Monstress

This breathtaking graphic novel entitled Monstress by Marjorie Lu details the journey of young Maiko Halfwolf and the monster inside of her. There are many things I enjoyed about the craft of this graphic novel, one of them was the way in which we got to know this world. I believe This graphic novel was able to do what some novels can’t by way of illustrating the history of the world through their character professor Tam Tam. After every volume of this chapter was over, the reader was greeted by professor Tam Tam, who told us, as if she were teaching a class, the history of this world but also historical exposition. So aside from context clues that were present in this graphic novel about the history of this world, we were given direct clarification and being told in a way that gave the reader confidence in knowing about the World through this kind of World Building. Pofessor Tam Tam even ends the last volume in this series with creating some intrigue for chapters to come “within these sacred bones rests a power that our enemies would destroy the world to posses” (Lu). This character worked really well on the informational level so that the reader felt like an expert in this fictional world.

In thinking about my own writing, I also really enjoyed how tone worked in this graphic novel and how each panel was able to create a difference in mood, either slightly or overtly towards its intended effect. When I think of tone in this graphic novel, I think of the monster inside of Maiko. Even from these first six volumes we still don’t know exactly who this monster is and its relationship to Maiko. We get close enough that the reader can surmise but never from this ancient monster that lied dormant in her bloodline for so long. What I liked about this monster’s tone was in its own mystery with a promise of ruin. This promise of ruin came from the monster’s hunger but I think Lu did a particularly good job of showing us, not only through illustration, but dialogue that the monster stood above a hierarchy of gods.

The illustrations worked very well to express the notions of this graphic novel as well. We get the idea of who Maiko is far beyond the detail that is given to us that she is a woman growing up who has been displaced it seems from her home but also from her community as a whole. As Lu continues to work with this post apocalyptic type of World. I really enjoyed Maiko’s talk with Yvette near the beginning of the graphic novel. Lu creates some sense of normalcy even though Maiko just rescued herself and a few other prisoners from their death. In this normalcy Maiko tries to have a conversation with Yvette about her mother. In one panel, Yvette’s face is calm and normal and the next panel, Yvette’s face seems to have gained this madness or lunacy to it that was never there before. The effect of this was good in developing Yvette’s character because we start to understand more about her and the depths of who she is. These panels in succession were able to illustrate to us character detail and lay the groundwork for inciting a sort of emotion the reader felt when she eventually died and was brought back to life.

Lu also does this amazing job of creating mystery as a through line in this graphic novel when it concerns Maiko’s past and the monster that hungers inside of her. As the reader, we do get a few flashbacks when it comes to Maiko’s past, these things support the framework of the graphic novel. But because Lu creates such an expansive World, the reader thirsts to know more about this world she has created and who is in it. Lu does this by giving the reader a snippet of an interesting fact, then really fleshing out that snippet. I am thinking of the example of the old gods. As the reader, we get snippets of information about them first, that they are ghosts but no one knows for sure what they are. And then as the graphic novel goes on we get more and more information on them.