Mail Order Bride

by Mark Kalesniko

Monty, a lonely comic-shop owner, expects his Asian mail-order bride to fulfill his stereotypical fantasy, but she turns out to be much more complex than that in this sharp and affecting look at their prickly relationship. The creator of Why Did Pete Duel Kill Himself? returns with an even more powerful graphic novel. Monty, a Canadian comic-and-toy-shop owner and a pathetic 39-year-old virgin, expects his Asian mail-order bride Kyung Soo to fulfil his female Asian fantasy stereotypes: obedient, hardworking and loyal. Tall and accentless, Kyung turns out to be much more complex than Monte is willing to accept. This sharp and affecting look at their prickly relationship is told over 264 elegant, touching pages in this original graphic novel by Disney animator Mark Kalesniko. Kalesniko adroitly juxtaposes Monty's non-sexual, juvenile obsessions with his objectification of his bride, drawing a direct line between loneliness, consumerism, and how the need for order in one's life compromises the approach to matters of the heart.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fiction, Bande Dessinée, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book, Adult

264 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2003

Reviews

[Mike Aragona · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel really blew me away. During the hour I spent reading it and being immersed in the little world inhabited by Kyung Seo and Monty Wheeler, I was completely oblivious to the world around me. We watch as Monty, a comic book store owner meets, marries, and tries to integrate into his life his mail order bride. We experience his fear, clumsiness, and sorrow-joy as she accepts her duty and takes him to bed. And, we feel a pang of pity as we realize why he was that way. Then, the story truly begins as we start to learn what his hopes were when he "bought" her and what he does to cope, plus we see how he treats her as another of his collectibles and controls her environment.

The drama and intrigue continue as we watch these characters grow and learn to live together - or rather, to live in Monty's world. Kyung is a fascinating woman and we watch as she attempts to get more out of her life while trying to remain loyal to her husband. The book continues to peel away layers from both of them and when the climatic confrontation explodes, your own feelings (as a reader) have taken so many ups, downs, and twists that you're left gasping. When the dust settles, it is a sad and somber mood that leaves you really wanting more - and really wanting more for Kyung.

Everyone should own a copy. It is that good because it works on so many levels and the imagery itself speaks volumes... even in its silence.

[tangerine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book up until the end. I found it very depressing and sort of a let down. The characters were also pretty one dimensional.

I did, however, love the art!

[Raluca · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best graphic novels I've ever read. ❤️

[The_Mad_Swede · Rating 5 out of 5]

This graphic novel by Mark Kalesniko is an ambitiously told story about the Korean woman Kyung Seo, the mail order bride, and Monty Wheeler, the Canadian man who brings her across the ocean. It is a narrative dense with different desires and wishes, of pasts one wishes to forget, and dreams not necessarily to be manifested.

Kalesniko's drawing style and visual storytelling draws me into the worlds of Kyung and Monty, and the emotional punches delivered as the narrative moves along are both sweet and bitter. And as such it is a piece to be experienced, in my humble opinion.

[Spencer · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have always thought that the best way for me to show respect to her memory if Jen died would be to get a mail order bride. I could never love another woman so why even try?

When I used to manage apartments, we had these one tenants who always answered the door in their underwear. He was an obese bald man with no social skills whatsoever - but was employed. She was a Russian bombshell with strings attached - a teenage kid. They had been together for about 10 years and all parties involved seemed very happy with the arrangement(purchase)

I think about them from time to time and wonder if their relationship is any more complicated than it seemed.

So as soon as I heard about this book, I was jonesing to give it a read. But this book is terrible. The author wants you to like the characters but they all seem so pathetic. I am NOT like the creepy guy in this book! But its a matter of fact, if Jen died, with the insurance money I would need to get a wife-esque person. I certainly cant afford a maid, a nanny, AND a girlfriend. But i'm not a pathetic creep! Do I have to prove that by using the life insurance money to get Jen taxidermied and put her in a rocking chair in the basement? Is that really the only way I can honor her legacy? See! The only real path left was laid out by that tenant I had. You have to forget about friendship and intimacy, and just practically arrange things to make the midlife slope toward death a smooth, effective, and practical trajectory.

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't decide whether to rate this "liked it" or "hated it", but I definitely couldn't give it a bland rating of "it was ok". Firstly, the stereotypes. The stereotypical geeky comic book store owner with an Asian fetish, Monty, whose home is an oppressively cluttered creepy funhouse of eyes staring. Kyung, the mail-order bride who wants escape from something in her past and from the utterly boring and stifling preconceived mold her husband set. His racist stereotypes kept me nauseated the entire read because of life experience. Dating websites where guys start out by stating "you smell like rice, can I eat you? lolz", being called a China doll, various racist catcalls, and a series of dates with guys who upon short conversation, I find only date Asian women, where are you REALLY from, a fist in my stomach where I wanted to throw up. I kept waiting for the nausea to end, relief or resolution, a meeting of person recognizing person, but no. In this book, Kyung reaches out to find herself, finding ways to express herself and blossom, using various people as various mirrors, and in the end, no one gets redemption or takes responsibility; everyone is trapped in their own perception of how others view them. Is there hope for recognition of humanity or only the pattern of destructive behavior only to repeat again? Who knows. The book ends.

