Created over a period of 35 years, Barry Windsor-Smith' Monsters is a
tour de force of visual storytelling. Part family drama, part espionage thriller, part metaphysical journey, it is an intimate portrait of individuals struggling to reclaim their lives and an epic political odyssey across two generations of American history. Monsters is rendered in Windsor-Smith's impeccable technique, the visual storytelling being the most sophisticated of the artist's career. There are passages of heartbreaking tenderness, of excruciating pain, and devastating violence. It is surely one of the most intense graphic novels ever drawn.
I've said it and I'll say it again: this is a sad story. A really sad one. It'd been a long time since I had to pause my reading to take a breath - maybe a quick cry - before gathering the courage to keep on reading. I make the effort to highlight, then, that this is a piece of art which displays a mastery of the comic book medium. Windsor-Smith took thirty years to be able to write and publish this comic and it shows. Read Full Review
Windsor-Smith crafts a war story that recognizes that wars don't end with an armistice. For some people, wars never end as they have to live with the experiences and atrocities every day and every night, even after they eventually get to go home. Read Full Review
Monsters (2021) by Barry Windsor-Smith (Fantagraphics)
I read this as preparation for 2022 Eisner voting. It would later earn three (3) well-deserved awards for Best Graphic Novel, Best Artist/Writer, and Best Lettering.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such a labor of love to this extent in the medium. His style, story-telling, and talent definitely evolved over thirty-five (35) years he spent working on such a lofty project.
I don’t mind saying, in the 90s I was too much of a fanboy to really appreciate BWS, but his magnum opus was both definitive and endearing. Highly recommended.
BWS rarely grants open interviews, but check out the Comix Experience special Brian Hibbs did full of insig more
Wow... this book is a masterpiece. Mandatory reading for any comic reader
I don't give 10s lightly, for a perfect score means nothing can be better.
Barry Windsor-Smith, with his words and artwork, has made such a book. It is brilliantly crafted. I don't want to say much more than to urge you to get your hands on the book and aavor every page.
Barry Windsor-Smith brings us his magnum opus, a visceral, disturbing, gut-check of a book about the monsters created through war and the military industrial complex. I won't mince words, this was an extremely difficult book to read, dealing with heavy topics in the most uncompromising way.
Windsor-Smith doesn't flinch in showing the horrors of war and the effects it's trauma can have on the lives around the soldiers drafted to participate in it. His pencils, particularly at the reveal of the book's titular monster, are haunting. That specific page, in all it's morbid, almost Catch-22-esque absurdity, will be burned into my brain forever. This is a difficult, uncompromising read and I highly recommend it.
© 2024
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