Colors and the What it is to be a Child

The Best We Could Do was a nostalgic and reflective piece of art that not only showcased the writer’s connection to her heritage, but an emotional understanding that shows real life character growth. In and of itself that is highly impressive. So few people ever truly try to think what it is like to be a parent in a difficult situation. More often than not they face the blame for the problems when in actuality it was the best they could.

Examining the book, I found a clear drawing styles influenced by Eastern artistic styles. The background was faded hues of red and white typically and it actually aroused my curiosity. This book had such a beautiful art style, I found it hard to imagine that the artist’s skills were limited to only drawing people. To that end I actually did research on the meaning of colors in the Vietnamese culture. I remembered from a few readings that different colors have different meanings in different cultures.

For example, in typical American culture black is usually seen as a dark color denoting bad things, like death or darkness. Ancient Egyptians actually viewed black as a good color, representing fertile soil, good for growing crops. In turn, red was a bad color, representing chaos. So it stood to reason that the Vietnamese had their own ideas about what certain colors meant.

Turns out I was right. In Vietnam the color red was symbolic for happiness, love, luck, celebration. And white meant purity, death, the end. I would like to imagine that Thi Bui meant the background to represent love and purity, perhaps reflecting the innocence of childhood and the naivete that comes along with it. It could also mean a celebration of the end, considering that this was the culmination of a lifelong journey to understand her mother.

Similarly the way the colors are used is unique. Blended together, almost as though they are in a dream. Or alternatively, a memory. That would make more sense story wise. We can’t remember ever single detail from every single day or moment in our lives. Usually we just remember a rough estimate of when it was in our lives and how we felt during that time. That would lend credence to the former idea that the colors denoted purity and love. Thi’s memories were of a time in her life when she felt those things.

Ultimately though, The Best We Could Do was about understanding what it meant to be a parent. To me it seemed the message was that it is okay to be a child, but at a certain point one must grow up and take into consideration the feelings and needs of others. If you don’t then you are simply being selfish. In essence, childhood is the only time in a person’s life when being selfish is excusable, due to their lack of understanding of how the world works. And it brings a certain clarity to the book for Thi, who is now a mother herself.

Edits To The Wikipedia Page For Toni Blum

The edits I made to the Wikipedia page were minor, since most of the information I had on my comics creator was already on Wikipedia. I did add a few sentences and attempted to add a picture and a link, but the picture could not get uploaded and the link was taken down.

I made before and after screenshots of the changes I made.

As you can see after the little blurb about Toni Blum marrying Bill Bossert and having three children, I added a little blurb about her working at Eisner & Iger’s company.

I added the bit about her being a chief writer at the company and her freedom with writing whatever she wanted in the stories.

And the last change I made was that there was only one link for her in the ‘See Also’ column, so I tried to add another link, linking to her other page of her in the wiki fandom site. (Shown below)

But I was told that it was removed because it was not an acceptable link to put up.

As I said before, it was difficult to find anything else to put up on the wiki site, since everything else I had on Blum was already up there in some form or fashion.

Heavy Topics in My Favorite Thing is Monsters

I was very surprised when I began reading Emil Ferris’ My Favorite Thing is Monsters. It uses a story about a murder to disguise all of the much heavier topics that are addressed in the comic.

One of the most vulnerable topics discussed is race and acceptance of race. In the very beginning, the reader is convinced that Karen is being chased by the “mob”, or the Mean, Ordinary, and Boring, because she is a werewolf. Her physical differences compared to the majority of society’s leave other people feeling uneasy.

Later, this idea is further touched upon when Karen and her mom meet up with her brother Deeze. Deeze looks Mexican because their father is Mexican. An old woman at the diner says, “Hey there señor, you’re in the wrong placé for your kind. You’ll wanna flamingo dance on down to the taco joint.” This is obviously a very racist and stereotypical comment to make, and it offends Deeze. But what I find most interesting on this page is the illustration that accompanies this moment. Ferris chose to do a full-page spread, not an uncommon thing throughout this book but still striking. The woman in the image is old and ugly in terms of conventional beauty, and she appears to be quite shriveled and withered, especially in her hands. Deeze, on the other hand, is depicted as very beautiful, and he is the only part of the image that is in color. As the old racist looks towards him as if disgusted, he looks nowhere near her. The reader can assume he is looking straight at his mother and his sister. Nevertheless, he is not giving the racist the reaction she is probably longing for him to have, but he is taking a more pacificist approach. This was done intentionally by Ferris to make a statement about how we should handle opinions that may be cruel that stem from different opinions. We should never let them get to us emotionally, and she even goes as far to show that we should not even give them the time of day by addressing ignorant things.

