Emil Ferris: My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book Two exhibition review

reviewed by Laurie Anne Agnese 

Emil Ferris: My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book Two. Paris: Galerie Martel, November 7, 2024 - January 11, 2025. https://www.galeriemartel.com/emil-ferris-2024/

Like the werewolf stories that she treasures, Emil Ferris’s evolution as an artist started with a bite. “But it wasn’t the bite I thought it would be,” she explains in the Meet Emil Ferris documentary short that was playing at Galerie Martel’s show for My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book Two. “But it did make me a monster and it made me understand being a monster.”

In 2002, Ferris was celebrating her fortieth birthday when she was bit by a mosquito and contracted West Nile Virus. Ferris woke up from a coma three weeks later to discover her transformation: she was paralyzed from the waist down and unable to use her drawing hand. It closed the chapter of her life as a single mom working to support her six-year-old daughter on various commercial art freelance jobs in Chicago.

“The bite saved my life,” Ferris says. “Because if you lose something that you take for granted, all of a sudden it becomes extremely valuable to you.” She fought back paralysis so she could raise her daughter. She committed to drawing again, this time for her own art and enrolled at the Art Institute of Chicago. To create the two books that comprise My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Ferris spent 14 years drawing at night, while working odd jobs and struggling with various health and financial issues.

 

Video credit: Meet Emil Ferris, 2019, director Mathieu Gervaise for Monsieur Toussaint Louverture (Ferris’ French publisher)

Ferris’ voice was heard throughout Galerie Martel whose curators placed this looped chapter of the documentary to preface their exhibit of original artworks from the second volume of My Favorite Thing is Monsters. At more than 800 pages, the two books represent a remarkable and wholly unique work that was praised by Art Speigelman for advancing the language of comics. But viewing the work through the additional lens of Ferris’ struggle also contextualizes the tremendous effort that informs the hard-earned message of the book: art has the power to heal.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book 2, continues the story as told through the personal notebook of Karen Reyes, a ten-year-old living in Chicago during the tumultuous year of 1968. This gothic romantic tale of Karen’s coming of age is layered with her understanding of herself as an artist, as a “good monster,” as a trangendered person. These transformations are uncovered through a generic detective story that drives the narrative: Karen is also on a dangerous quest to solve the murder of her neighbor, Anka, a holocaust survivor, while also discovering that her life in her uptown Chicago neighborhood is built on lies and violence.

Photo credit: Vadim Rubenstein, courtesy of Galerie Martel

The arrangement of the artworks in the gallery was notably symmetric. To the left, drawings of equal height showed the variety of visual techniques and forms borrowed from comic books and artist sketchbooks.  The selection on the right side of the gallery were portraits of the gothic characters who inhabit Karen’s imaginary and actual world. The focal point of the arrangement was Book Two’s enlarged cover placed in the center of the gallery:  a self-portrait of Karen as she sees herself as a monster. 

Emil Ferris’s original drawings of covers from My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book Two.

Being a monster in Ferris’s world is identified with physical differences, in particular the visually grotesque. In the book, Karen’s copies of covers of monster magazines are dark and ghastly, though she takes enormous pleasure in reading, collecting and sharing them.  The cover images hover between imaginary and real-life horror as they often foreshadow scenes in the story. The covers also provide the only structure to the books which otherwise contain no chapters or page numbers. They appear as monthly installments, so the passage of time is suggested through the device of the occasional cover issue date.

But being a monster is not always observable from the exterior, but rather through actions and motivations. The original pieces offer a closer appreciation of the variety of styles employed by Ferris, such as the fluid comic panels and word balloons that are reformatted to make a page spread, to drive the action of the story and demonstrate how the characters live. 

An original artwork (left) and the published version (right), from My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book Two. The monster on display is a supposedly religious man preaching the bible, while also abusing his followers, and keeping his secrets in his own notated version of the bible, which Karen reads.

 

Original artwork which appears as a double page spread in the published book.

