my favorite thing is monsters vol 1 by emil ferris

Is that autobiographical?Įmil Ferris: Yes, I was born in Chicago but my parents left here when I was around a year old and, when I was five or so, after living in Albuquerque New Mexico and Santa Fe my father―a dyed in the wool Chicagoan - moved us back here to a low income building in Uptown.Įmil Ferris: My parents met as two hippie art students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Why don’t we start with you and your early years? My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is set in 1960s Chicago. Paul Tumey: You’ve had quite a journey with this book and, as I understand it, your life to date.

After I read My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book One, I was intensely curious about you and your novel.Įmil Ferris: I'm glad to be talking with you, Paul. Paul Tumey: First off, let me thank you for this interview, Emil. Emil Ferris, author of MY FAVORITE THING IS MONSTERS Part one of this two-part interview covers Ferris’ background, her life as an artist and her love of monsters. In conversation with her it becomes clear Monsters is new and different because Ferris, a gifted artist, is approaching comics and graphic novels from an offbeat, hard-fought viewpoint. My Favorite Thing is Monsters similarly challenges commonly held preconceptions, including how a graphic novel should look and work. This is a telling detail about the outsider stance of this author-artist. In this interview, conducted February 7-10 2017 in several Internet chat sessions and additional rounds in email, Ferris challenges a lot of labels, putting them in quotation marks. In my earlier review of Monsters, I wrote: “The author, one Emil Ferris, seemingly arrives from nowhere to join the ranks of graphic storytellers of the first order.” A single mother who has supported herself for many years as an artist-for-hire, including designing McDonald’s toys and working in animated films, Ferris has developed a complex visual-verbal style that is at once extremely refined and highly personal and used it to create her first published work., thrilling in its artistry. Then Her Book Got Lost at Sea.' by Dana Jennings)Ī reclusive person, Emil Ferris, author of the just-released breakthrough graphic novel, My Favorite Thing is Monsters (Fantagraphics, 2017), has not allowed much personal information out in the world.

Art Spiegelman, quoted in The New York Times ('First, Emil Ferris Was Paralyzed. “Emil Ferris is one of the most important comics artists of our time.” Features The Emil Ferris Interview: Monsters, Art and Stories (Part 1)

My favorite thing is monsters vol 1 by emil ferris