The 2018 winner is My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics Books)
“Part horror, part mystery, part transmuted memoir,” the jury said, “My Favorite Thing is Monsters resolutely rejects to settle into a particular genre. Its play on narrative perspective and media usage make its crime solving plot all the more satisfying and brilliant. This book is a masterwork as determined as its young protagonist to reveal the truth of our sad, misguided, cruel, and yet tender species.
The book’s layout defies most comics norms to create a captivatingly unique visual experience: a dialogic space for readers to affectively engage with social commentary while witnessing Karen Reyes’ inner and outer worlds as they collapse into each other. The pages of Monsters perhaps are to comics paneling what poetry is to prose, and are richly drawn as crosshatched illustrations in ball-point pen, with stylistic nods to film noir, horror magazines, and museum art.
My Favorite Thing is Monsters is a game changer that will have an enormous impact on the future of the medium.”
2018 Advisory Board
- Jose Cruz Guerrero
- John Meier
- Joel Priddy
- J. Harlan Ritchey
- Scott Thompson Smith
- Rebeca Miller Waltz
Recording of 2018 Lynd Ward Prize event