My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book Two - February/March 2025 Edition of Devin's Chicago Comics Book Club Digest

Also, Some (More) Thoughts on My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book Two

Hello, everyone! We had another small group, but we cleared the threshold for having a book club. We all got to catch up on what’s been going on with each other, including how we’re dealing with everything going on in the world. There was a lot of nice, friendly conversation in and around our comics discussion.

In this issue: What We’re Reading - About What We’ve Read - Shameless Self-Promotion - Some (More) Thoughts on My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book Two

Honestly, we spent half of our discussion just looking at individual pages in awe and wonder at the beauty of the artwork. One person lives in Uptown and enjoyed recognizing the different locations from the narrative that are still standing. The other person talked about going to the Art Institute of Chicago to see the artwork featured in both volumes and how the museum presents them. We all agreed a walking tour based on My Favorite Thing Is Monsters would be a lot of fun. The biblical story of Judith features into Book Two, and we discussed our different levels of familiarity with it and how it was weaved throughout the narrative. We were impressed with how the main character’s speech reflected the mannerisms of a child without being cloying or precocious. Deeze was another character shown to have incredible depth, as he wasn’t always a good person but his love for his sister was obvious and real. Everyone made the same doe-eyed face with a protuberant lower lip at the mention of the name “Shelley.” The ending was open, but not frustrating. None of us felt that it lacked closure, but we were all curious about what happened next and excited for the prequel that’s been announced.

Our next meeting will be Wednesday, March 19 to discuss Banned Book Club.

What We're Reading

March 19 - Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook, Ko Hyung-Ju, and Ryan Estrada

April 16 - Tender by Beth Hetland

May 21 - Cyclopedia Exotica by Aminder Dhaliwal

June 18 - Flamer by Mike Curato

I won’t be attending the March meeting, because I’ll be at the Writer MBA Conference in New Orleans co-run by

Russell Nohelty

. I’m still going to be reading the selection, and I hope everyone enjoys it. It’s certainly timely.

About What We’ve Read

I’ve chronicled the press tour Emil Ferris gave for My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book Two in the NEWS Digests almost from the moment it was announced. The Library Journal, The Chicago Reader, The Guardian, and Vulture all spoke with her. She also spoke at the Harold Washington Library here in Chicago, which is where I picked up my copy.

When I got my copy of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book Two signed, I told Emil Ferris about CyberSync and she congratulated me and gave me a hug and that will be one of my favorite memories for the rest of my life.

More recently, the Galerie Martel in Paris held an exhibition of Emil Ferris’s artwork. You can read one blogger’s description of it here.

The latest NEWS digest is available here. The next NEWS digest will be posted in two weeks on Friday, March 14.

Shameless Self-Promotion

I’ve submitted pitches to two more anthologies! One is for another four-page comic and the other is a short prose piece. The comic is actually a reworking of a script that got accepted to a different anthology, but the art fell through. Let that be a lesson, writers: Keep those old scripts!

Friends of mine at the Comic Jam will be launching their own anthology, so make sure to support it! It’s a folk/horror anthology featuring stories from around the world. Click through to follow the campaign and spread the word!

Pamela Nuñez-Trejo was one of the local LGBTQ+ comic creators on the panel I moderated for the Chicago Public Library’s Pride Month celebrations in 2023. They have a Kickstarter campaign for their comic, Como Termina La Canción. It’s got a little more than a week left. Please throw some support their way!

As mentioned above, I’ve been accepted as a subject matter expert to the Writer MBA Conference run by

Russell Nohelty

and others. It will be held in New Orleans from March 19 to 22. I hope to get a lot of networking done, especially since the programming includes workshops on creating a graphic novel and crowdfunding through Kickstarter.

In more convention news, I’ve been approved for a Professional badge for C2E2! I’m putting myself through a time crunch, but I’m hoping to share my panel schedule and thoughts like I did last year. Also, I’ve submitted an application for a table at CAKE! This would be my first time tabling at a convention, so another life goal unlocked. I’ll find out in early April if I made it. Wish me luck!

If you think you’d be a good fit for the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, the applications are open until Saturday, March 8!

