What a vivid contrast! The fascinating graphic novel of 416 pages Me, what I love about it is the monsters , signed by Emil Ferris was recently elected best album of the year by the prestigious Angoulême festival. Not bad for a comic book first rejected by 48 publishers, and that, in France, is published by the independent publisher Monsieur Toussaint Louverture.
» READ ALSO Me, what I love about it is the monsters of Emil Ferris award, critical KDD 2019
Many, however, have been the harbingers of such a victory. Last December, the album that puts the spotlight on a 10-year old girl in the Chicago of the 1960s, investigating the death of his seductive neighbor jewish Anka silverberg quote had already been crowned by the Prix de la critique KDD (Association of critics of comic books). Not to mention the plethora of awards obtained in the United States, including two Eisner Awards.
An object of literary unidentified
This first book of a woman aged 56 years old has at the very least a funny story. Emil Ferris, an american artist of 56 years, has imagined a pad surprising, exciting, moving, and whose title, Me, what I love about it is the monsters , immediately understand that this is a book that is singular, a sort of literary non-identified.
This american artist has brush with death when his 40th birthday. The original designer of toys, an illustrator for animation films, a single mother, raising her daughter as it may, this native of Chicago is bitten by a strange mosquito, a fateful day in the year 2001.
She did not wake up three weeks later in the hospital… paralyzed. The diagnosis is without appeal. She suffers from a meningo-encephalitis, one of the more severe forms of the syndrome of the Nile continental. The doctors tell him that she won’t be able to walk again. More importantly, it can no longer draw because his right hand no longer able to hold a pen.
Sold 60,000 copies in France
yet It is by fighting like a lioness as she managed to regain the use of his right hand. It is at this time that she imagines the diary of an artist prodigy, Karen Reyes, a ten-year-old, who lives in the Chicago of the 60’s, preferring to believe that she is a loup-garou instead of a girl in flowers.
speaking about me, what I love about it is the monsters, Art Spiegelman (the author of Maus said: « Emil Ferris is one of the greatest comic artists of our time.»
In France, since September, the book has already been reprinted four times, and has sold out for the moment to 60,000 copies. This is a «monstrous» tale of a fairy tale, in which Hollywood could grab quickly… It is even said that the director of American Beauty , Sam Mendes is interested in very closely.
» READ ALSO – Emil Ferris or beauty monster
for The complete list of the 46th edition of Angoulême:
● Fauve gold
«Me, what I love about it is the monsters» Emil Ferris (Monsieur Toussaint Louverture)
● Fawn Special jury Prize
«Flutes» by Brecht Evens (Actes Sud BD)
● «Fauve» Revelation
«Ted funny Coco» Emily Gleason (Atrabile)
● Fawn-Series
«Dansker» Halfdan Pisket (Almost moon)
● Fawn Heritage
«The labours of Hercules» by Gustave Doré (2024)
● Fauve Polar SNCF
«Villevermine T1-the man with The baubles» by Julien Lambert (Blowgun)
● the Price of the BD alternative
«Experiment» Samandal (Lebanon)
Reminder:
● Fawn Youth
«The prince and the dressmaker» by Jen Wang (Akileos)
● Grand Prix
Rumiko Takahashi
«Me, what I love about it is the monsters, first Book», by Emil Ferris, 416 p., translated from the English by Jean-Charles Khalifa, published by Monsieur Toussaint Louverture. 34,90 €.