A book a day: Emil Ferris: What I like most are monsters

Idioma original: English

Original title: My Favourite Thing is Monsters Book Two

Year of publication: 2024

Translation: Montse Meneses Vilar

Valuation: recommended (especially if you have read the first part, of course)

Hallelujah, comic brothers and sisters! Finally we have among us the continuation of that graphic novel that left us stunned and delighted that already distant year II before the Pandemic (that is, in 2018) and, above all, with honey on our lips when we realized that It was a book of 700 pages (700!) that did not close the story it was telling us, far from it… That is, the adventures of the pubescent Karen Reyes in Uptown Chicago in 1968, when this girl-monster He is dedicated to investigating the possible murder of his neighbor Anka Silverberg.

Although, to tell the truth, in this second volume this investigation is quite blurred and gives way to other mysteries, such as the personal and family problems of Karen, her peculiar brother Deeze and the description of various characters in the neighborhood, some of new appearance, like Jeffrey the Brain or Karen’s new friend, Shelley. Of course, there is still a place for Anka’s films where she tells her story during World War II, etc., but, in general, the themes that structured the first part are somewhat diluted in the whole. We also find here the elements that made the first volume of this work so attractive, the reflections of a girl as special as Karen, in the full development of her emotional and sexual preferences, the covers of the magazines pulp of science-fiction and horror, references to well-known works of art – in this case, by Caravaggio, Hopper, Lucas Cranach… – and the countercultural atmosphere of the late sixties. However, the final result gives a more heclerotic, less integrated sensation than in the first part, perhaps due to that slide, not radical but perceptible, towards a kind of traditionalism or even pistoresqueism and (ATTENTION, SPOILER) the lack of conclusion of several open themes during the narration, which leads us to think if it is not that the third volume of the adventures of Karen Reyes, the wolf girl, awaits us.

In any case, what matters here is that we are going to find an intriguing and touching story, an endearing protagonist with a very peculiar world of her own and with characters that, to a large extent, go beyond the usual stereotype that we may encounter. have been accustomed to the graphic novel starring or directed (although this is not the case, either, but it could well be) to teenagers. And above all, with an unmatched, spectacular graphic display, halfway to the caricature, the drawing of the school notebooks, expressionism and, why not, the court portrait genre (that’s what they sometimes remind me of) and even collage… The only drawback may be that Emil Ferris bets too much on this graphic section dazzling the viewer. reader -as is the case-, more than by adequately weaving and finishing the narrative aspect of the book, as I have already commented, but, considering the result of the whole, one can undoubtedly forgive him… The secret is to open the book at any page and faced with such a display of illustrations, with all kinds of resources, dedicate yourself to enjoying.

The first part of this great graphic novel. reviewed in: What I like the most are monsters