Karen’s copies of fine art that she finds in books or during her cherished visits to the Art Institute of Chicago with her brother recall a form borrowed from the artist sketchbook.  Karen’s interpretations of works of art are the book’s most exquisite and surprising, and they demonstrate Ferris’ demanding and labor-intensive style. Working with basic materials, ball point pens and cheap spiral bound notebooks, Ferris uses the materials that Karen could afford, building rich textures and shadows from the smallest of cross hatches.

Original artwork from My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book Two featuring Karen’s rendering of Le Lit, 1892, by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Ferris was so committed to the idea of creating Karen’s personal notebook that she originally worked on lined notebook paper but changed her process to working in layers to ease the labor of making corrections. The portraits featured in the exhibit demonstrate her use of layering, which add to the depth and complexity of each page, and by extension, the overall work.

Karen also copies many different artworks depicting the biblical story of Judith beheading Holofernes.  Judith is a daring and beautiful widow whose village has been invaded by the Holofernes army. She gains his trust through a sexual seduction, and then decapitates him to save her village.  Though Judith only appears in historical paintings, she’s featured on the character side of the gallery, because her story is so deeply pondered and brought to life by Karen’s imagination. In the published book, Karen reflects deeply the choice Judith made to use violence to save the people she loves and adds herself to the artwork as Judith’s loyal servant.

 

From left to right: Judith with the Head of Holofernes, 1665, Felice Ficherelli, Art Institute of Chicago; Emile Ferris’ original artwork; Published version in My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book 2. 

In a later segment of the Meet Emil Ferris documentary, Ferris highlights the importance of collage and synthesis to her artistic process:

   “I wanted to give a lot. I wanted to give everything I could. I could only choose certain things, so there’s a collaging that happens where I put two things together because one image has one energy but when you put it aside another image and then there’s text, it creates another sort of energy.”

 These layering and collaging choices are observed in the drawings of Franklin/Francoise, a school friend of Karen’s who was severely beaten for cross dressing, and a character she reads about in her monster magazines that looks like a younger version of Sylvia Gronan, Karen’s neighbor and the wife of a local mobster. The collision of texts and other images adds context to the characters.

Original artwork from My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book Two. Franklin/Francoise (left) and Sylvia Gronan (right). Their published versions are below

Original Portraits of Stan Silverberg (Anka’s widower), Diego (Karen’s brother) and Anka as a ghost.

 

The placement of the three portraits together allowed the exhibition the opportunity to show a compassionate side of Emil Ferris. Stan Silverberg is Anka’s widower rendered in blue, as is Anka’s ghost. Karen chose blue for Anka’s inner sadness that now her widower processes.  The center portrait shows Diego, who is committed to raising Karen as best as he can while also being involved with the local mob in order to avoid the draft for the Vietnam war. He’s one the books’ many flawed heroes.  In Karen’s portrait of Diego, she is responding to the advice of her friend who advises “when somebody is in a dark place the best thing you can do for them is to always try to remember their better, most beautiful selves.”

 My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Book 2 offers no easy answers to the many questions and ideas it weaves together, so fittingly neither does it offer much in the way of a clear or conclusive ending. But the narrative, and everything it took to make it, demonstrates what Karen realizes in Book 2 that “the greatest way to be a strong, evil defeating monster is to make art and tell stories.”

Unless stated otherwise, all photos taken by Laurie Anne Agnese

Graphic Novel Review: The Incredible Story of Cooking: From Prehistory to today, 500,000 years of adventure.

 reviewed by Cord Scott, UMGC Asia

Stephane Douay and Benoist Simmat and Montana Kane (translator).  The Incredible Story of Cooking: From Prehistory to today, 500,000 years of adventure. NBM Publishing, 2024. ISBN 9781681123417. https://nbmpub.com/products/the-incredible-story-of-cooking

One of the simplest, yet most complex of basic needs, is food.  We need it to survive, but in this era of food on demand in the industrialized world, we have come to take it for granted unless it is not to our taste, or even expected taste.  Through the development of food preparation, Douay and Simmat take us into the history of cooking.  While such a momentous undertaking may seem impossible, the creators give the reader a good overview of how we have come to develop our collective culinary skills.

