Eat the Rich (Review)
(Read Physically)
Eat the Rich is a story that warrants being judged by its cover. Or more precisely, its title. What has existed as a slogan for class solidarity against an oppressive ruling class is then recontextualized here on the pages of Sarah Gailey, Pius Bak and Roman Titov's Eat The Rich.
The story opens on Joey Dorsey going to meet the parents of her boyfriend Astor Hadley and as she narrates, her anxieties drown out his words. There's an early bounce of balloons and narration boxes crafted by Cardinal Rae, drawing attention to how in her own head Joey is. Rae does excellent lettering work throughout and how the lettering is structured works very well to communicate small things like being lost in one's own thoughts. Appropriately so, as Joey has quite a lot to figure out between the five chapters of this story. Joey is taken in by the opulence of the beach house and as many people without access to wealth and material; has aspired to this, saying "And it's where I've been working my whole life to be." As Gailey and Bak introduce us to the Hadley property, there is something foreboding and ominous about Bak's use of spot blacks. While Joey is impressed by the size of the home and all the facilities, the visuals drench everything in heavy shadows, functionally moving the eye from one panel to the next while also presenting the lens through which we're meant to view the story.
Within the first chapter, Joey is reminded of her position to wealth and class, being reprimanded for "helping the help." She is shown to not come from wealth but in attempting to navigate it, she must also navigate her sense of identity. The story presents numerous wealthy white families and people; Joey herself being white has closer proximity and access due in no small part to her own whiteness. Functionally she is juxtaposed and complimented by Petal Singh; a woman of color who structurally has less access to wealth and is being crushed by the systems that keep her employers rich. Joey is faced with the nature of Astor's friends and family at a retirement party, which Astor himself seemed reluctant to attend. Titov's color work sings in this sequence, playing off of Bak's heavy blacks with bouncy and warm lighting casting the party in warm pinks and peach tones. Titov's strong sense of warm and cool colors is illustrated throughout the book and places focus exactly where it needs to be. Within the retirement party the use of blues creates a clear visual line and rhythm moving from panel to panel. Having Joey' dress be striped with blue lines makes her easy to distinguish and a clear focal point. With her dress, Joey is also an object of attention, second only to the roast of retiring grounds-keeper Tobias Healy. Cracking under the pressure of fitting in with the rich, Joey steps away and ends up witnessing the reality of the retirement party, as Astor's father Pip runs down Mr. Healy. Bak expertly crafts a nine panel grid showcasing the horror of Healy's demise without reveling in it, showing just enough while simultaneously pulling back just enough for the impact of this violence to be present without graphicly detailing the murder of Tobias. Joey's fear is so well captured in her expression and then the camera pulls back to situate you in the horror as Pip dismembers Tobias and they throw him on the grill.
Joey is understandably unnerved by what she's witnessed and in the second issue is provided further context for how this world works. Petal acknowledges her acceptance of the conditions of her employment, citing her health complications and disabilities as things necessitating her work. She receives benefits that take care of her well, and at the end of her contract period she will be cannibalized. The truth of her labor and her life. It's a grim reality of systemic failure, where the vulnerable and the poor are preyed upon. "We all need something. People have sick parents, or crushing debt, or kids they want to send to college." The realities of inequality are laid out and if they mirror our own realities then this should be horrifying. That any one group of people could have so much and live so comfortably as the working class are struggling or collapsing under the weight of these systems should be alarming. While alarming, society presents these struggles as normal, as unchanging facts of life. "I was going to die anyway." Petal states this flatly, her disabilities disadvantaged her within the system and instead of being taken care of, she was going to be cast aside and slip through the cracks as so many people do. Interestingly, Astor for his privilege and access, fears for how his anxiety would paint him to his peers but while he fears "brutal" gossip, Joey sits in the knowledge of how Petal's own health issues disproportionately disadvantage her.
