pig wife
Author: Abby Luck
Additional art: Luca Bravo
Publisher: Topshelf Productions
Publication date: January 2026
Abby Luck’s debut graphic novel, The Pig’s Wife, follows the horrifying and disturbing adventures of a teenager named Mary through a vast maze of abandoned mines. The dark underworld is anything but peaceful, and if Mary ever wants to see the sun again, she must confront the horrors of family secrets.
The Pig’s Wife begins with a very awkward family drive to the remote country home of a recently deceased relative, an old woman named Pearl, who is rumored to have a large fortune. Pearl was Mary’s stepfather’s aunt, an unpleasant man who treated Mary’s mother unkindly and did not respond well to her stepdaughter’s brash teenage behavior.
By the time they arrive at Pearl’s house, everyone is one step away from a collision. Pearl is a hoarder and her house is filthy and dilapidated. While Mary’s stepfather searches for her aunt’s will in the chaos, she steals a bottle of whiskey from his briefcase. Needless to say, he’s not funny. Mary runs to Pearl’s pigsty to escape his wrath. She found a trapdoor in the floor and entered, planning to stay until her stepfather calmed down. However, the door cannot be opened from the inside, so Mary’s only option is to head deeper into the basement.
This is just the beginning of Pig Wife, which is largely set in the vast tunnels of an abandoned mine once operated by Pearl’s family. In these tunnels, Mary is discovered and raised underground by Pearl’s son Ed and his “brother” Tommy, who tell her that fires and the fallout of the apocalypse have made the surface area dangerous. Two teenage boys worship Pearl and see her as a hero who fights demons in order to procure food. Now that Mary has fallen into their hands, they believe that Pearl has sent them the ultimate gift: a wife.
Mary’s fear of Ed and Tommy is understandable, especially considering Tommy’s snivelling fear of Ed’s fits of rage. But for better or worse, Mary was prepared for this situation by a previous life with her biological father, an alcoholic musician who was dependent on Mary’s mother for money. With no one coming to her aid, it’s up to Mary to find a way to escape from the tunnel while surviving Ed and Tommy’s well-meaning but highly disturbing actions.
I’m going to say something that may sound negative at first, but hear me out.
The portrayal of the characters in Pig Wife relies heavily on metaphors and stereotypes. The rebellious teenage protagonist has no hobbies other than smoking cigarettes and getting into fights. There is a father with nowhere to go who depends on women for his livelihood. There are self-sacrificing mothers who deny their comfort for their daughters, and there are selfish mothers who literally lock their children in cages. The city centers are filled with trash and crime, while the countryside is home to an inbred yoke.
The Pig’s Wife is able to move with lightning speed because the reader is already familiar with the tropes of these characters. At over 500 pages, this is a monster of a graphic novel, but it’s entirely possible to read this thick book in one sitting with an adrenaline rush. By ignoring the nuances of the characters, The Pig’s Wife is able to focus entirely on the plot, which becomes a well-oiled machine that grabs the reader and actively drags it down the tunnel.
The wide range of characterization also allows The Pig’s Wife to convey the allegorical elements of the scenario. While coming-of-age stories with young protagonists embarking on a journey have universal appeal, teenage girls (and even slightly older girls, in the case of transgender people) often experience what I call “crawling out of a hole”, experiencing another rise from a state of innocence. By “hole” I mean the ever-present tar pit of internalized sexism and misogyny, from which escape can sometimes feel almost impossible.
Pig Wife’s Mine Tunnel is as good as this mineshaft visualization. While in the basement, Mary must be smart enough to overcome Ed, who represents her father’s violence, but at the same time not rely too much on Tommy, who represents her father’s passivity. Aunt Pearl embodies the stereotype of adult femininity as overbearing and delusional, while the mysterious “pig wife” that this terrifying family keeps behind locked doors embodies the idea of adult femininity as thoughtlessly sexual. In order to return to society with a more mature perspective, Mary must throw all her gender-based stereotypes and insecurities into the hole where they belong and find her own way back outside.
Fortunately, the actual pigs are not harmed. Many coming-of-age stories use the death of an animal as a necessary symbolic sacrifice for the protagonist, but Pig Wife is a different kind of story. Abby Luck suggests that if the pigs don’t get a happy ending, none of us get one.
Co-created by Abbey Luck and Ruka Bravo, Pig Wife’s art is distinctly stylized and effectively conveys the action while giving a sense of the strangeness of the setting. Luck has created animation for studios such as Disney and Comedy Central, but Bravo wrote that he was inspired by the coziness and warmth of Studio Ghibli. The opening pages of Pig Wife aim for a gritty atmosphere reminiscent of the punk zines copied a decade ago, but the art eventually settles into a more comfortable style that conveys the allure of the underworld and the sinister allure of its inhabitants.
There’s a lot to unpack and ponder in Pig Wife, and it demands careful reading and discussion. That said, this graphic novel works very well as Hollywood-style entertainment that takes readers on a uniquely disturbing haunted house roller coaster. Regardless of gender, we all have a strange teenage girl trapped inside of us, and indulging her dark fantasies before releasing her can feel extremely cathartic.
Pig Wife is available from Top Shelf Productions.
Read more great reviews of The Beat!
Something like this:
Like loading…
