Vincent Van Gogh: Sadness Will Last Forever - Review
- Bobby Campbell
- Mar 4
- 4 min read
Publisher: Comixology Originals and Mad Cave Studios
Release date: February 24, 2026
Written by Francesco Barilli
Art by Sakka
Letters by Lucy Lenzi
Where to Buy: Direct from Mad Cave or Your Local Comic Shop
Price: $19.99ssss
Solicit:
A beautiful and stark depiction of Vincent Van Gogh’s struggle with depression and the art it produced, told through an emotional dialogue between Vincent and his own madness. For fans of art history and historical fiction.
A gorgeously rendered, emotional exploration of the life and death of one of the most famously tormented painters in human history. Through an emotional dialogue between Vincent and his own madness, the artist revisits the most significant loves and losses of his short life. From his tender and tumultuous relationship with his brother Theo, to the famous quarrel with Gauguin that resulted in the self-mutilation of his ear, to the extreme act of self-harm that led to his death, Vincent Van Gogh channeled an extraordinary light as bright today as it was upon his death in 1890. Now in print for the first time in English, Van Gogh: Sadness is Forever casts its own light onto the darkest shadows of the painter’s life and inspirations.
A unique and hauntingly immersive experience of the simultaneously melancholy and luminous life of Vincent Van Gogh. The story is told primarily through a dialogue between Van Gogh and a personification of his own madness in the spectral form of his lost first love. A dialectical narrative that creates a simulation of his tortured inner life, where his soul is both bared and concealed, sometimes bared by what is concealed, and vice versa!
REVIEW
The art is phenomenal throughout, and wonderfully contrasts with Van Gogh’s own art style, where his aesthetic is bright and soft, Sakka is dark and sharp, with occasional dissolving reprieves, where his interior life matches his artistic vision. Especially impressive are Sakka’s recreations of some of Van Gogh’s most famous works, re-contextualizing them within the world of the book, imbibing them with a delicate melancholy that suggests the difference between how Van Gogh saw himself and how the world would eventually come to see him.
Unlike most biographical works you do not get an all-access, detailed, linear account of the great artist’s life, told from an all knowing objective viewpoint. This is more of an interior portrait of his life than a mere recreation of events and recitation of facts, though you do get a good sense of the broad strokes. One of the things I was most struck by was the frantic pace of Van Gogh’s life. Everything you ever heard about him happened in really rapid succession. A manic explosion of triumph and tragedy.
If you’re interested in reading about Van Gogh there’s a few specific big set pieces that you may be the most interested in, but seeing as how he is telling this story himself, he may be reticent to explore his most traumatic experiences directly, and some dots may be left open for the reader to connect themselves.
Though in an eat your cake and have it too stroke of genius, the writer’s notes at the end will satiate any morbid curiosity, and serves as an interesting demonstration of
Wilson's 22nd Law.
(Discovered by Robert Anton Wilson while working on a series of historical novels, wherein each encyclopedia he consulted listed a different height for The Bastille in Paris. Wilson’s 22nd Law states: Certitude belongs exclusively to those who only own one set of encyclopedias.)
For our purposes here, the mysteries of Van Gogh’s life do not have easy answers, because there are too many conflicting sources to create a stable narrative. When asked if he wants to talk about it, the artist simply says, “no.”
One more big thing to cover here and it’s the lettering of Lucy Lenzi, which I will admit I was initially put off by the choice to have the book lettered in a script that proved somewhat difficult to read. There remain a few words in the book that I was unable to suss out. I suspect the choice to go with this style of lettering was made in reference to the handwritten letters exchanged between Vincent and his brother Theo, which form the basis for much of the story.
It’s a bold choice that may alienate some readers, but it did indeed slowly win me over, and I ultimately agree it is probably the correct choice, albeit a difficult one!
Media theorist Marshall McLuhan makes a sharp distinction between the visual modalities of “seeing” vs. “reading.” Reading text is about processing gestalts and pattern recognition. It’s the reason why the typoglycemia effect works:
“Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tnihg is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.”
When you see something you apprehend it differently than when you read it. (Reading emphasizes meaning, seeing emphasizes experience) Lucy Lenzi’s script lettering forces us to slow down and actually see Van Gogh’s world, and it is a sight to behold!
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