Ferris, Emil. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters: Book One. Fantagraphics Books, 2017.
ISBN-13: 978-1606999592
In
her 2017 interview with Paul Tumey of The
Comics Journal, comics creator Emil Ferris reveals how monsters and humans
connect in her personal and creative view: “[T]he good that people do is often
sidelong with cruelty born out of terrible provoking need. Like monsters, we
are creatures motivated by hunger. But also, like monsters, we are capable of
mercy and love.” Ferris captures this truth with every word choice and pen
stroke in her astonishing debut graphic novel My Favorite Thing is Monsters: Book One. Ferris discusses with
Tumey her lifetime love affair with comics, art, and creature features. She credits
Capp’s Lil’ Abner and her own parents’
artistry with sparking that love; Ferris’s mother began giving her comic strips
to copy as a form of entertainment when Ferris was but two. Despite this early
artistic start, Ferris’s journey to publish Monsters
was both lengthy and treacherous. Ferris, 55 at the time Monsters was published, worked for a number of years as a freelance
illustrator and toy designer, a career trajectory cut short when Ferris
contracted West Nile virus in 2001 resulting in severe paralysis which extended
to her dominant hand. Ferris revealed to Sam Thielman in a 2017 interview for The Guardian that she turned this
debilitating illness into an opportunity to return to school. As Ferris rebuilt
her strength, she began work on Monsters.
Ferris
weaves much of her own story into the story of Monsters. Ten-year-old protagonist and narrator, Karen Reyes is,
like Ferris, a gifted artist, and Monsters,
which is entirely drawn on (or in some cases taped on) the pages of a
wide-ruled notebook, serves as Karen’s diary and sketchbook. Karen’s most
visually distinct characteristic is that she conceives of and draws herself as
a monster, specifically a werewolf. For both Karen and Ferris, however, this
rendering is one of strength, not monstrosity. In response to Theilman’s query
about Karen’s appearance, Ferris says, “I drew her the way I saw myself, the
way I felt I was. I drew her the way I wanted to be. My mother was very, very
beautiful, and I saw that the beautiful women around me were often constrained
not only by their beauty but by the way that being an object of male desire
frequently caused violence in their lives.” Karen wants to be a real monster, to
meet real monsters, and is convinced this is the best way to defend herself and
her family from the pain and upheaval in their lives. Ferris grew up in a
setting similar to that in which she places Karen, Chicago of the 1960’s. In
this world, which Ferris terms “turbulent,” Karen grapples with society’s ills,
her broken family’s struggles, her own sexuality, and the mysterious death of a
kind but troubled neighbor, Holocaust survivor Anya Silverberg. Styling herself
as a werewolf sleuth, Karen digs into Anya’s past in an attempt to understand
her death, and to some degree Monsters
is almost as much Anya’s story as
Karen’s. In fact Anya’s image fills the book’s cover. 
Karen’s older brother Deeze figures strongly into the story and Karen’s life as well. As their mother is ailing and their father is absent, Deeze and Karen are tightly bonded. Deeze is both Karen’s protector in life and guide in art—all while being an occasionally reluctant neighborhood Casanova. Much as Karen struggles with identity and isolation, however, Deeze fights his own monsters—and they aren’t as helpful as Karen’s. The complexity and layers of plot in Monsters correlates and creates a bittersweet tension with equally complex and layered art. Fun Home creator Alison Bechdel expresses this push-pull effect well, describing Monsters as “a baroque mystery whose plot pulls you forward as insistently as the images demand that you linger.”
In Comics and Language, comics scholar Hannah Miodrag calls for close attention to the language of comics: “Only by looking at language can comics attest to comics literary potential….” Ferris’s language indeed deserves close attention, for she doesn’t just tell a good story; she tells a good story well. Any reader mining comics for literary potential will find Monsters a rich source. As Karen hears news of the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and witnesses an ensuing riot, she tells her notebook, “The word ‘aftermath’ came to mind. I guess it means the time after something terrible happens when you do the math to figure out what has been added and what’s been subtracted.” In describing a cruel, public rejection by a friend, Karen says, “Before she followed her friends into school, Missy looked around to make sure no one was watching and then she mouthed the word ‘Sorry.’ I looked at the word—hanging for a second in the cold air—like what it was…a puff of steam.” Ferris manages to give Karen a voice with depth and interest while still being childlike.
