★ 03/13/2017 Karen loves monsters, comic books, and her tattooed, art-loving big brother, Deeze. She hates her mom’s cancer diagnosis, the cool kids at school, and being a little girl Chicago in the 1960s. She wants to be a monster, but when the upstairs neighbor, a Holocaust survivor left haunted and unstable by her experiences, dies under suspicious circumstances, Karen decides to become a detective. This stunningly ambitious and assured graphic novel, the creator’s first, slides gracefully between past and present, reality and imagination, and the shifting kingdom of children and the hard-concrete world of adults. Ferris’s writing, full of wordplay, elisions, and unpredictable revelations, suggests the cockeyed genius of Lynda Barry, comics’ most fearless chronicler of childhood. But her art, presented on lined notebook paper in the form of Karen’s own ballpoint-and-pencil sketches (though surely no real 10-year-old could draw this beautifully), is entirely her own. This is a book that surprises at every turn. It’s about the power of art, the nature of monsters, the way secrets keep unfolding, and everything else Karen’s investigations can uncover. It’s the best graphic novel to come along in recent memory. (Feb.)
"My Favorite Thing Is Monsters feels to me like a once-in-a-generation debut — a vision so clear and original that it will change the course of cartooning."
The Seattle Review of Books
"Drawn with Bic pen on lined notebook paper, this moody and ravishing graphic novel takes the form of a sketchbook diary. Growing up in Chicago in the 1960s, 10-year-old Karen Reyes investigates the suspicious death of her glamorous neighbor and finds troubling clues lurking close to her own home. … An eerie masterpiece of the monsters around and within us."
The New York Times — Critics’ Pick
"No one has ever made a comic like Emil Ferris’s assured, superhumanly ambitious two-part debut graphic novel My Favorite Thing Is Monsters . ... It threatens not merely to exceed established standards of excellence, but to set new ones."
"An extraordinary literary experience that tackles questions of racial, sexual, cultural, professional, and class identity with aplomb and aesthetic glory. Welcome to the canon, Ms. Ferris."
"The novel tackles race, gender, and what it means to be 'monstrous' in big and small ways. It could not be more relevant to today’s climate."
"My Favorite Thing Is Monsters has all of the complexity of the finest literary fiction and breathtaking art. For what more could we ask?"
The Austin American-Statesman
"My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is not only Ferris’s first graphic novel but also her first published work. ... Yet her mastery of comics, her pyrotechnic drawings, and her nested narratives are already placing her among the greatest practitioners of the form."
"Ferris’ artwork is astonishing, cross-hatching images upon images, creating a tome that feels homespun but looks consummately professional. This is an emotional, dark, visionary talent to watch."
"Emil Ferris is one of the most important comics artists of our time."
"A graphic novel so immersive it feels almost four dimensional... A fantastical, densely cross-hatched world of Nazis and mobsters and neighborhood eccentrics, seen through the curious eyes of a 10-year-old girl."
"This extraordinary book has instantly rocketed Ferris into the graphic novel elite alongside Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel and Chris Ware. You see, she's produced something rare, a page-turning story whose pages are so brilliantly drawn you don't want to turn them."
NPR: Fresh Air - Terry Gross
"Ferris' work fuses the style and atmosphere of noir godfather Raymond Chandler with the passionate moral intensity found beating beneath a good episode of Tales from the Crypt ."
"Each page of the book is a small masterpiece: detailed, passionate, leaking genius. Ferris’s artwork bullies and commands the reader’s attention, each page bringing her to the brink of exhaustion because the struggle between art and words is so great, and the whole is so sensorially overwhelming."
The Los Angeles Review of Books
"One of the most profound, ambitious and accomplished creative works to appear in any medium this decade. ... Rarely have words and pictures worked together so seamlessly in service of such a complex narrative."
"A thrilling and surprisingly profound novel ... The book is a fine balance of stunning artwork and terrific writing."
"An ambitious, emotional, beautifully illustrated exploration of a 10-year-old girl’s experience growing up late ’60s Chicago, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is an astounding debut, weaving an intricate web of plot threads that keeps the reader compelled from beginning to end."
★ 06/01/2017 Combining elements of historical fiction, family drama, a coming-of-age-tale, and a murder mystery into an unforgettable and widely acclaimed debut, author/illustrator Ferris presents the graphic diary of Karen Reyes, an artistically inclined ten-year-old girl living in 1960s Chicago with her mother and troubled older brother. Drawing from Karen's sketchbook journal, Ferris fills each and every page of this weighty first volume of a duology (Vol. 2 releases in October) with stunningly beautiful and virtuosic illustrations, exploring Karen's fears, curiosities, and more through the lens of her fascination with pulp creatures and B-movie monsters. With an incredibly rich, sprawling narrative to match the luscious illustrations, Ferris creates an absorbing and demanding magnum opus that rewards every bit of effort it takes to comprehend the scope of her vision. VERDICT This debut has already netted Ferris comparisons to (and praise from) some of the lions of the graphic novel field, and it's the rare title that actually lives up to the hype. Readers are sure to welcome, discuss, and meditate on Ferris's accomplishment, anxiously awaiting what's next. [A movie of Ferris's work is underway, with Sony Pictures recently obtaining film rights.—Ed.]—TB
Drawn with Bic pen on lined notebook paper, this moody and ravishing graphic novel takes the form of a sketchbook diary. Growing up in Chicago in the 1960s, 10-year-old Karen Reyes investigates the suspicious death of her glamorous neighbor and finds troubling clues lurking close to her own home. ... An eerie masterpiece of the monsters around and within us.