Why Karen’s Favorite Thing is Monsters

Every culture and civilization from past to present has its monsters. These monsters are exaggerations of human characteristics or behaviors, usually vices condemned by the culture inventing the creature and to be used as a social deterrent: Some Native American tribes spread the legend of wendigos, hideous towering and furry beasts that were once humans who committed cannibalism, to deter the practice people eating and have something to blame when the children ask why their neighbor is suddenly missing after a harsh winter. So as My Favorite Thing is Monsters explains, the origin of the term monster comes from the word demonstrate. Furthermore, the traditional demonstrative purpose of monsters is designed for us to fright when we see ourselves in them. So if every monster is a reflection of the individual, then there is really no such thing as the definitive monster. Despite this, the images of monsters have branded over the years into definitive forms. Usually when one pictures a vampire, that person will think of Universal’s Dracula from the 1930s.

This might be why Emil Ferris chose to trap her unique characters in a monster mash up of cursed creatures: Karen is a werewolf, her father is The Invisible Man, Deez is Dracula, etc. If we were to analyze the comic using a lens on the depiction of immigrants, the use of monsters can be seen as a device to represent the dominant gaze of the other, seeing the thing and not the person. Except, Karen is not afraid of monsters. She loves them and draws herself as them. So what does this suggest about the purpose of monsters in the comic if they are demonstrative but not traditionally deterrent?

I think monsters are the inventions of culture and society meant to be understood at the personal level, making them individually unique but public as well, and this puts them in a place between two polarities, meaning Monsters are ever evolving creatures. This positions monsters to have the potential to be anything, combinations of things, and be empowered for it, so it makes sense Karen would admire them. Karen draws herself as the Wolfman, who exemplifies the transformative and maturing nature of monsters and their meanings. Similar to how Wonder Woman is often employed to represent the many, many different roles of women, monsters also are stretched and pulled into different directions to mean different things. And also like Wonder Woman, monsters are powerful and can strike fear into their enemies’ hearts. Karen likes monsters for the same reason someone would like superheroes. 

Is she a monster?

When I first opened the book My favorite things is monsters, I thought it might be a cute doodle style comic book, but then I was shocked by the drawing style of the book. The style was different from the comic book I used to read, little similar to the Syllabus because they were both drawn on the notebook, but the color of My favorite thing is monsters was darker and flatter.   The book was drawn on the notebook by pencil and ball pen,  like a doodle drawn by the boring student in the class. I also found out some drafts of math calculation under the drawing, and I couldn’t tell if it was intentional or the cartoonist Emil Ferris was drawing the book while she was having a math class and happened to do some math calculation. But the drawings were so elaborate that the sketchy drawings must have taken Emil a long time to do.

The book was about a ten-year-old girl Karen who was obsessed with monsters, and it had reflected in the way she saw the world, even herself. She started to see herself as a werewolf and found out that there were many monsters existed around her. Although the book was shown from the ten-year-old girl’s viewpoint toward the world in a naive way, the stories were somewhat scary and showed the dark side of the world. I felt sad for Karen sometimes since she had to face so many adult situations at such a young age.

I seemed that Karen didn’t feel anything wrong with her monster appearance, and she had her best friend Missy and other people who cared about her. She also found out there were many different kinds of monsters in the world except herself. In the chapter Tales of the Eldritch and the Arcane, she met an old man Mr.Silverberg who had a dried blue skin, who had lost his love of the life Anka. Karen and he both shared to listen to the tape of Anka’s testimony. The story of Anka was filled with sadness, her mother went mad so she ran to the brothel’s cook Sonja, who could take care of her, but then Sonja died in front of her, and she was forced to be sent to be a keyhole girl. There were many horrible things happened after in Anka’s story, when the darkness was shown to Karen, she could still accept it very calmly. When Karen saw her stepdad was having sex with another woman and told her do not tell her mother, she accepted it as well and deal with it in her own way and tended to help others. I was impressed by this little girl, compared to the monstrous human, she was not monstrous at all.