[Mark Schlatter · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hadn't read this in ages and was doing a re-read to see if I should cull it from my collection. The answer is yes. It's a story of an uber-geek (comic book store owner and toy collector) and his mail order bride from Korea. She undergoes a not-at-all-surprising awakening with the help of art school friends, he reacts badly, and it all ends much darker and disappointing than expected. My wife's comment was "It's rare to see a work with so much pretension and so little nuance". I agree.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not 100% sure what I feel after reading this.

It had some messages I liked and a lot of messages I didn't like.

Stereotypes abound even while they are obviously trying to say that folks aren't walking stereotypes.

I don't really feel that the growth was natural or believable. I felt most of the characters lacked depth. I was just disappointed.

[Hannah Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the characterizations to be lacking and was waiting for things to go beyond the cliche and stereotype. The story is there, but I just couldn't find myself connecting or really caring about the people involved.

[Seregil · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 stars for the story and characters - because I wanted something more, something unexpected + the ending was weird
4 stars for the art - very cool style, not always pretty, but every stroke and panel seemed to express something

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

Portrait of a Korean mail order bride who marries a Canadian comic book geek, only to find that he was anticipating a stereotype rather than a real person. Well done, though the ending left me flat.

[Brianna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heartbreaking.

[scarlettraces · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, that was depressing.

[Kelsy Schoenhaar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. What I will say is that the book's greatest strength is what's left unsaid... but I would argue that this could also be it's greatest weakness.

I liked how Kyung was portrayed as a human, faults and all. But I'm not sure the book was ready to truly examine her faults.

In some ways, she's as mired in gender stereotypes as her husband is: expecting him to "be the man" in the relationship, and resentful when she ends up having to do it herself.

Kyung is also ageist; when she's with Monty's older friends, she gags when one woman shows her an old war wound. Perhaps Kyung has memories of sickness from when she lived in an orphanage, but to me this shows lack of empathy on her part.

Indeed, Kyun seems reluctant to forgive weakness in other people in general, like when her friend Eve decides to marry her ex-boyfriend. Kyung may have felt betrayed by the decision, but she was also staking a lot of her own feelings of self-worth in Eve's image of a liberated woman; Eve may be a bit of a hyppocrite, but that doesn't mean she should serve as Kyung's ballast when she never asked to be.

As for Monty, I appreciate that the book gave the reader reasons to sympathize with him, when it would have been so easy to make him a mustache-twirling villian. I know that there are plenty of geeks out there like Monty- anybody who's been on the internet for more than a few minutes will know this- but I also know that some of the kindest, most empathetic people in my life happen to also be toy-collecting geeks. It might have been nice for the novel to have briefly included another geek whose views weren't as toxic as Monty's; those men are out there, and less portrayed in fiction.

All in all, whatever faults this book suffers from, there's absolutely no denying that it will cause the reader to think; to examine the dynamics of gender, power, cultural divide, and beauty. And yes, the art is drop-dead gorgeous, although I personally would have preferred that one of the women featured in the novel had a body with flaws, celulite, anything. In my mind, this subtly implies that women should feel allowed to be liberated and freely express their sexuality... as long as they're thin and modelesque.

[Drake Zappa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brutal and dreadfully brilliant study in the fetishism of Asian culture and the story of a young mail order bride on a journey of self discovery and growth, trying so desperately to separate herself as an individual from the stereotypes her bigoted new husband craves and forces upon her. A warning that this book is not one with a happy ending. This book is a sad tale.
The art compliments the narrative and is easy to follow while exhibiting some beautiful imagery throughout.

[Ezma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kalesniko's panel layout and composition is really good. Some of the themes about how women aren't just porn objects are a little simple but it's trying and Kyung's a real interesting character. But then the climax and ending are extremely unsatisfying. There are works in which this ending would work but it doesn't build to it at all thematically so it just comes out of nowhere and hits you with a sudden downer. What the hell man.

[Papen]

This book was such a trip. It ended about the only way it could've and I feel bad for everyone involved and I'm still so curious! I wish the couple could've at least understood each other at the end even though they clearly did not belong together! But that's how real life goes I suppose Gorgeous gorgeous art though and very real writing. I couldn't put it down.

