Emil Ferris is moving. Behind her, on the screen through which the interview takes place, there are dozens of boxes and some stuffed animals in the office of her home in Chicago. Well, outside of Chicago. Although not too far out. “If you throw a baseball, it will reach the city,” laughs the comic book author (Chicago, 62 years old).
In 2017 he completed another move, one that went from anonymity to fame. Disabled after contracting West Nile fever, from which she recovered very little by little, during that convalescence she created a comic about a wolf girl, drawn with pens on a notebook, titled
What I like most are monsters
. Against all odds, that first book went around the world, was covered in awards and made it into all the lists of the best comics of the 21st century. “On the one hand, I was blessed. The eyes of the world turned to me. I literally felt the energy of the people; “I had never felt so much attention towards myself,” she reflects on that unexpected success. “On the other hand, I am a shy person; I just want to be at home and work. So… I withdrew,” she confesses. “Inside of me, there is gratitude for how the book was received and how it influenced so many people,” Ferris says when she is asked how the experience of her fame has changed him. “But, on the other hand, it is very strange, for example, when she signed books. Those things don't mean anything if you can't talk to people, but it's impossible to talk to readers there! It's not the best system in the world... but I have to do it. Even if it is to honor the connection that so many readers had with the book.”
What I Like Most Are Monsters
unraveled 1960s American culture and conjured up the tribulations of a girl (Karen Reyes) and her brother Deeze with the mysterious death of their neighbor Anka, a Jewish survivor of the Nazi horror. Now its second part (published by Reservoir books) closes (although it leaves many fronts open) Karen's story. Does Ferris see the influence of her creature on later comics that have come out of the US? “Well, in the US and all over the world!” she laughs. “Just in the last few months, my best friend showed me three recent comics that had a similar style or talked about similar themes. Many authors confess it to me.” And does that bother you? “No, I don't mind being copied. It's like a family dinner: if you bring up a topic you don't want them to ignore it; “You want to influence, for people to react, for a conversation to form.”
And how has that very personal style evolved? “It's good that my style grows because so does Karen's [in theory, the comic is what Karen draws in her diary].” The book is visually more organized and florid and the contortions of the pen assault the reader almost on every page. “For example, she draws a lot more women,” Ferris notes. And it's true: Karen is experiencing her first love interest with Shelley, a girl, like her, “strange.” But, although the background tells of a first love, what is important about Ferris' style is the form: subconsciously, the reader perceives Karen's inner change through the drawings she makes of her.
“Karen has grown up, of course. “She realizes that she must have more of a say in her own life after her mother's death, that she must make difficult decisions,” says Ferris. “It's something that shouldn't happen, but it does: many children are suddenly pushed to make difficult decisions. The death of a parent, financial difficulties, or a divorce... all of that takes you away from childhood suddenly. And we can all identify with it in some way,” she maintains. “I'm glad she had the opportunity to find love. But in a way she is scary: she loved her mother and her mother left. In the end, I imagine that life is like one of those mystery stories in which the characters disappear. It’s unfair! ”She laments. "But if. When you experience the loss of someone you love, loving becomes a challenge. “Love is dangerous, that’s the truth.”
In addition to the passages from the Second World War, the comic delves into the political problems of the time in the United States, such as the civil rights movement, hippy culture or the revolts against the Vietnam War. In real life, just take a walk through his social networks to see that Ferris does not avoid today's thorny issues. “Our war is not between us, it is against the forces that confront and plunder us. If people have gold or oil under their legs, that is dangerous. I cannot remain silent when I see people dying in Gaza, when I see so much suffering caused by greed,” she says.
Should a 21st century artist then use, in addition to his art, his own voice to try to change the world? “Well, I always talk about that. Your religion doesn't matter, or anything like that, only one maxim matters: treat others how you want to be treated. When I don't see that, I report it. When I see children suffering, I will say it. Because in the face of that suffering, art, my books, myself, that stops mattering, because what matters is them. Yes, we have to talk. If good people do nothing, evil wins.”
Very fond of astrology, Ferris cannot help but ask the interviewee about their zodiac sign and draw her conclusions from it. She confesses, however, that she is giving up trying to see the future. "I have left. I decided that I wanted to create my own emotional path, interpret things in my own way. Sometimes, when someone interprets your destiny, you follow, even if unconsciously, that interpretation. And now I want to follow my own path.” Exactly what, at the conclusion of the second part of her diptych, Karen Reyes, wolf-girl, amateur detective and cartoonist obsessed with monsters, does. Move on, let's see what the hell life throws in her way.
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