Ferris’s art calls for the same level of attention and admiration as her story and language. Her unique style, utilizing layers of fine, crosshatching lines is one Ferris tells Tumey she began developing at the age of eight. Bechdel does not exaggerate in describing how the art of Monsters impacts the reader. I found myself carefully, repeatedly examining each page, and I found something new each time. On the cover, for example, the careful observer will notice Karen reflected in Anya’s eyes. Immediately after learning of Anya’s death, Karen conjures an incredible, layered image of an adult Anya over an infant Anya. The skill with which Ferris so cohesively meshes these images is almost overwhelming in its power and beauty. Ferris draws eyes, a feature important to Karen as well, with particular detail and precision. Karen’s “safe place” is a green spot in the iris of her mother’s eye, an oasis to which she escapes in her mind and in her art. While wanting to linger with the art of each page, I anticipated the breathtaking reveal of each page turn. At no point does the art of Monsters lapse into monotony. As one might actually employ images in a visual diary, Ferris at times fills pages with multiple, smaller images which are occasionally fully or partially contained by panels. At other times, however, one detailed work fills a page or two pages, swallowing even the margins, as in Karen’s drawing of her neighborhood’s diverse population. In several images, Ferris even bends the holes in the notebook paper to her artistic will. While Miodrag cautions against applying the methods of fine art criticism to comics in a wholesale manner, she does suggest that comics art can and should be seen as more than semiotic in nature and as more than just a vehicle carrying the events of a story. The careful, thoughtful, and just downright beautiful art of Monsters strongly supports this idea. I am willing to risk gushing to say the bulk of the images are gallery-worthy in and of themselves.
Ferris’s art, however, goes beyond being lush and detailed; her art works, skillfully and cleverly, to support the narrative. For example, though Monsters has no formal chapter divisions, full-page drawings of comic book covers serve as what comics scholar Neil Cohn would term “establishers.” Karen reports drawing these covers based on the comics Deeze shares with her. Each cover, however, loosely foreshadows the events of the subsequent arcs and provides a timeline via the date of each comic’s publication. Art is not just a feature of Monsters; art is an active participant. Karen speaks to the museum pieces Deeze takes her to visit, and they speak back to her. The squatting demon in Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare, for instance, demands of Karen, “So why’re you pokin’ yer snoot where it don’t belong? Bug off!!!” Karen even climbs into paintings, entering the world of her two-dimensional advisors. I would be remiss not to mention that Ferris’s renderings of works such as Frédéric Bazille’s Landscape of Chailly and Cornelis Saftleven’s A Witches’ Sabbath are nothing short of astounding.
Yet not
every image in the Monsters has such
layers of color and line. There are arcs in which drawings appear much more
childlike and hurried and are a direct reflection of Karen’s emotional state.
When Karen captures extremely stressful events, such as a violent attack by
neighborhood bullies, she sticks to black and red, uses heavy almost scratchy
lines, and confines events to panels. This switching of styles, which again
pairs perfectly with the narrative, is another way in which Ferris goes beyond
creating art to truly invoking art. Miodrag asserts, “[T]o approach images as a
set of isolatable markings standing in for concepts neglects the variegated
nuances of style of which the system is capable.” Ferris is extraordinarily
successful in exploiting those nuances, displaying the incredible potential of
comics art.
I cannot spoil the ending of Monsters for any reader of this review; like any truly human story, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters: Book One does not end with neatly tied story lines. Karen, Deeze, and Anya still cling to secrets at book’s end, but this disappointed me only momentarily, for My Favorite Thing Is Monsters: Book Two is currently available for pre-order on Amazon and anticipated to be released in April 2018. While I wait for my already-reserved copy, I plan to dive back into Karen’s notebook as she dives into art. In the verbally and visually rich work that is Monsters, I know will catch new glimpses of monsters--and humanity—with every reading.