[Stephanie Racette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Août 2025. C’était dérangeant. Je trouvais Monty horrible. Tous les deux, comme dans n’importe quelle relation, espéraient retirer quelque chose de leur union mais je reste convaincue que c’était inégal concernant le libre choix de Kyong.
Et on ne le sait pas en fait. La fin est très peu éclairante.
Pourquoi était-elle traitée de lâche en Corée et pourquoi n’est-elle pas partie?

[ComicNerdSam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty scathing and horrifying look at objectification and fetishization. I’ll probably check out more of Kalesnikos stuff when I can, he’s pretty good. It makes me want to punch a wall, but in a good way you know?

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book stayed with me for a few days after finishing it and had me thinking about the characters. the book is more about the complexity of our expectations and how the reality of life pans out for us. We often envision people in our lives as part of the landscape, without any perception of their frail humanness.

This story is about a man expecting the woman he marries to be a perfect being and didn't expect her to be so much like the people he already knew - complex and puzzling entities . A fantasy lover is created so one has a complete understanding of all there is to know about that person; there are no surprises and there's nothing complex about the fantasy. The fantasy is exactly to the fantasizer's level of expectation. Reality hits when they realize that person is so different than what they expected and disappointment sets in. The fantasizer doesn't see he had unreal expectations, The blame for the relationship failure is the object of the fantasy who let them down. some might adjust and learn about the complexities of the real person and learn to accept them as they are or others might reject them. Often the latter occurs and they go on to have their next fantasy.
Mail Order Bride didn't go the way I expected. I'll just say that.

[Terry Mulcahy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! The story drew me right in and kept me there. Stereotypes abound in this story, some to be destroyed, others to be created, but the characters always surprised me. The ending I was expecting almost came, but went off in an unexpected direction. It was funny to realize that writers often create wish-fulfilling fairy tales , full of what-if scenarios, and characters bursting out of their shells, but this story is more true to life, without the idealistic happy ending. Don't get me wrong; I like happy endings where people overcome odds, sterotypes, and restrictive chilhoods, and this wasn't one of those. However, I loved this story. Its ending surprised me, but made sense. I think it is a more powerful story than it could possibly have been with a make-believe happy ending. This is how people are and what oftens happens - not to them - but what they do to themselves, and allow themselves to do. The ending initially saddened me, but somehow, in retrospect, seems to carry a bigger, more complex message. Highly recommend it.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stopped on this book in my favorite used book store and had to grab it. I'm all for graphic novels that cater to a different crowd, and tackled subjects that are more complicated than the run of the mill superhero stuff.
This was an amazing book, both in the art department, and the story line. I really enjoy Kalesniko's females, and his easy black and white lines. The art in itself grabbed my attention at first. And the story line was captivating, I read the entire thing in less than an hour as I just wanted to know what would happen.
Very worth the read, as this is an issue that few of us might confront in our daily lives. The thought of the struggle between a bought wife and a husband is an odd one, and Kalesniko grasped all of the sordid details of it for us.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much better than I expected - though I don't rightly know what it was that I expected - though let me warn you that there are a LOT of naked people in this book. Enough that you might not want to read it in public if you are easily embarrassed. That aside, this book was an interesting and complicated exploration of stereotype and identity in the relationship of a Korean woman who comes to Canada to be the mail order bride of a geeky 38 year old virgin comic book store owner. I'd recommend it - except for all the nakedness.

[Peacegal · Rating 3 out of 5]

A geeky comic shop owner with a thing for Asian collectibles decides to get himself a mail-order bride. The trouble is, she turns out to be a real person with real feelings and emotions, rather than just another trophy object. I liked this book because it ended much in the way real life often does: there's no nicely-tied up finale and not everyone gets a happy ending.

[K Flewelling · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I could give this book three point five stars, I would, JUST because the art is so intensely beautiful. I loved looking at all of the drawings, and I thought the relationship between Keong and Monty was tragic and horrible. The depiction was well-crafted, and left you feeling tired at the end. An enjoyable read.

[Sze · Rating 3 out of 5]

great line drawings, and though the storyline is nothing new in terms of mail order brides, it was particularly relevant reading it here in thailand, surrounded by richer older white men with poorer younger thai women.

[Cindywho · Rating 3 out of 5]

I took a break from the other books I'm reading to spend an hour with a graphic novel. A middle aged comic book store owner sends for a bride from Korea. Things go pretty much as expected. Everyone has expectations, but never enough of themselves. (January 05, 2006)

[Garconniere · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depressing, intense, captivating. I cringed a lot while reading this. Beautifully drawn, love the scenes where Kyoko is posing for her photographer friend. An uncomfortable subject - white men objectifying Asian women - but an important one to tackle.

[Dedra · Rating 5 out of 5]

He conveys the unconveyable, nonlinguistic dimension of race stereotypes and the creepy intersection of them with sex and self-image.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very depressing take on love generally and on intercultural love.