The Monstrous Christmas by Emil Ferris

How to summarize such a book? By a conviction: it is that we are all, to a more or less advanced degree, monstrous. Oh, not necessarily physically, but in the head. And this monstrosity is magnificent. It is organized around the things of life, a Coca-Cola forbidden by the parents, an argument with her mother which ends in a hug, a complicity with her marginal brother, an observation to about a neighbor, a brilliant intellectual friend and political activist… All monstrous, magnificently monstrous.

Starting with Karen Reyes, the narrator, a sympathetic and touching lycanthrope, who investigates the murder of her neighbor, a Holocaust survivor from whom she has collected scraps of testimony, no doubt out of fascination for horror, which perhaps conceals to be the clue that would allow us to confuse his murderer. Because Karen's friend was murdered.

We are at the same time in a sort of diary, in an investigation far from being a police investigation, in the chronicle of a truly marginal Chicago family, perhaps criminal, with colorful, beautiful but monstrous characters, who more is in love with art, and a waking dream where everything is fantasy, desire, nightmare… Love!

The drawing is at the heart of the story, abundant, brilliant, playing with colors and shapes, realism and schematism, with a ballpoint pen, on lined paper. There is an art of portraiture there, a reflection on the beauty of incredible power, a fabulous work of writing: here we have the ultimate definition of what is sometimes abusively referred to as a “graphic novel”. “.

We must underline the incredible editorial performance behind this work published by a small alternative publisher, Toussaint-Louverture editions. The printing, the shaping, the graphic work is simply exceptional.

The word masterpiece comes naturally. A masterpiece of our time. A gift thatEmil Ferris brings us in due season. Were you looking for an idea for a present? Here it is. This present is the future of comics. No one will be disappointed.