two legendary actors, but because of its jarring portrayal of reality. Nicholson’s character, a hardened, war-embattled Marine Colonel knows the truth hurts. He considers it too much for his seemingly naive nemesis, played by the ultra clean-cut Tom Cruise. Truth can be raw, uncomfortable and ultimately too difficult to bear for some. Often in life, we choose not to face it. But Nicholson, as the hard-as-nails Colonel who is being goaded on the witness stand, finally unleashes the whole truth. As brutal as it is, his climactic testimony is compelling and we dare not look away. In the same way, good art and literature compel us to take notice, regardless of the grotesque realities before us. It can be strangely satisfying and revealing. Cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz presents us with such a work. In his autobiographical comic, “An Introduction to Alcohol,” Krumpholz courageously stares down the truth of his childhood and life with an alcoholic father. His graphic novella is an unflinching face off with the coarse, sad realities of his dysfunctional upbringing. Many of us might prefer to look away since the result of his honest portrayal is often harsh, uncomfortable, and raw. But it is also refreshingly real, poignant and offers a profound cautionary tale that stirs the heart.
His slice-of-life comic is aptly named, “An Introduction to Alcohol,” as it relates the gripping story of young Karl’s grooming into a culture of bars, beer, and binge-drinking. The lesson is conducted under the tutelage of his own gruff father. The reader follows a young boy confronted with the confusing discovery of depravity surrounding drunkenness and addiction. We see through his innocent eyes the devastating effects of his father’s alcoholism on his son and family.
Good or bad, it is an understood reality that we learn a whole lot from the adults in our lives. Without even knowing it, our parents help shape who we become by providing us modeling and a point of reference by which to compare everything else. Not to mention the fact that they pass on their DNA which can make us more prone to a particular disease or weakness. It doesn’t mean we will become our parents, although many do, we are undoubtedly affected as we are formed in the combined soup of their genetic make-up and influence. Krumpholz’s family soup is pretty toxic. He masterfully conveys that through color, image and dialogue. The artwork is very contrasty and contains mostly sharp angles and pointy shapes. The world he creates feels almost brittle, a conscious choice on the part of the artist, I suspect. He depicts a jagged, sharp life that lacks warmth and softness. We are confronted with the grotesque on each page and panel. The choice of color scheme, shades of deep green, blues and black also help to convey a mood of dark discovery and dread. One scene in which this is particularly played out is when the young protagonist asks a loud-mouthed bar patron why she uses a straw to drink her Rolling Rock. She replies, “It gets you drunk faster!” This is the world in which a boy is formed. Not surprisingly, we follow Karl into his adolescence which mimics much of his father’s downward spiral. As the reader, it is tough to see him begin to follow in his dad’s footsteps. How much is conditioning? How much is coping? And how much is genetic?
This memoir comic offers a front row seat into the pattern of sin as it potentially taints another generation. While I tore through the pages quickly, it has stayed with me. It has become a source of much thought about the sins of the father. Krumpholz was an innocent recipient of all that baggage, yet he carries his own fully packed Samsonites everywhere he goes, including into adolescence and adulthood. At one point, we observe a normal kid forced to hang out in a smoky bar, witnessing his dad getting blitzed.
“Can we go home soon? I don’t like it. It smells weird in here.”
“Yes. It does. …But if you’re anything like me, kid… you’ll find yourself in these kind of places a lot. Better get used to it.”
We can clearly see he didn’t choose this brokenness. It was passed on the way that eye color is handed down through families. This caused me to ponder humanity’s first mother and father. In a similar way, each of us is heir to Adam and Eve. Their sinful choice shattered God’s created harmony, not only for them, but it adversely impacted us as well. It’s a truth we deal with in our daily lives. We struggle to do good or are tempted to not do as we should. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes what this graphic novella confronts head-on:
Sin is present in human history; any attempt to ignore it or to give this dark reality other names would be futile. To try to understand what sin is, one must first recognize the profound relation of man to God, for only in this relationship is the evil of sin unmasked in its true identity as humanity’s rejection of God and opposition to him, even as it continues to weigh heavy on human life and history.
Only the light of divine Revelation clarifies the reality of sin and particularly of the sin committed at mankind’s origins. Without the knowledge Revelation gives of God we cannot recognize sin clearly and are tempted to explain it as merely a developmental flaw, a psychological weakness, a mistake, or the necessary consequence of an inadequate social structure, etc. (CCC, 386-387)
Interestingly, the cartoonist reveals his skepticism of Christianity and Catholicism in the pages of this comic, yet ironically Krumpholz’s depiction is a succinct, artful real-life example of the Church’s teaching on original sin. We follow a boy’s journey through his dad’s alcoholism. He is bequeathed his father’s disordered predilection. That is the jumping off point of the story. It opens in a bar where Krumpholz, an adult, learns of his father’s death over the phone. Where the information leads him, the reader must go along for the ride. He takes us on a harrowing trip through his youth as the son of an angry drunk and as an adult presented with that legacy. If you can’t handle the truth, this comic is not for you. But for those of you ready to stare truth in the eye, it offers a riveting lesson on our own fallen human nature. May we all heed the lesson.
“Nothing conquers except truth, but the victory of truth is love.” —St. Augustine
