the art: incredible. Ferris is able to do so much with her crosshatched ballpoint pen drawings. so many ranges of tone conveyed through color and detail. these dense and intricate illustrations were beautiful, horrible, realistic, fantastical, sweetly childlike, mournfully adult, hallucinatory, vivid, vibrant, and completely emotional. the art is so impressive! it was such a pleasure to swim in these waters. A+++++++ Karen's brother Deeze bought her copies of Dread, Spectral and Ghastly. These were horror magazines and they show front covers of some of them through out the book. Every day I was aware of my beastliness, and horror movies became a kind of outlet. My friend lent me his entire collection: all the Nightmare on Elm Streets, all the Halloweens, all the Friday the 13ths, all the vampires and werewolves and zombies. Vampires were an easy metaphor for queerness: existing and desiring in the shadows. (See: Carmilla.) Werewolves were a metaphor for the chaos of change and budding sexuality. (See: Ginger Snaps). When it came to the slasher films, I identified with both the victims and the villain. I was the outsider — the thing, the beast — but I was also the person living in fear, waiting for the proverbial machete to fall. Siodmak fled from Nazi Germany in the ‘30s to escape the growing tide of antisemitism that would give way to genocide. And in “The Wolf Man,” the curse of the werewolf is tied to visions of a pentagram, which bears a striking resemblance to the yellow badges forced on Jews by the Nazis. This “othering” of the monster by society shows deep ties to how the worst of us systemically single out and persecute those we choose to label as inhuman. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/20/emil-ferris-my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-graphic-novel

MY FAVORITE THING IS MONSTERS - A Beautiful Descent into MY FAVORITE THING IS MONSTERS - A Beautiful Descent into

Sadness, identity, grief, sexuality, prostitution, systematic abuse, the mob, Martin Luther King, love, madness, and mystery all play a very central role throughout the volume. And in a very serious way. I found myself staying up very late to see where it was all headed, only to break down in tears at a certain point because the novel had successfully burrowed under my skin. a b c Tumey, Paul (October 28, 2016). "My Favorite Thing Is Monsters". The Comics Journal . Retrieved January 5, 2018.Part of my love for this book comes from the fact that it is about a time in the Midwest I also lived through: My parents took me from Grand Rapids, Michigan at least twice a year to visit the various stunning Chicago museums, and always to the Art Institute. I live here now, but even if I didn’t I would know every painting she references (and draws with special skill!), thanks to my Mom. I was in elementary school when JFK was murdered, and in high school when MLK was killed and the riots erupted all over this country in rage. So I in some ways lived this late sixties story, and yet Karen's is nothing like my staid Dutch family. If you read one comics book this year, this is the one to read. There’s something comforting and empowering about becoming a monster. Losing your humanity and all the pain that comes with it when changing into something fierce and strange enough to scare away everything that once terrified us. In the world of Emil Ferris, to be a monster is to be something beautiful in spite of everything that has scarred and broken us. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters takes place in Chicago in the late 1960s. MLK is shot and killed during the course of the story and the city and Ferris’ characters react to the loss with pain, numbness and self-destructive decisions. Ferris weaves in history the way Mad Men shows us the 1960s, from the inside out. The story is a tapestry of interconnected narratives that delve into the lives and struggles of various characters, each with their own unique identity and experiences. The narrative complexity is a testament to Ferris’s storytelling skills, as she weaves together a wide range of themes, including trauma, history, love, family, and self-discovery. Lo primero que llama la atención es el dibujo, nada convencional: es el diario de una niña, Karen, que lo escribe e ilustra en su libreta escolar rayada. La narración progresa entre viñetas esquemáticas en blanco y negro e imágenes llenas de trama y color que a menudo ocupan toda la página.

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

Any size contribution will help keep CBH alive and full of new comics guides and content. Support CBH on Patreon for exclusive rewards, or Donate here! Thank you for reading! I adored my reading experience with this. I don’t read enough graphic novels because when I do, I more often than not love every second of doing so. This one was particularly stunningSo what we see in Ferris’ graphic novel is that those who are depicted in the most traditional, non-human visuals of monsterhood are beautiful and broken outcasts. I didn’t ever want to be a woman. I mean, it just did not look like a good thing, nor did being a man, because it felt like they were being victimized by the same system. Being a monster seemed like the absolute best solution.”