Monsters

I love a good immigrant story an although My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris is supposed to be a murder mystery it still covers a wide range of topics. One important reoccurring topic I noticed was the connection between monsters for being physically or culturally different. These two distinctions reminded me at times about how Donald Trump made that now (unfortunate) popular speech concerning immigration, where he referred to Mexicans as rapist and thieves. That association alone creates problems because then people feel entitled to treat those individuals who are Mexicans or any other nationality to be treated harshly. They are portrayed as the villains and in this particular case, monsters even if they are not illustrated as a monster. Karen explains that her “invisible” father was Mexican and she uses this to elaborate on why people treat Deeze so harshly because he looks like his father. Deeze is also covered in tattoos which could also cause people to judge him by his appearance. He is into surrealism art and is covered with ink all over his body in addition to looking like his father. He might be illustrated as a monster the way Karen is but people treat him as if he was a monster or a strange creature. Some people already have preconceived prejudices against people with tattoos so it makes sense that Ferris uses this as a tool to show how peoples differences can be used against them. Karen is treated badly in school because of her own appearance too. She is illustrated the entire time as an actual monster. For example, the kids in Karen’s school say that now the infamous cootie step now has cooties because Karen herself stepped on it even though she avoided at all cost until her teachers made her stand on it. This reminded of the times when people of color were segregated and discriminated against solely because of their skin color and people did not want to share water fountains with them. In another page, Mama’s superstitions are illustrated and listed. The reader can draw a connection between the idea of superstitions as a cultural distinction. Many of us have probably heard our own versions of superstitions our parents have told us while we were kids like do not walk under a ladder because it’s bad luck. However, in this page Mama is listing some outrageous things that maybe no one has heard of at all! For example, she says to never say the “t-word (thunder?) unless you’re itching to be struck by lightning” or “never ever comb your hair after dark unless you want to comb sorrow into your true love’s heart”. Personally I had never heard of such things being portrayed as bad luck  or “cuss” (curse) but the point is that it could potentially be because of the difference in culture. This difference might be yet another reason why Karen is portrayed as a monster and in that particular page she looks so vulnerable while she does each superstitious act.

Overcoming the Real Monsters with Brotherly Love

Emil Ferris’ My Favorite Thing is Monsters is a graphic novel like I’ve never seen before. Her sketchy art style and her heart wrenching personal stories make for such a mind altering read. Something that jumped out at me in the beginning and throughout the first half of the book was her relationship with her brother, Deeze. He was her only father figure and Deeze was a worthy replacement even though he had his own issues.

In the chapter named “Ghastly”, Karen gives the reader a rundown of her brother primarily as an artist. The page is full of color compared to many of the black and white pages in the book. She gives us an almost full body image of her brother to show us his many tattoos all of which he has designed. We learn that Deeze is always drawing with black ink, so his fingers are always black along with everything he touches. On the next page, we see Karen in a highchair with Deeze praising her for her beet drawings. This scene is heartwarming, and those kinds of moments are few and far between in this novel. Karen tells us that Deeze is the one who helped her become an artist. Along with the beet drawings, he taught her about “The Vesica Piscus” and how it was the beginning of all shapes.

He takes her to the Art Institute where he shows her the many paintings he adores and explains that all great action paintings start out with a triangle between the three main points of the work. The next few pages is where the reader gets to see more dimensions of Deeze. Karen is looking at “St. George Killing the Dragon” by Bernat Matorell and comparing the three points of the triangle with Deeze. The first being the Princess which she compared with him when he is drawing, painting, or listening to music. The second is the Knight and this is Deeze when he is protective of her and Ma. The third, and perhaps the most striking of the three, is the Dragon. Karen tells the reader that sometimes Deeze has a temper that can get out of control when it comes to her and their Ma. However, Karen believes that there must be something the Dragon is hiding in its cave. She puts herself into the painting and enters the cave to see Deeze as a child weeping in the corner saying that he has done something awful. These few pages give the reader a wider and more complex vision of her big brother. It is obvious that she loves him dearly even through his rough patches, and maybe because he’s all she has as a father figure.

Overall, Ferris takes the reader on a wild ride of beautiful artwork and strong feelings. As a reader, I can feel the affection that Karen has for her brother and it made me tear up a couple of times. It goes to show that you can be in tough situations, but even if you have only one person to count on, that can make all the difference in the world.

all kinds of monsters

Reading “My Favorite Things is Monsters” I found it interesting how this 10-year-old girl visualizes herself as a werewolf so that she can relate to one of her favorite things. Meanwhile, surrounding her in her life are humans who act almost inhumanly and make them metaphorical monsters in the real life sense. From the very beginning, when Karen the 10-year-old was visualizing herself as a werewolf and howling so that everyone could hear it, there were people saying that is should be gotten rid of, that is needs to be terminated. A man sitting on the street tries to reason with them calmly and no judgement and in retaliation a person tells him to shut up and then calls him an Indian. I found this interesting as well because Native Americans are known to have a spirituality with animals and connect with the land and life around them, and when the Europeans came over to the new land, they did reference them at some point as Savages. I think it was really neat to see a person who is called a “Savage” be pointed to as a monster from the people on the street, when in reality it is the people who are saying these nasty things that are the true monsters. Another example of people seeing monsters in other people who seem different to you is when we are introduced to brother Deeze. He is automatically a target because he looks more like his Mexican father. When he walks into the diner a lady says to him that “you’ll wanna flamingo dance on down to a taco joint”. On top of that there is the mysterious death of Anka which whatever or whoever killed her is just another whole type of monster. I think this book just twists your mind into seeing the types of people there are in the world and monsters can easily become my knew favorite things, because there are so many perspectives on what a monster is.

