Emil Ferris's debut graphic novel, my favorite thing is monsters is a murder mystery, a family drama, a sweeping historical epic, a psychological thriller about monsters-real and imagined, within and without. Set against the tumultuous political backdrop of late 1960s chicago and narrated by 10-year-old karen reyes, monsters is told through a fictional graphic diary employing, the iconography of B-movie horror imagery and pulp mongter magazines.
As the precocious karen reyes tries to solve the murder of her beautiful and enigmatic upstairs neighbor, anka silver berg, a holocaust survivor, we watch the interconnected and fascinating stories of those around her unfolt : her brother deeze, who is facing the draft and who is tortured by something mysterious in his past ; Sam "hotstep" silverberg, a jazz musician ; Mr. Gronan, a Mobster ; Franklin, a Drag Queen ; and Mr.
Chugg, a ventriloquist. When karen's investigation takes us back to anka's life in Nazi Germany, the reader discovers how the personal and the political and the past and the present converge, and how even the good can harbor a touch of the monstrous. Rendered in a kaleidoscopically and breath takingly virtuosic visual style that combines panel sequences and montage, my favorite thing is monsters is a revelatory work of striking originality and unnerving power.