As with any historical text, sourcing of information is important, and this book does go into a variety of sources from centuries of written material.  It also relies on information from academics, cultural anthropologists, and historical accounts to give us an interaction of food and the development of society as a whole.

The book is divided into nine general chapters, with a final chapter centered on recipes for dishes made during historical times, as previously referenced in the book.  The first chapter covers the most time, from various proto humans through to the last ice age of approximately 9000 years ago.  This chapter goes into detail as to the types of food eaten, mostly through gathering of what could be foraged while watching what other animals ate to determine what was edible versus poisonous.  Many of the anecdotes on the developments of cooking are illustrated by humorous interactions of random characters and give the stories a human quality.

The first chapter also emphasizes the importance of preservation, such as lacto-fermentation as well as that of cold storage and other methods for preservation of foods.  The domestication of grains allowed for the later concepts of farming.  These concepts allowed people to sustain themselves for longer periods of time and therefore settle into one area.  This in turn allowed societies to work on permanent structures, develop written language and even preserve history.  Some of the basic diets from this era have come back into vogue, as is referenced later in the last chapter about food sustainability and diet.

The middle chapters deal with the rise of ancient civilizations such as Sumer, Egypt, Greece and Rome, and how their dietary habits influenced the rest of the world.  The authors state the creation of alcoholic beverages was important, but did not address the issue of why water was not used (due to contaminants).  This may be simply thought to be common knowledge, clean water is something taken so much for granted in the Western World, that the recent widespread development of it often is unstated in historical settings.

The link between food and trade is also explored in the middle chapters.  The idea of Chinese cuisine, going along the “silk road” towards the West, where concepts such as pasta were altered to suit needs and adapt to local grains was important.  This migration of spices, foods and preparation methods is often understated except when it leads to crises, such as the South American potato being introduced in Europe, only to be dismissed as an unfit food item for any but animals or the poor.

Douay does a nice job of explaining the traditional aspects of kitchen duties in the ancient world through the present day.  He highlights the idea of the importance of food as haute cuisine to diplomacy and status. He also explains the development of the modern restaurant concept, gastronomy (an ancient Greek word, revitalized by the French in the later 1800s) and the idea of standardization of food preparation.

The final chapters deal with food preservation in terms of cans and the creation of the food industry.  For this section, Douay notes the industrialization of the meat packing industry in Cincinnati and Chicago, to the phases of “pure foods” promoted such as Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and Graham Crackers (p. 190).  Inevitably, any discussion of modern food leads to American fast food and its impact on the global scale as well as that of general nutrition.

The last part of the book glosses over more recent trends in terms of food security and availability.  More could have been written on these more present trends.  One “new” trend is that of getting protein through the consumption of insects to reduce the land needed for cattle; however, the idea of eating insects existed in many ancient cultures.  The new food movement recipe on page 214 for sustainable soup, using scraps of food, actually is what needed to be done for most of human history until very recently. Lastly, newer movements in cooking, such as the “slow food movement” are discussed as moves towards the future.

One of the few areas where I would have liked to see a bit more information is for spices and their use in southern climates.  It seems counterintuitive, but the idea that spicy food makes one sweat, and hence cool off, is not addressed aside from a quick reference.  Overall, the book is one that will give a basic overview of the culinary world, and it is an interesting one.  The recipes are ones that are also interesting but may or may not be practical in a current setting.

