Published by Fantagraphics Books, it is a beautifully drawn and intricately designed story of growing up in Chicago in the late 1960's, confronting the adult world, coming face to face with prejudice and injustice. And this entire journal we’ve been given to read is the journey of a young girl processing the loss of innocence in her life. One senses the author lovingly embraced this work so closely, and for so long, it might have been bittersweet for the author to bring it to an end and release into the world.

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters: The Socially Engaged Graphic My Favorite Thing Is Monsters: The Socially Engaged Graphic

Anka’s death provides the catalyst for Karen Reyes’ adventures, but eventually, she must also navigate her own mother’s death, as well as Martin Luther King Jr.Some of the images in this book could easily compete with pieces hanging in museums and galleries, and throughout the story, Ferris replicates major works of art to bring a completely different texture and dimension to the source material. Perhaps the biggest reveal comes in longstory-nested-in-a-story when Karen listens to a cassette tape interview with Anka and learns of her incredible, pain-filled life. Karen and Anka’s stories weave together to form a rich narrative tapestry, one that is given greater impact thanks to Ferris’ mesmerizing visuals. The novel has also been published in France by Monsieur Toussaint Louverture, [18] in Canada by Éditions Alto, [19] in Italy by Bao Publishing, [20] in Spain by Reservoir Books, [21] and in Germany by Panini. queerly gabbing away with Alison Bechdel’s ‘Fun Home,’ sharing philosophical insights with David John Mazzucchelli’s ‘Asterios Polyp,’ and arm-wrestling against Franklin Christenson Ware’s ‘Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth’ and other Chicago-based graphic novels.

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris | Waterstones

it’s an absolutely visceral reading experience and i’m slack-jawed by how ambitious it is and how well it succeeds. It is also filled with art, horror comics, monster movies, the wonder of sketching people on the train, looking at the paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago. The process of creating the book was difficult, with Ferris working long hours, living frugally, and encountering publishing setbacks, such as a cancelation by one publisher and the temporary seizure of the first volume's printing at the Panama Canal.Douglas Wolk of The New York Times said that Ferris has a "portraitist's skill with tiny subtleties of expression and lighting and a New Objectivist's eye for the raw grotesquerie of bodies and their surroundings". Beasts, to Karen Reyes, occupy a range of identities, and the politics of identity wind through this book in unexpected and fruitful ways. Around Anka’s story, which young Karen bears witness to, are many other stories and characters with which Ferris interweaves her monster theme to add layers of complexity.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters - Comic Free 247 My Favorite Thing is Monsters - Comic Free 247

Given its nature as a journal, “My Favorite Thing Is Monsters” absolutely blows apart the conventional idea of comic book structure. It’s a mammoth work of art that challenges us to better understand the perspectives of the marginalized and as Book 1 of a two-volume story still waiting on its second half, “Monsters” exists as a dark journey into the horrors we suffer and the ways in which we must change to find hope.Ferris isn’t working within a traditional comic structure, often eschewing panels in favor of more fluid, expressive layouts that draw the reader deeper into the individual experiences of the characters. It is a hefty beast, hundreds of pages long — it is difficult to count how many because there are no page numbers, perhaps because the author or designer thought they would be too distracting or disrupting. Within the nascent canon of the graphic novel, Emil Ferris’ work finds itself in conversation with its bildungsroman foremothers, whispering secrets with Lynda Barry’s ‘One! As a reader of Ferris’ story, we experience several degrees of separation from the truth we are trying to understand. In terms of artistic influences, Ferris was exposed to the works of Francisco Goya and Honoré Daumier as a child, as well as Collier's illustrated Dickens.

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters: Art, Mystery, and Identity My Favorite Thing Is Monsters: Art, Mystery, and Identity

Even at an early age, Anka moved from tragedy to tragedy, growing up in a brothel, forced into prostitution herself, and only able to escape the holocaust by turning to a man who abused her as a child. It’s a testament to Ferris’ characterization that we can see so many people’s worst sides, yet still understand them as complex people whose beauty shines out from the scars. Karen is a fan of monsters – especially the Universal Studios kind: the Wolf Man, Dracula, and Frankenstein. I was the outsider — the thing, the beast — but I was also the person living in fear, waiting for the proverbial machete to fall.The latter's "articulated and atmospheric" drawings were an experience that Ferris wanted to replicate. Karen sees her mother as a haven, and feels similarly about her brother, Deeze, who introduces her to art and horror. The first My Favorite Thing is Monsters book was released in 2017, and was Ferris’s debut graphic novel.