Who Is The Real Monster

When I first read the book “My Favorite Thing Is Monsters” written by Emil Ferris, I was really shocked by its content and drawing. Contrary to some other horror fictions, its art style impressed me deeply. It is really unique and infectious in art.

This book told a story about Karen Reyes, Ferris’s young narrators, who visualized herself as a monster. It could be seen as a girl’s journal. In it, she miraculously transformed into a supernatural creature so as to master herself. She could cast herself as a monster and feel safe. It was because of the era she was in—–a world full of strife, hatred and death. Only being a monster instead brought her safety and comfort and made her free from the real world.

The art style of this fantagraphics book proved her fear and desire to rescue from the practice. This artwork looked so unnerving that I seemed to be in a dreamy state while reading it. I even cannot recognize where the real world is. The author only used black pencil sketches to portray people and scenes. This was what most differentiates other comic books. Using the ratio of black and white colors in the panels, it showed the effect of light and darkness. As one of the panels revealed, the sky drew in rough and dense linework while keeping a certain space empty to express the existence of fire. People, who stood in front of the crowd, were lightened by utilizing the proportion of black and white in drawing. The scene was not explained by words but we still understood its meaning and emergence of stereoscopic effect.

It was just an example of Ferris’s method of coloring. Her acted her pencil to miracle. This kind of way in drawing made the whole story become thrilling without any explanation. By using it, we could also clearly find that the narrator, Karen lacked the sense of security from the bottom of her heart and expressed her desire to get away from the real world. She was no longer full of pain when she felt she was a monster. As she said in a panel, ”Humans are afraid of death and it makes them frantic. Because I’ll be one of the lindead when I grow up, I won’t have to fear death.” .In this imagined and supernatural world, she was not frightened by death at all. What freaked her out was that one day they could turn her into one of them to become mean, ordinary and boring. This illustrated her feeling of stubbornness. She was not willing to bow to the death and alienation in the real world. Instead, she chose to break through the stereotype and sacrifice her human life and thus become a monster. When I read this, I began to understand why the book was entitled to this topic. Karen’s favorite thing is to become a monster which is different from normal devils in literature. This monster still remains love and kindness. She remembered maternal love attained from MAMA. Through MAMA’s eyes, she observed mama’s inner world and felt at ease when sleeping underneath the pine tree. In my opinion, the real monsters were those people who wanted to kill her. Their facial expressions made me creepy. It was they who created such an unfair and bloody world and then let Karen run away from it. I can experience it through the presentation of Emil Ferris’s masterpiece.

C3: Good and Bad Monsters

The graphic novel, My Favorite Thing is Monsters, follows Karen Reyes, a 10-year-old, monster-obsessed girl growing up in uptown Chicago, as she tries to solve the murder of her upstairs neighbor, whose death was declared a suicide by the police. The story follows the coming age of both girls, Karen and Anka, as they grow up in times of political and social turmoil. Ferris presents the story in a sketchbook format involving illustrations by ballpoint pen on notebook paper. Some of her artwork throughout the graphic novel brilliantly duplicates famous works, such as George Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on The Island of La Grande Jatte.”

As Karen is coming of age, her obsession with monsters starts to reflect within the way she sees the world. She begins to realize the different kinds of monsters that exist in the world. Besides the kinds of monsters she obsesses over on TV and in magazines, she even draws herself as a monster in her sketchbook with werewolf features. She also sees herself and her friends as good monsters and as people who don’t fit into society perfectly. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, she begins to see the world in a darker scope, and sees the bad monsters, as the people who hate and destroy those who challenge their ideas and tradition. She says, “The bad monsters want the world to look the way they want it to. They need people to be afraid..”

As she grows up in uptown Chicago during the 1960s, and we learn of Anka’s history, these ideas are prevalent, in their society and ours today. She grows up and sees the world as it is, that there are monsters, good and bad. As she understands that the world has people with their own baggage, both the good and bad, she becomes more curious about people’s stories and those around her. The bad monsters in her life also become very real. Her and her friend Missy would obsess over monsters and Dracula, but once they kissed, Missy turns on Karen. She becomes popular, and gets new friends, and completely abandons Karen. As we see the world and Karen’s experiences through her sketchbook, we’re confronted by the different monsters in an era of social change, as well as struggle with class and sexual freedom. As we learn who the monsters are and how Karen identifies herself throughout the comic, we also see how she really struggles with her self-esteem and with the way society views women.