Graphic Novel Review: Adieu Birkenau: Ginette Kolinka’s Story of Survival

reviewed by Matt Reingold

Ginette Kolinka, Jean-David Morvan and Victor Matet (writers), Cesc and Efa (illustrators), Roger (colorist) and Edward Gauvin (translator). Adieu Birkenau: Ginette Kolinka’s Story of Survival. SelfMadeHero, 2024. https://www.selfmadehero.com/books/adieu-birkenau-ginette-kolinka-s-story-of-survival

If one were to compile a list of the subjects most-featured in Jewish graphic novels, the Holocaust would surely be the topic that has garnered the most attention. Since Art Spiegelman’s Maus was first serialized in Raw in 1980 and then subsequently published in two well-received and successful collected volumes in 1986 and 1991, license was afforded to authors and illustrators to creatively explore the Nazi-perpetrated genocide of 6 million of Europe’s Jews.

As the 21st century nears its quarter mark, the proliferation of graphic narratives about the Holocaust has not slowed despite the increased chronological distance from the original tragedy. In the past three years alone, a variety of works in English have been published that explore different facets of the Holocaust. This includes grandchildren trying to understand their grandparents’ experiences (Solomon J. Brager, Heavyweight, 2024; Jordan Mechner, Replay, 2024), child survivors telling their own stories (But I Live, 2022), speculative stories about what Anne Frank would do today were she alive (Ari Folman, Where is Anne Frank, 2022), and the horrors of the Holocaust on American soldiers (Leela Corwin, Victory Parade, 2024). Added to this group is Adieu Birkenau which first appeared in French in 2023.

Adieu Birkenau tells the story of Ginette Kolinka’s life from before the Holocaust and what she endured during it. The graphic autobiograhy was produced by a team of creators that included three writers (including Kolinka), two artists, and one colorist. The work is set in both the past and present, with readers learning about Kolinka’s upbringing in France, her eventual deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and how, in her seventies, she began to speak publicly about her wartime traumas. Much of the book is set during a 2020 school trip to Poland that was designed to introduce students to the horrors of the Holocaust. Kolinka’s role on the trip was as a survivor, there to speak to the students about her personal wartime experiences. Her co-authors, Morvan and Matet, joined the trip in order to document it for the graphic novel.

Readers who have deep familiarity with other Holocaust graphic novels will no doubt see vestiges of these other works in Adieu Birkenau. Using travel to Poland as a conduit for conveying historical traumas can be found in Jérémie Dres We Won’t Visit Auschwitz. Cesc and Efta’s superimposing contemporary experiences atop historical memories is also not novel; Rutu Modan did this in The Property. The use of history to inform reader reactions to contemporary injustices is also something that is present in other Holocaust graphic narratives. This includes Folman’s Where is Anne Frank and Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón’s Anne Frank.

My point in calling attention to the employed narrative tropes and the artistic decisions made by Adieu Birkenau’s creative team is not to suggest that their work is a duplication of previously issued works. Nor is it to offer a comparison that concludes that one rendering of the Holocaust is preferable to another. Rather, acknowledging what has come before - and with regards to the Holocaust, it is so very much - allows for a greater appreciation for what is new and novel in Adieu Birkenau’s exploration of the Holocaust.

First is the audience of school children who attend the trip to Poland alongside Kolinka. Though we do not know much about them, what we do know is that they are not students who attend a Jewish day school. Rather, they are average French school children who are taking advantage of the opportunity to learn from someone who personally suffered during a traumatic moment in world history. In fact, they are quite like Kolinka was as a child: an average French citizen. Kolinka loved playing sports and her closest friends were not Jewish. In fact, she openly shares with the reader that her family was not particularly religious. By calling attention to the ways that Kolinka is like the children with whom she is travelling and not someone primarily defined by something that makes her other, they bear witness to a tragedy that could have befallen them had they been born at a different time and to a different family. As witnesses, they, too, become owners of a sacred story and become part of the narrative of transmission. As readers, we, too, now become owners alongside the children, bound by the same obligation.

