Written and Illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith
Published by Fanatagraphics Books
I recently had an article in Back Issue where I wrote about how much fun it had been to watch young English artist Barry Windsor-Smith progress so quickly from his Steranko/Kirby-influenced Daredevil and X-Men to the lush neo-classical style he used for his ultimate Conan story, “Red Nails.”
In Monsters, the long-awaited new BWS graphic novel from Fantagraphics, we see no massive style transition of that type.
No, what we have on view here is nothing less than a first-class master storyteller at his peak, telling a novel-length story in a novel’s length, slowly and deliberately paced with stunningly beautiful black and white line art every step of the way.
Sound effects, foreign languages, special fonts, and some of the most creative usage of word balloons I have ever encountered all serve to remind the reader that this is a master at work.
I don’t know the full story behind this book but it will be revealed this summer in the next issue of Comic Book Creator.
I do know it’s been in the works for more than three decades and apparently started out as a Hulk story. There’s a section of the book that feels very much like a Hulk story, in fact.
What’s the plot?
Well, it isn’t easy to describe in a straightforward way. At its core it’s about an abused boy who gets turned into a misshapen “hulk” as part of a “super-soldier” experiment. He escapes and the army chases him. But that’s oversimplifying it. There are also ghosts, and Nazis, and angels, and the true horrors of war.
Overall, the NSFW Monsters is something new, unlike anything I ever read.
It pulls you in and drags you along for a ride reminiscent of a Tarantino film. Incidents bounce around in time and we later see connections to earlier moments and characters á la Pulp Fiction. There’s also a power play moment reminiscent of a controversial scene in The Hateful Eight.
And while the violence in Monsters could also be compared to Tarantino, Monsters has something that’s in short supply in any of those movies—heart. I am a jaded old man and I found myself tearing up at a number of points and crying at the ending.
Barry plays with perceptions as well as realities, surprising both the characters and the reader on a regular basis. Who are the monsters? We’re never quite sure as nearly every character seems deserving of some sympathy as we learn their back stories.
Monsters stops short of being perfect, though, when you realize the author is being a bit manipulative and also that the number of coincidences we’re asked to accept keeps building up unnaturally.
You don’t care, mind you, because as heavy as it all is in the long run, as much as it makes you think and question some of your own beliefs, it is still—especially to long-time comics fans—a roller coaster ride with an artist who clearly knows what he’s doing.
For me, the most fun was watching the artist play with both light and shadow and his unerring use of simple lines to create both.
Similarly, some of the dialogue here—uncensored, I might add—is written in various dialects. His use of black, mid-20th century dialect is clearly meant to reflect reality and does not represent any type of racism. Dialect in comics isn’t easy to write but to my ear, he’s on point.
I question one character whose dialogue is all in German. He’s surrounded by other Germans, all speaking, presumably, in German, also, and yet their words are translated for the reader and his are not. And he gets a LOT of dialogue! I ran it through my phone translator to keep up.
But as I say, in the end, I cried. Monsters made me feel! Isn’t that what any really good novel should do?
I saw Barry Windsor-Smith in person in Philadelphia in 1977 and have always said he was the first person I ever saw who actually looked “larger than life.” Now, here we are, 44 years later, both little old men…only on these pages, Barry still comes across to me as larger than life.
He may have taken decades to get Monsters right, but he got it. It’s clear he understands the unique art of comics storytelling as well as anyone ever has. From this point, new artists need to be looking to HIM for inspiration!
Booksteve recommends.