I’m listed in the Pages and Panels Creators Gallery. It’s so cool to be among so many people I respect and admire, such as

Brittany Matter

and

John Ward

.

The Nonprofitable animated web series continues! In the last episode, “Socially Distant Fundraiser,” Tapala showed some grace towards David, who demonstrated that he is improving. Her feelings towards People’s Hearts are reaching a boiling point as they have their first remote meeting in Episode Four: “Pyramid Scheme”! Please like and leave a comment if you watch on YouTube.

I had my first signing of Blackout #0! And my first signing ever. This was a lot of fun and such a milestone for me. I’ll share more in a lengthier post soon. A lot of friends showed up and the staff of the coffee shop that hosted it all bought copies! I’ve submitted a pitch for a Blackout four-issue mini-series, too.

The initial printing for The Passion of St. Alban of the West hit a small snag. The inside front cover, though fine digitally, turned out to be a bit too dark. I’ve approved the new digital proof, but that set back the printing by a couple weeks.

Geek Collective

’s Archetypes #1-2 should be heading to print soon. The campaign to create trading cards based on artwork from the magazine, including the artist for the comic I wrote, David Escobar, fully funded!

The first anthology to publish a comic I wrote, CyberSync, is available for purchase. It’s gone into a second printing!

Some (More) Thoughts on My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book Two

I didn’t consider coming up with a different topic because I could talk about this book all day. Even before opening Book Two, the cover struck me: Karen Reyes in her werewolf form, staring directly at the reader. Karen has gone from being a reflection in Anka Silverberg’s eye on the cover of Book One to being front and center. She’s focused on the reader, instead of looking over her shoulder like Anka or sharing space with the Uptown building both of them call home.

Before we even start reading, we know that Karen will be the center of this story. Book Two is much more concerned with Karen’s thoughts and actions than her historical context or the lives of those around her, though these elements still factor into the story. This cover also foreshadows all the difficult truths Karen will face throughout the events of Book Two.

But is Karen looking at us, presenting herself in the way she sees herself throughout the story? Or are we looking at her, being confronted with her self-image as a reflection of the deeper truth of Karen’s personality and her reality? Why not both?

Moving on to the interior pages, I was impressed by the use of double-page spreads in Books One and Two. To me, one of the most indelible images in a graphic novel full of them was that of a train going through snowflakes.

Hoopla isn’t allowing screenshots; this is the best I could do with my phone.

There are several layers to this image. It combines the mechanical or industrial with the natural and the beautiful with the terrible. The circumstances of that train ride are inescapable, even as it works as a tableau frozen in time. The destination isn’t visible, both to highlight the perspective of the page and to underscore that many of the people on that train are being taken to their deaths.

I think this double-page spread has a poetic double in one early on in Book Two, that of the hair being collected during the Holocaust. The page turn is prompted by a “dull steady humming” likened to “giant wasps,” an image that could serve as one of the re-created horror comic covers that serve as chapter breaks. Unlike the train image, the full weight of what we’re looking at becomes clear after we’ve been struck by the beauty, variety, and detail.

Similar to the spread from Book One, this one of loose hair combines the beautiful (the hair) and the terrible (the circumstances in which it’s being collected). Upon turning the page, we learn the full truth of what is being perpetrated: it’s not the noise of giant wasps, but Nazis forcibly shaving the heads of their victims. The hair is described as being “harvested,” because these women are having their humanity stripped away. In between the horrors, real and imagined, we have this still image to admire and contemplate.

There’s great thematic resonance to an image of entwined hair, as this comic is about the community that surrounds Karen. Disparate threads, all coming together. The greater context that these different hairs, colors, styles, and textures are being collected by a genocidal regime seeking to eliminate them altogether both reinforces the need for community and serves as a warning about those who would destroy such communities. I could keep going, but I’ve probably gone on long enough.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to share any thoughts or comments below. What do you think of double-page spreads? Have you read My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book One or Two? Please subscribe if you haven’t already. Take care of each other. Make sure to be here next month for Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook, Ko Hyung-Ju, and Ryan Estrada!