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is not only Ferris's first graphic novel but also her first published work. ... Yet her mastery of comics, her pyrotechnic drawings, and her nested narratives are already placing her among the greatest practitioners of the form.
This extraordinary book has instantly rocketed Ferris into the graphic novel elite alongside Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel and Chris Ware. You see, she's produced something rare, a page-turning story whose pages are so brilliantly drawn you don't want to turn them.--Terry Gross
A thrilling and surprisingly profound novel ... The book is a fine balance of stunning artwork and terrific writing.
One of the most profound, ambitious and accomplished creative works to appear in any medium this decade. ... Rarely have words and pictures worked together so seamlessly in service of such a complex narrative.
The novel tackles race, gender, and what it means to be 'monstrous' in big and small ways. It could not be more relevant to today's climate.
No one has ever made a comic like Emil Ferris's assured, superhumanly ambitious two-part debut graphic novel My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. ... It threatens not merely to exceed established standards of excellence, but to set new ones.
An ambitious, emotional, beautifully illustrated exploration of a 10-year-old girl's experience growing up late '60s Chicago, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is an astounding debut, weaving an intricate web of plot threads that keeps the reader compelled from beginning to end.
An extraordinary literary experience that tackles questions of racial, sexual, cultural, professional, and class identity with aplomb and aesthetic glory. Welcome to the canon, Ms. Ferris.
Each page of the book is a small masterpiece: detailed, passionate, leaking genius. Ferris's artwork bullies and commands the reader's attention, each page bringing her to the brink of exhaustion because the struggle between art and words is so great, and the whole is so sensorially overwhelming.
The first volume of the story clocks in at 386 pages. But at no point in the course of reading it does it feel long -- a tribute to not only Ferris's ability to suck readers into the story, but also to her effortless ability to pace the story she's telling. The result is a piece of work that is as gripping as it is emotional.
Monsters feels to me like a once-in-a-generation debut -- a vision so clear and original that it will change the course of cartooning.
Emil Ferris is one of the most important comics artists of our time.--Art Spiegelman
Ferris' artwork is astonishing, cross-hatching images upon images, creating a tome that feels homespun but looks consummately professional. This is an emotional, dark, visionary talent to watch.
Ferris' work fuses the style and atmosphere of noir godfather Raymond Chandler with the passionate moral intensity found beating beneath a good episode of Tales from the Crypt.
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters has all of the complexity of the finest literary fiction and breathtaking art. For what more could we ask?
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is not only Ferris's first graphic novel but also her first published work. ... Yet her mastery of comics, her pyrotechnic drawings, and her nested narratives are already placing her among the greatest practitioners of the form.
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters feels to me like a once-in-a-generation debut -- a vision so clear and original that it will change the course of cartooning.
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters has all of the complexity of the finest literary fiction and breathtaking art. For what more could we ask?
A graphic novel so immersive it feels almost four dimensional... A fantastical, densely cross-hatched world of Nazis and mobsters and neighborhood eccentrics, seen through the curious eyes of a 10-year-old girl.
★ 2024-05-28 In Ferris’ debut graphic novel, a young queer girl in 1960s Chicago sees herself as a classic movie monster beset by small minds, big hearts, and a murder that hits too close to home.
Young Karen Reyes has a recurring dream in which she sheds her girly trappings and euphorically transforms into a werewolf. As her body radically reshapes, Karen lets loose a howl that winds through the streets of Chicago, drawing to her an angry mob (or "m.o.b.," made up of “mean, ordinary & boring” people) ready to kill. But Karen is less concerned with death than she is with becoming mean, ordinary, and boring herself. In her waking life, artistic Karen faces bullies zeroed in on her queerness; family crises with a sick mother and an unbalanced brother; and a frustrating crush on Missy, a former best friend who dropped Karen for the popular girls after her mom forbade her from watching any more late-night monster movies with Karen because, as she tells Karen, "people of your class never protect their kids from bad influences." Into this bubbling cauldron of prepubescence drops the murder of Karen’s troubled neighbor, Anka Silverberg, whose death might be tied to her past being sold for sex as a child in Nazi Germany; or to her husband’s connection to a local mobster; or to her affair with Karen’s bad-boy brother, Deeze, an artist. Karen dons a hat and trench coat and starts sleuthing, uncovering hard truths, making new friends on the fringes, and communing with the paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago, a transcendent place introduced to her by Deeze. Ferris’ work is doodling par excellence: Her pen on lined notebook paper—complete with spiral binding and holes—achieves sculptural depth with layered linework and crosshatching, while less-detailed panels carry the charm of a comic strip.
A striking love letter to art and family—both blood and chosen.