美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Every Full Moon We Can Howl At Is A Victory,' Says Emil Ferris（在线收听）

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The graphic novel "My Favorite Thing Is Monsters" is huge in size and scope. Writer and artist Emil Ferris fills the pages with inky, scratchy drawings done in ballpoint pen. There are loose sketches, recreations of famous paintings and imaginary covers of pulp horror magazines. Ferris has won a bunch of awards for the book, and NPR's Mallory Yu recently met up with her at San Diego Comic Con.

MALLORY YU, BYLINE: Emil Ferris says when she started "My Favorite Thing Is Monsters," her first graphic novel, she had no idea it would be so massive.

EMIL FERRIS: It just sort of came out of me and began being this larger world.

YU: It's the world of 1960s Chicago, a world full of mystery and murder seen through the eyes of a horror-obsessed 10-year-old girl named Karen. Karen's notes and drawings make up the backbone of the book, and they detail her investigation into the murder of her mysterious upstairs neighbor Anka. Emil Ferris says it's about so much more than that.

FERRIS: I think the book is really about accepting the monster in ourselves.

YU: Karen draws herself as a werewolf, shunned, even hunted by villagers. It's a classic monster movie trope that Ferris says reflects what happens in reality.

FERRIS: You know, you have the villagers and their torches. It's night time. They're coming, and they're hunting for the monster, right? And then you have the Third Reich, and you have the same picture. And then you have Charlottesville, and you have the same picture. We would be a different world if we didn't have the villager mentality, if we realized we were all monsters.

YU: For Ferris, what makes us monsters are the qualities that set us apart from everyone else. She says she's been fascinated by monsters since she was a child, when her disabilities kept her from playing during recess.

FERRIS: I understood that there were physical things that made the monster different as there were with me. And then as I became more aware of my sexuality...

YU: Ferris identifies as bisexual.

FERRIS: ...That was another layer that I realized would qualify me for monsterhood. And I embraced it because the monster's cool and has an arc.

YU: Born into a family of artists, Ferris loved to draw. Her school notebooks were full of doodles and stories just like Karen's. As an adult, she worked as a housekeeper to make ends meet when her illustration work wasn't enough. She says as a single mother, she often brought her young daughter along to the houses she cleaned.

FERRIS: And then we would talk about stories. That was something that we did together to keep the magic in us because that kind of work is really hard on you.

YU: Then 15 years ago, when she was 40 and her daughter was 6, Faris contracted West Nile virus from a mosquito. The disease left her mostly paralyzed and unsure of her future.

FERRIS: My chances of recovery were not being sold to me as very great. But then I had my daughter who said, don't listen to them; listen to me. You're going to get everything back.

YU: Shortly after she returned home from the hospital, Ferris' family put together an art show. And she wanted to have something new to contribute - a portrait of herself, she says, blighted by the illness. But she wasn't able to hold a pen, which left her on the verge of tears until her daughter duct-taped the pen to her hand.

FERRIS: And she said, do it anyway. I mean, here's this little 6-year-old who's so strong. And she would move my arm and dip it into the inkwell, and I would bring it back. And it was so hard because it would flop down. And some of the drawing that I did, there were blurbs of ink.

YU: But she finished the portrait, and her daughter drew two figures at the bottom, one of herself sitting in a little chair and one of Ferris.

FERRIS: She drew me getting up out of the wheelchair because she said that's what's going to happen. And at that time I couldn't. But that little girl believed I could, so I did. You know, and there's the power of little girls, right?

YU: Ferris says after lots of physical therapy and hard work, she's regained much of her former ability. And her graphic novel "My Favorite Thing Is Monsters" is a testament to that work.

FERRIS: Every drawing was a victory. And every drawing was imbued with joy.

YU: Ferris says she wrote this book for people like Karen, her precocious, werewolfy (ph) protagonist, who sometimes need help howling.

FERRIS: Every full moon that we can howl at is a victory over the villagers.

YU: Mallory Yu, NPR News, San Diego.

(SOUNDBITE OF SERYN SONG, "PATHS")