The Harlequin comes to find his Columbine, pinning his heart to her door. But wait, my story gets better. Your Major Spoilers Retro Review of Harlequin Valentine awaits!

HARLEQUIN VALENTINE

Writer: Neil Gaiman
Artist: John Bolton
Colorist: John Bolton
Letterer: Richard Starkings & Comicraft’s Jason Levine
Editor: Diana Schutz
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Cover Price: $10.95
Current Near-Mint Pricing: $12.00
Release Date: September 23, 2001

Previously in Harlequin Valentine: Derived from Italian theatre and the traditional Commedia dell’arte, a traditional British Harlequinade is more slapstick in tone, featuring the love story of Harlequin and Columbine. Columbine’s father pays a mischievous clown to interfere in their love, and wackiness ensues, often including a chase scene that clearly inspired The Benny Hill Show. After Neil Gaiman burst onto the scene in 1989 with The Sandman, his work was in high demand, which might explain how Dark Horse Comics (which even in 2001 was best known as the home of licensed properties like Star Wars, Predator, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer) ended up turning his short story into a prestige album.

The tale begins on the morning of February 14th, as Harlequin pins his heart to the door of a young woman named Missy.
Immediately, we see John Bolton’s expert use of color, with the bright reds of Harlequin standing out like a sore thumb in Missy’s gray, mundane world. Puzzled by the appearance of a strange organ on her front door, Missy gathers it in a plastic bag, unaware that Harlequin is now inside her home, following her, unseen. She takes the heart as she walks from her home into town, Harlequin dancing beside her the entire way. Making her way to the local hospital, she seeks answers about her disgusting “valentine.”

Vernon the doctor offers to call the police, but Missy demurs, instead keeping the heart. Harlequin disguises himself as an old woman to taunt her, but is betrayed by his ways, telling her the truth: Harlequin has given her his heart. The clown follows her further, only to discover that, unlike others, he has declared his Columbine, she has her own ideas on how to best accept such a gift. Walking to the local diner, she orders hash browns and ketchup… and a steak knife.

Having eaten the entire heart, she looks Harlequin in the eye, ordering him to follow her outside, to discuss their unusual courtship. A chagrined Harlequin follows her, disbelieving.

“You ate my heart,” he says.

Taking his staff, taking his hat, Missy also takes his place in the Harlequinade, leaving him to watch his crimson costume fade away, leaving him as… Grant Morrison, I think? At least, he strongly resembles Grant as they appeared in the page of Animal Man in the early ’90s. With his magic drained, Harlequin is… just one of us, a mere mortal, who apparently has a job washing dishes in the diner, thanks to the laws of the pantomime.

But on one of those dishes, he finds a tiny scrap of raw meat.

The grotesquerie of that moment is still beautiful as presented by the brushes of John Bolton, as is the entire issue. The splash of Missy as the newly transformed Harlequin is just plain gorgeous, grounding the story in reality, a gray world that seems to lack magic. The real wonder of Harlequin Valentine comes in that grounding, which makes the bright and oddly unnerving presence of Harlequin and his blood-red costume both romantic and terrifying, especially when combined with Neil Gaiman’s excellent prose, earning 5 out of 5 stars overall. I don’t have the slightest idea how this magazine ever got printed, especially in the era of Ultimate Marvel and Our Worlds at War, but I’m kind of overjoyed that it did.

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