Madwoman of the Sacred Heart is a satirical comic-book miniseries by Alejandro Jodorowsky, with art by Mœbius.
When his wife very publicly humiliates him at his sixtieth birthday party, popular philosophy professor Alan Mangel suffers a nervous breakdown. As he is still in the midst of his breakdown, one of his students, Elizabeth, invites him to have sex with her. He reluctantly takes her up on the offer. Months later, she reveals that she is pregnant with his child, which she believes will become the new Messiah. Alan is opposed to abortion, and thus agrees to do whatever he must to make sure the child is born healthy. Elizabeth's demands grow rapidly, until he finds himself goaded into committing various dangerous or even illegal activities to keep her happy.
This series contains examples of:
- Affectionate Nickname: Elizabeth calls Alan "my pet".
- Ambiguous Gender: In volume 3, Mary suddenly grows a goatee and starts calling herself "Jesusa", claiming that she is now both male and female. It's not entirely clear if she has actually become intersex or if this is just the latest manifestation of her pre-existing mental illness.
- Black Comedy Rape: In volume 2, among the many humiliations Alan faces is sodomy at the hands of Muhammad.
- The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right:
- Muhammad repeatedly insists that he didn't kill two nurses during the "rescue" of Mary from a mental asylum, and that the real culprits were "two beams of light from the God of Israel". Alan assumes that Muhammad is either lying or stoned, but then he finds out later that the nurses were killed by a drug cartel enforcer with an experimental laser pistol stolen from the Israeli government.
- Elisabeth manages to predict the winning horses in a race based on nothing more than Insane Troll Logic.
- The Dreaded: Mario Lara, AKA "El Perro", is a fierce, relentless hitman for the Medellin Cartel... and the right-hand man of Mary's dad, with a profound interest in taking Mary back to Colombia.
- Emasculated Cuckold: The miniseries opens with Mangel finding out on his sixtieth birthday party that his wife has been cheating on him with one of his students. For added humiliation, she has sex with her paramour in the middle of the party.
- Extreme Doormat: Much of the plot works because Alan lets everyone boss him around.
- Fan Disservice: Early in the first volume, Alan recounts the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah's divinely-inspired copulation, and the audience is treated to the spectacle of two horrifically ancient people having sex.
- From Bad to Worse: In volume 2, the gang gets kidnapped by Columbian drug lords, then arrested by the Columbian Secret Service, then intercepted by DEA agents, and then rescued by the Medellin cartel.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Elizabeth gleefully exploits Alan's opposition to abortion and concern for her unborn child's health to get her to do whatever she wants.
- Likes Older Men: The fact that Alan is about forty years her senior does not seem to deter Elizabeth's obsession with him.
- Meaningful Name: Elisabeth is named for the mother of John the Baptist. Part of her obsession with Alan is because his middle name is Zechariah, the name of the Biblical Elizabeth's husband.
- Naturalized Name:
- Alan was born Alan Mangelowski, but he changed it to Mangel to downplay his Jewish heritage.
- Mary's real name is Rosaura Molinares. She adopted her assumed name in order to hide out in France.
- Naughty Narcs: In volume 2, DEA agents try to kidnap Mary in the hopes of flushing out her cartel-boss dad.
- Potty Failure: Mangel starts suffering from nervous bowels after having to deal with Elizabeth and her possibly-criminal friends.
- There Is Only One Bed: At one point, Alan, Elisabeth, Mary, and Muhammad all have to sleep in the same bed.
