nprfreshair: In ‘Monsters,’ Graphic Novelist Emil Ferris Embraces The Darkness Within Ch

nprfreshair:In ‘Monsters,’ Graphic Novelist Emil Ferris Embraces The Darkness WithinChicago illustrator Emil Ferris has always be fascinated by monsters. As a kid, she would watch werewolf movies and find herself sympathizing with the wolf. Now 55, she’s recently published her first graphic novel, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters.“I always felt like [monsters] were kind of heroic because they were facing something,” Ferris tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “Becoming a monster sometimes isn’t a choice that you have. We’re all that; we’re all ‘the other’ in one way or another.”Set in 1968, Ferris’ novel is rendered as a sketchbook that belongs to a 10-year-old girl, Karen, who loves horror movies and who thinks of herself — and draws herself — as a werewolf. The novel deals with the figurative and literal horrors of Karen’s life, including the murder of her elderly neighbor, Anka, who was a Holocaust survivor.Ferris began writing and drawing My Favorite Thing Is Monsters after she was bitten by a mosquito that infected her with West Nile virus. The virus left her paralyzed, but eventually she regained some use of her right hand and learned to draw again by duct-taping a quill pen to her hand. Ferris now walks with the help of a cane.Looking back, she says the book never would have been written had she not contracted West Nile. “The experience really coalesced my ferocity around regaining the ability to draw and walk and live and create,” she says. “It became clear to me that it was much more important … to do the best that I could and give something to the world.”Hear the interview.Fascinating…simply fascinating. -- source link
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