There are some comics that are just so incredibly beautiful that you don't want to put them down, and Monstress is definitely one of those comics. Monstress is set in an alternate, matriarchal earth full of magic, witches, and anthropomorphized beings known as Arcanics. The Arcanics are ruthlessly hunted and used by the humans, often dissected and studied by this earth's version of the Catholic Church, the Cumea. The story is told from the perspective of one Arcanic known as Maika Halfwolf, a teenage girl with a missing arm who embodies the spirit of an ancient and terrifying old god. While she tries to rediscover her forgotten past, she fights off the Cumea and makes friends with fugitive Arcanics along the way.
Written by Marjorie M. Liu, the story itself is impressive enough, but what makes this comic series one of the best out there is the artwork by Sana Takeda. Takeda's work is breathtaking to say the least, it's highly detailed, elegant, and realistic with a slight anime-feel to it. I've read a few different series this year, but the artwork in Monstress is some of the best I've ever seen.
If you're looking for a light-hearted series, Monstress may not be for you, it is one of the darker storylines and comic's that I've read, which also adds to my enjoyment of the series. While it deals with issues of child slavery, bodily mutilation, and death, which in themselves are pretty heavy themes, they're oddly balanced by the pure beauty of the artwork. I remember one panel in the first volume where a Cumean witch, Sophie Fekete, hold ups the severed head of a cyclops child, a character we last saw alive a few pages before, and the gravity of that panel was beautifully juxtaposed by the ornate details of the artwork, the gold-themed background, and the elegant anime-like style of Takeda's work.
One of my favourite aspects of the Monstress world is the way Liu has written her various factions. While in the first volume the Cumea are the clear villains, Liu delves, ever so slightly, into both the Dusk and Dawn Courts, two warring courts of Arcanics lead by their Ancient ancestors. She could have easily made these two courts the clear heroes within this fractured earth, they are, after all, made up of Arcanics, just like our heroine. But instead Liu taints them with their own questionable tactics and motives. The Dusk Court sought Maika out to kill her, while the Dawn captures and murderers the child survivors of an apocalyptic event that happened years before, in order to pull the truth of what happened from their ghosts. I thought it was brilliant story-telling, here you have these various factions, and it's clear where your loyalties should lie, but Liu makes it clear that everyone has blood on their hands in this dark world, and that there are no clear heroes.
The only place Monstress falls flat in my opinion, is with it's protagonist. Maika is essentially a ball of angst and rage, and not much else. While every other character has interesting pasts, motives, and varying emotional states, Maika is always the same. She's edgy, angsty, and very one-dimensional. Sure there are time when she shows some deeper emotional capacity, but overall she's probably the flattest character in the cast.
This was actually the second time I've read the first volume. I first purchased it last year and flew through it, and recently found the second volume at Chapters and thought I could use a refresher. Monstress was actually the first non-Star Wars graphic novel I purchased, and remains my favourite. I was instantly drawn in to the exquisite art style and well-developed world. The first volume is definitely meatier and more interesting than the second, the second drops some of the more interesting characters that were introduced in the first and concentrates solely on Maika and her travels to the Isle of Bone in search of answers to the questions of what she is, what she was made to be, and why this old god resides within her. The artworks is still beautiful, and the story is riveting, but I missed some of the Cumean characters from the first volume. Despite that, the story and the artwork is enough to keep this comic series interesting and engaging. One of the best I've read, and one I'll continually come back to.
