Abraham

From Candypedia
Abraham
GenderMale
SpeciesCat
BreedAbyssinian
Family
ResidenceAbbey’s house
DebutNew Beginnings, page 3
March 16, 2009 (2009-03-16)

Abraham is Abbey’s father, the man Abbey was named after and has spent most of his life refusing to resemble. He beat his wife Charlotte, kept a mistress, and was arrested in front of his small son. Every one of his appearances is a flashback, and not one of them contains an apology.

Personality

Abraham has no patience for Cynthia’s distress, only for getting her packed.

Abraham runs his household on fear and excuses. He snaps at his mistress, talks down to his wife, treats a frightened child shouting at him as a minor irritation, and folds as soon as the police turn up. Whatever goes wrong in his life, somebody else did it.

His account of the night he put Charlotte on the floor is a fair sample of how he thinks. She was “hysterical”, her talk of leaving with the children was “nonsense”, and so he had to take control of the situation.[1] In the older telling of the same flight, he brushes off the question of what he did to her by pointing out that the kids are with her.[2] He is just as quick to drop Cynthia when she hesitates over packing, and just as quick to raise both hands when a police car pulls up behind him.[3][1] The bluster disappears the moment the police arrive.

Appearance

Abraham steps out of the car, and At Loose Ends makes him more than a silhouette.

Abraham is a cat who wears glasses, which he pushes up his nose to scowl over.[3] Young Abbey recognises his car on sight, in a parking lot and again outside Cynthia’s house.[4][5] In New Beginnings he is drawn only as a silhouette through an apartment doorway, and At Loose Ends is the first chapter to show him in full.[2][6]

Significant events

Abraham first turns up in New Beginnings, in a childhood memory that hits Abbey outside the Therapist’s office. His father’s car sits in an empty lot, a duffle bag waits by an open apartment door, and inside Abraham is hurrying a woman to pack because “Charlotte knows”.[7][2] Daisy frames the memory for the reader: Abbey had problems with his old family, and she had no idea how bad until the night at the carnival.[8]

At Charlotte’s grave, Abbey still believes Abraham’s crimes are his own.

Abbey remembers the full story in At Loose Ends, again in flashback. Young Abbey spots his father’s car in a parking lot and watches an unfamiliar woman embrace him,[4][6] then later lets the name Cynthia slip in front of his mother.[9] A violent argument follows, Charlotte is found lying on the floor, and Abbey runs to Cynthia’s house to stop his father leaving town.[10][11][5] The police arrive while Abraham is still explaining himself, and he is handcuffed in the street.[1][12] Charlotte does not survive the operation that follows.[13][14] Some time afterwards Janet tells the children their father is not going to be around anymore,[15] and Veronica has confirmed that he was arrested.[16] Years on, in Table for One, Augustus needles Abbey about ending up in jail like a certain other psycho.[17]

Major relationships

Abbey

Abbey rejects his father’s legacy with both hands around Augustus’s collar.

Abraham answers Abbey’s attempt to stop him with contempt and blame. When the boy tracks him down to Cynthia’s house in At Loose Ends, his shout of “STOP!” shrinks straight back into a “Sir”, and Abraham finds the whole thing ridiculous.[3] Abbey plants himself in the car door and says he isn’t scared, and he demands to know why his father did that to his mother.[3][1] He gets a lecture about Charlotte’s hysterics for an answer, until the police car arrives. Handcuffed and leaning down to a small child, Abraham’s parting words are that there was no need for it to be like this, and “You’ve ruined this family.”[12]

Abraham ends up as the shadow Abbey spends the rest of the comic measuring himself against. He goes into counselling over his father and everything that happened,[18] and at Charlotte’s grave he blames himself for not stopping him.[14] When Abbey’s temper gets the better of him, the comparison follows him. Augustus purrs that his father would be proud,[19][20] and Molly begs him not to be like Daddy.[21] Abbey’s answer is always the same flat denial.[20] Veronica has pushed back on fans making the same equation over Abbey’s later mistakes.[22]

Charlotte

The little the comic shows of Abraham and Charlotte is enough to make the shape of their marriage clear. That includes a bandaged arm Charlotte blames on getting on his nerves,[23] a flinch when a door slams,[24] and a wistful memory of brushing his hair back when he still let her.[9] Once she learns about Cynthia and talks about taking the children away, he reaches for a table lamp mid-argument, and Molly later finds her on the floor.[10][11] His own summary is that she was out of control, “So, I had to control--”, and the police cut him off there.[1] She dies after surgery.[13][14] Veronica has said he went too far and Charlotte was never going to bounce back, though he did not intend to kill her, and she is sure he would be aware of her death.[25][26]

Minor relationships

Molly’s play-bop protest becomes impossible to ignore.

Cynthia is the woman Abraham was leaving his family for, and he abandons her too as soon as she slows him down. She greets him with an embrace in At Loose Ends,[6] asks what he did to Charlotte in both tellings of the flight,[2][3] and is told she has lost her chance when she hesitates to pack.[3] The police question her while he is cuffed.[12] Abraham never shares a panel with his daughter Molly, but the old household stays with her: she panics when Kevin playfully bops Janet, and later begs Abbey, “Don’t be like Daddy!”[27][21]

Quotes

Pack EVERYTHING. Charlotte knows. It’s over. We have to.. Abraham, his first words in the comic, to Cynthia in New Beginnings

She was being hysterical. Again with all that nonsense about taking you two away with her. She knows how stupid that would be. Abraham, explaining himself to a small child in At Loose Ends

But now you’ve done it. You’ve ruined this family. Abraham, to Abbey, while being handcuffed, in At Loose Ends

Trivia

  • Abraham answers to “Abe”, according to Abbey, who finds that the full name he shares with his father makes him feel fifty times older.[28]
  • Abraham was named in Humble Approach in 2006, heard in silhouette in New Beginnings in 2009, and not drawn in full until At Loose Ends in 2012.[28][2][6]
  • Veronica has said an abandoned early comic about Abraham’s abuse survives on the site’s Extras “Graveyard” as the “Unfinished Abbey Chapter”.[29]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 29
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Chapter 46: New Beginnings, page 3
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 28
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 9
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 27
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 12
  7. ↑ Chapter 46: New Beginnings, page 2
  8. ↑ Chapter 46: New Beginnings, page 1
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 23
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 24
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 26
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 30
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 43
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 44
  15. ↑ Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 17
  16. ↑ “Ask response on where Abraham is”. 2015-01-12.
  17. ↑ Chapter 92: Table for One, page 17
  18. ↑ Chapter 40: Moving On, page 6
  19. ↑ Chapter 39: Love My Way, page 18
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Chapter 39: Love My Way, page 19
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 37
  22. ↑ “Ask response on fans comparing Abbey to Abraham”. 2026-05-06.
  23. ↑ Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 1
  24. ↑ Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 13
  25. ↑ “Ask response on Abraham’s intentions and flight”. 2026-04-22.
  26. ↑ “Ask response on whether Abraham knows of Charlotte’s death”. 2015-05-21.
  27. ↑ Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 18
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Chapter 25: Humble Approach, page 3
  29. ↑ “Ask response on the unfinished Abbey chapter”. 2017-11-26.
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