A second important feature of the work is its depiction of bodies. Maus’ power lay in its metaphoric depictions that highlighted the ways that Jews (and other groups) were seen as distinct from one another. Cesc and Efa do the very opposite. Their illustrated bodies are drawn in proportion and reveal the realness of the human physique and what happens to it when it is broken down and ravaged by hunger, disease, and violence. Readers see what naked bodies of average women look like as they await having their heads shaved and their arms tattooed. This includes flabby midsections, sagging breasts, and pubic hair. Their rendition eschews a Hollywoodization that presents bodies in an unrealistically idealized form. Instead, once again, what readers see are real people and real victims. Furthermore, the illustrations capture the women trying to cover themselves as they are exposed against their will. I cannot recall another example of a Holocaust graphic novel that so boldly and graphically depicts the human form at its most vulnerable and with this, the brutality of the Nazi regime.

The primary creative license that Cesc and Efa take has to do with a series of dark shadows. Used in panels set in Birkenau, they inhabit Kolinka’s memories and represent the many Jews who were killed because of Nazi persecution. As Kolinka guides the students through Birkenau, the shadows become illustrated in the present and no longer solely occupy space in Kolinka’s memories. Their enduring presence in her memory results in them becoming imaginatively rendered in the present. In these scenes, readers come to better understand the awful staying power of trauma and how, despite having lived outside of Birkenau for over 70 years, parts of her remain there too.

 It is the confluence of honest renderings of the past, depictions of the impact of trauma, and the invocation to create a different future that make Adieu Birkenau a valuable addition to the catalogue of Holocaust graphic novels. The children’s personal interactions with Kolinka at Birkenau depict the relationship that forms between the survivor who testifies and the audience who receives it. What we, as readers, gain from witnessing their transformation is the opportunity to also be transformed as we gain new understandings into one of the 20th century’s worst atrocities through the narrative power of a single survivor.

Graphic Novel Review: Thomas Piketty’s Capital & Ideology: a graphic novel adaptation

reviewed by Liz Brown, Outreach & Instruction Librarian, Kraemer Family Library, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Claire Alet and Benjamin Adam. Thomas Piketty’s Capital & Ideology: a graphic novel adaptation. New York City: Abrams Comic Arts, 2024. https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/capital-ideology-a-graphic-novel-adaptation_9781419777059/

Thomas Piketty is a French economist whose works, such as Capital in the 21^st Century and A Brief History of Equality, focus on wealth and inequality. Capital and Ideology is a comics adaptation of his work originally published in 2019. It examines over two centuries of capitalist influences in Europe, from 1789 to 2016, using one fictional French family as a case study for how wealth is distributed and privatized over time, and under the influence of political movements, social reform, and personal wealth management choices. The family depicted begins as members of the French nobility whose business expands into the slave trade, colonizing efforts in India, and industrialization, which carries them through both World Wars. This narrative approach juxtaposes the economic theories being discussed with the actual choices people make when managing their capital. The creators take an expansive, nonlinear approach when constructing the narrative in order to compare the choices the family makes with those of their peers and the effects of those choices on the others around them, especially those of the lower classes. The culmination of this lesson is to see how the privileges wealth affords have been passed down to contemporary generations and impact laws and economic policies that are in place today.

This graphic novel is a great example of how comics can bring increased legibility and accessibility to complex prose works, using visual modes of information. It makes use of numerous types infographics including maps, data visualization, timelines, and more. There is strategic use of color- using limited palettes to color code chapters of the book, which groups specific decades and economic concepts. The artists also reproduce relevant historical artefacts such as campaign buttons, historical documents, and antique currencies. The resulting comic is densely packed with information, which can feel overwhelming at times to more casual readers. Similarly, the focus on French economics means that the subject matter has a fairly narrow focus, although there are definite correlations to the way other Western countries have developed. The final chapter contains six proposals of different ways capitalist economies could develop. It takes into account the way society has changed in light of the COVID pandemic and changes in the makeup of the European Union, drawing on interviews and media the original author, Piketty, has done since the original text was published. However, the proposals are directed towards the uppermost echelons of power, covering large-scale policy decisions which makes the solutions feel alienating and out of reach of those of us on the ground. Ultimately, this comic is best directed at those interested in studying wealth at a scholarly level, best suited to libraries and courses in business and political science. It could make good background reading for future politicians who will be steeped in decision making power.