My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Vol. 1

I'm withholding my final review, because I read it for a book club and the meeting could potentially change my opinion.
Initial thoughts:
I love the unique art style and how it reflects the narrators perception of the world. The recreation of famous artwork was super fun. Unfortunately, this comic suffers slightly in the plot department. The ending felt slightly abrupt and I felt like there were too many loose ends/cliffhangers at the end of volume one, given its length. That being said, I am willing to read the second volume when it is published.

I cannot deal with the amount of stunning, detailed art in this!!!

Unique, gorgeous storytelling. This is not the kind of graphic novel you'll sit down and knock out in 2 hours. It's dense, both verbally and visually. But if you give it the time and attention it deserves, you'll be so glad you did. I didn't realize this was a two-parter, so I was surprised by the abrupt ending, but I absolutely cannot wait for the second volume.

A young girl who's obsessed with monsters and wants to be one herself, digs into her neighbor's mysterious death, uncovering family secrets on the way. Against a backdrop of Chicaco in the 60ies, the murder of MLK, school bullies, seedy neighborhood characters, a loving yet chaotic family...

Definitely a stand-out graphic novel, with a unique visual style as well. And with 400+ pages it's quite substantial. Only part 1 of 3 as I now learn.

a lot going on in this one as far as plot goes but i think it adds to the experience as our narrator is a 10 year old with a lot going on, the story being told through her notebook drawings. the 5 stars from me are absolutely for the art, it's stunning and meticulously cross hatched with love and you can feel the work and time that went in to this project

This is a physically large graphic novel, and it's only Book 1! But it's pretty amazing. The art is all done with pens and as if on a series of lined notebooks. The results are just fantastic. But of course what really makes this graphic novel work is the story. The characters and story are great. It just sucks you in and I read it in about five or six sessions. I couldn't really read this one in bed because it's just so large and heavy. The main character is a girl named Karen Reyes in late 60s Chicago. She's obsessed with monster magazines and many covers are in the pages here. And when an upstairs neighbor dies under mysterious circumstances, Karen investigates. Really looking forward to Book 2.

What Emil Ferris manages to do with a handful of colored pens is nothing short of incredible. Laid out on spiral bound notepaper it's a sprawling novel that does away with the traditional comic conventions of contained boxes and defined gutters. Words crawl up the sides of pages, images bleed into each other and carry across the persistent wire-bound fold. The way Ferris renders classic paintings in ink is jaw-dropping and she transitions to pulpy, classic monster comic covers just as easily. Her people are rendered with Robert Crumb-like exaggeration and then with portraiture precision especially when it comes to Anka.

Anka lives upstairs from Karen our 10 year old narrator who lives with her womanizing brother Deeze and her mother who is in the late stages of cancer. It's 1960s Chicago but the world this 10 year old builds from the perspective of a half werewolf includes dealing with bullies at school, and changing friends, the Holocaust, child prostitution in Nazi-occupied Germany, race relations, a possible murder investigation, classic art scholarship and ruminations on love and the budding awareness of her own sexuality.

It careens all over the place and at it's heart is this 10-year old obsessed with monsters, looking for the bite that will keep her and her family together forever. There is that seeking curiosity that takes in the world around her and puts it on the page in all it's messy confusion. Where looking for a werewolf is just as important as understanding the mysterious woman upstairs and St. George and the Dragon is just as pivotal as Ghastly Issue 03.

Da un'intervista all'autrice:
“Una delle cose che tenevo a mente mentre lavoravo era chi fosse la mia protagonista. Naturalmente sotto molti aspetti sono io.
Quando avevo circa otto anni avevo un libro per bambini che si intitolava “My name is Lion”. Il protagonista è un bambino Navajo a cui viene data della carta a righe. E il libro dice “quando ti danno della carta a righe, scrivi contro le righe perché sono una prigione”.
La mia protagonista è femmina, in parte nativa americana e in parte messicana. Queste sono tutte cose non particolarmente rispettate, e lei lo sa. Sa che è povera, sa che non è integrata perché le piacciono i mostri e le piacciono le ragazze. Per cui lei non può scrivere tra le righe, deve contrastarle, deve essere libera. Questo libro è la dichiarazione della sua libertà. Questa è la cosa più importante. E ogni volta che ho pensato di poter fare diversamente, semplicemente non ho potuto.”