As the third issue starts, a barbecue takes place while Kitty, Astor's step-mother, speaks with Joey one on one. Joey is presented with acceptance as Kitty sees herself in her as they both come from lower backgrounds. Kitty's own initial horror at the cannibalism inspired her to "change" things, requiring the contracts with retirement clauses. Kitty is a class traitor. Her desire to marry into wealth at the expense of the working class defines her as such. Her change, ineffective as she chose status over solidarity. Gailey writes her out to be so proud of what she did, all while giving us a lens to see truly how meaningless her "changes" were. It is not uncommon for the have-nots to look at those who have and want that position. It is in fact the American Dream: anyone can make it and get rich if they work hard enough. The American Dream is a lie through which the working class and the poor are exploited for labor that they don't see the benefits for. Eat the Rich illustrates through masterful detail that those who truly work hard are not seeing riches, and to go further, that riches are nothing to aspire to. Sycophantic smiles surround Joey at the barbecue and historically speaking with the gained contexts of anti-Black racism in America, this sequence is eerie and unsettling. Joey engages in the barbecue, eating the meat served to her along with Astor and the other community members. She begins to assimilate into their culture, risking becoming a class traitor herself as another retirement party where a jaw dropping double page spread is presented. The use of space, the panels shifting our focus, the colors getting warmer across the sequence anxiously mirror Joey's own anxiety as she thinks loudly across the spread "It's happening again."
It's revealed that the cannibalism changes one's physiology, meaning Joey now needs to eat human meat and she begins to adjust to what could be her life. Her life as a part of the bourgeois class that preys upon and cannibalizes the proletariat. Joey's identity remains consistently challenged, pushed and pulled by capitalists and "the help" alike. "I mean capitalism is coercion." Petal states as she and Joey get closer, a kiss furthering Joey's own questions of identity as the promise of an engagement with Astor looms. If it weren't clear earlier, Petal is queer and that subtext is presented throughout the story. One thing to note after the barbecue while Joey remarks about the time she spends with Petal is that Petal is wearing a shirt with the words "Loud and Queer" printed on it. Her narration paired with the details in Bak's art push this understanding of who Joey is and what she's working through. Throughout the story, Joey's narration is given the space to exist beyond the confines of a narration box, where she's very consistently narrating as Gailey gives the reader a clear understanding of her interior thoughts and feelings, the more pronounced text in moments like the aftermath of the kiss work to raise the volume and intensity of her internal dialogue. Going in to the final chapter Joey prevents the murder of one of the workers (Noreen) at the hands of Pip. It's interesting how he himself weaponizes the American dream against Noreen "See there you go again. You're disempowering yourself in the kind of thinking that will keep you right where you are!" As if she had any chance of upward mobility. Through Joey's act of defiance and solidarity, she made her choice much to the disdain of the wealthy people she'd been around all Summer.
Astor throughout the story has his character progressively revealed. Joey questions his knowledge of cannibalism only for it to be made apparent that he was more than aware, as it was a tradition. There were moments where she questioned how willing a participant he was but, as can be understood, complicity is a choice and his complicity came with privilege. He upheld the systems because they worked in his favor, even if they potentially made him uneasy. Furthermore his own self image is at play, where Joey is concerned about her perception so is Astor but, when things come to a head his self perception has roots in toxic masculinity and misogyny as he exhibits his desire to control Joey and her future.
Of course, Joey now has to participate in the cannibalism, it's the only way she'll survive. It is revealed that the workers are forced into cannibalism as well, eating each other, to remain coerced into working until the end of their contracts. This is where Eat the Rich makes good on the promise of its title, taking a slogan of class solidarity and actualizing it within the pages. Astor remarks "We're everywhere that matters." The solution presents itself within his words and Petal and Joey arrive at the same conclusion "Sure, we have to eat... but we don't have to eat each other."
Eat the Rich takes what is construed and meant as a metaphor and makes it literal through thoughtful and nuanced writing and beautiful art and colors that truly give weight and another lens for class analysis. It is a master work and a must read.
