The year is 1964. Bobby Bailey doesn’t realize he is about to fulfill his tragic destiny when he walks into a US Army recruitment office to join up. Close-mouthed, damaged, innocent, trying to forget a past and looking for a future, it turns out that Bailey is the perfect candidate for a secret U.S. government experimental program, an unholy continuation of a genetics program that was discovered in Nazi Germany nearly 20 years earlier in the waning days of World War II. Bailey’s only ally and protector, Sergeant McFarland, intervenes, which sets off a chain of cascading events that spin out of everyone’s control. As the titular monsters of the title multiply, becoming real and metaphorical, literal and ironic, the story reaches its emotional and moral reckoning.

Share This Post

Monsters Cover

MONSTERS

By Barry Windsor-Smith

  • Original Graphic Novel
  • Publisher : Fantagraphics 
  • Release : 4/27/2021
  • Softcover : 380 pages
  • Dimensions : 8.3″ x 11.7″
  • Reading Age : 16+ years
  • MSRP : $39.99

35 years in the making

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. The Eisners got it right. Interestingly, Monsters was nominated for the 2021 Harvey Award for “Book of the Year” (which seemed to go against their own criteria since it wasn’t released until 2021). Additionally, i found it very peculiar that Monsters was snubbed entirely by the RIngo Awards.  

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such a labor of love to this extent in the medium. Its a heavy read that took several sittings. Barry Windsor-Smith’s style, story-telling, and talent definitely evolved over the 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. 

Like what you've seen so far?

Check out the rare interview of BWS by one of my real world heroes (Brian Hibbs with Comix Experience):

More to Explore:

Fantastic Four Full Circle Custom Feature
Award Winner

Fantastic Four: Full Circle Review

The Fantastic Four find themselves with no choice but to journey into the Negative Zone, an alien universe composed entirely of anti-matter, risking not just their own lives but the fate of the cosmos! Fantastic Four: Full Circle is the first longform work written and illustrated by acclaimed artist Alex Ross, who revisits a classic Stan Lee–Jack Kirby story from the 1960s and introduces the storyline for a new generation of readers. With bold, vivid colors and his trademark visual storytelling, Ross takes Marvel’s first team of super heroes to places only he can illustrate. The book also features a special poster jacket, with the front flap unfolding to reveal an all-new fully painted origin story of the Fantastic Four.

Did-You-Hear-What-Eddie-Gein-Done-Cropped 16x9
Award Winner

DID YOU HEAR WHAT EDDIE GEIN DONE? Review

Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? is an in-depth exploration of the Gein family and what led to the creation of the necrophile who haunted the dreams of 1950s America and inspired such films as Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs. Painstakingly researched and illustrated, Schechter and Powell’s true crime graphic novel takes the Gein story out of the realms of exploitation and gives the reader a fact-based dramatization of these tragic, psychotic and heartbreaking events. Because, in this case, the truth needs no embellishment to be horrifying.