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Monsters
The year is 1964. Bobby Bailey doesn’t realize he is about to fulfill histragic destiny when he walks into a US Army recruitment office to joinup. Close-mouthed, damaged, innocent, trying to forget a past andlooking for a future, it turns out that Bailey is the perfect candidate for asecret U.S. government experimental program, an unholy continuation ofa genetics program that was discovered in Nazi Germany nearly 20 yearsearlier in the waning days of World War II. Bailey’s only ally and protector,Sergeant McFarland, intervenes, which sets off a chain of cascading eventsthat spin out of everyone’s control. As the titular monsters of the titlemultiply, becoming real and metaphorical, literal and ironic, the storyreaches its emotional and moral reckoning.
Monstersis the legendary project Barry Windsor-Smith has beenworking on for over 35 years. A 380-page tour de force of visual storytelling,ѴDzԲٱ� narrative canvas is both vast and deep: part familial drama, part political thriller, part metaphysical journey, it is an intimate portrait ofindividuals struggling to reclaim their lives and an epic political odysseyacross two generations of American history. Trauma, fate, conscience,and redemption are just a few of the themes that intersect in the mostambitious graphic novel of Windsor-Smith’s career.
Monstersis rendered in Windsor-Smith’s impeccable pen-and-inktechnique, the visual storytelling with its sensitivity to gesture andcomposition is the most sophisticated of the artist’s career. There arepassages of heartbreaking tenderness, of excruciating pain, and devastatingviolence. It is surely one of the most intense graphic novels ever drawn.
Monstersis the legendary project Barry Windsor-Smith has beenworking on for over 35 years. A 380-page tour de force of visual storytelling,ѴDzԲٱ� narrative canvas is both vast and deep: part familial drama, part political thriller, part metaphysical journey, it is an intimate portrait ofindividuals struggling to reclaim their lives and an epic political odysseyacross two generations of American history. Trauma, fate, conscience,and redemption are just a few of the themes that intersect in the mostambitious graphic novel of Windsor-Smith’s career.
Monstersis rendered in Windsor-Smith’s impeccable pen-and-inktechnique, the visual storytelling with its sensitivity to gesture andcomposition is the most sophisticated of the artist’s career. There arepassages of heartbreaking tenderness, of excruciating pain, and devastatingviolence. It is surely one of the most intense graphic novels ever drawn.
380 pages, Hardcover
First published April 13, 2021
169 people are currently reading
5,764 people want to read
About the author
Barry Windsor-Smith
447books138followersBarry Windsor-Smith (born Barry Smith) is a British comic book illustrator and painter whose best known work has been produced in the United States. He is known for his work on Marvel Comics' Conan the Barbarian from 1970 to 1973, and for his work on Wolverine � particularly the original Weapon X story arc.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 476 reviews
May 28, 2021
Probably best known for his seminal 1980s Wolverine miniseries Weapon X over at Marvel, Barry Windsor-Smith is back with a new story... about the military hiring mad scientists... to secretly experiment on people� with disastrous results. Hmm. Well, I don’t want to say Barry Windsor-Smith is a one-trick pony but, from what I’ve read of him anyway, he’s 2 for 2!
Maaaaaaaan, what a project reading this was - 370 pages of densely-worded, BORING garbage! The first 120 pages is a lot of tedious military characters talking about experiments and whatever, the next 140(!) or so pages - the worst part of the book - is about a sad wife/mother getting knocked around by her abusive husband, over and over, and then, for the last 100 or so pages, we’re in the final days of WW2 where Nazi scientists try to figure out how they’re gonna explain their insane experiments to the Allies who’re hours away from rumbling them.
For such a pain-stakingly put-together work, I’m sure Windsor-Smith was trying to say something “important�, but I couldn’t tell you what it was. As far as I can see, the “monsters� the title is referring to are, 1) abusive men, 2) genetically-modified people made to look like Quasimodo, and 3) Nazi scientists (or just Nazis generally). And so� what? Don’t most people already think those three things are monsters? It’s not like Windsor-Smith is telling or showing us anything mind-blowing.
Nor do I see what the allusions to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein did for this book. The project to transform Bobby Bailey into the monster on the cover is called Prometheus and the subtitle to Shelley’s novel is “The Modern Prometheus�. The final part of the book takes place in Schongau, which is near Ingolstadt, a prominent place in Frankenstein. Other pointlessly derivative literary allusions is having a couple of characters who essentially have the Shining in all but name.
Neither do I see the point of the experimentation. The Nazi scientists horrifically deform their test subjects - to what end? Who wants an oversized, lumbering creature with the mind of a child who can barely walk? Why would any military pour so much money into such a useless end goal?!
Windsor-Smith uses lots of dates and places to set up scenes but they add nothing to the context - who’s really going to remember that this scene is taking place three months after the one before last?
The Jan Bailey section - the battered housewife part - had far too many pages full of cursive handwriting that were a chore to slog through. Not just because of Jan’s whiny voice, or that deciphering cursive slowed down an already ploddingly-paced read, but because these pages never added anything to what we already knew. We see her husband drinking, knocking her around, being a dick, and then we read a page or two of her telling us her husband has been drinking, knocking her around, and being a dick. Ugh. This book didn’t need to be anywhere close to 370 pages long. This entire section is absurdly repetitive.
McFarland, the dude with the Shining, is less of a character and more of a plot device - so much so that you could say this character IS the plot because without him there is no book. He happens to have an extremely contrived connection to the Baileys and he just happens to recommend Bobby Bailey for the Prometheus project and he just happens to have the Shining which helps resolve the whole story that he set in motion. I just found everything about this character far too convenient.
We also never find out what drove Tom Bailey (the abusive husband/father) looney tunes. We’re told that he lost it in the war, when he was a German interpreter for the Allies, so, when we finally get to that part of the book with Tom discovering the Nazi scientists� lab and what they’ve been doing, I thought we’d see the descent into madness - but no. He’s basically crackers from the get-go. What a rubbish, anticlimactic cop-out.
I will say that I was always impressed with Barry Windsor-Smith’s black and white art. As near-comatose with boredom as I was while reading most of it, I always found something to appreciate with the artwork. I particularly loved the scene with Jan Bailey and Jack Powell in the rain - you really feel the power of the rain and to draw in black and white convincing wetness is really something. And parts of the fall of Schongau were mildly interesting - how the surviving Nazi scientist came to be the only survivor had some actually compelling moments.
Still, I can’t recommend this bland block of a book. It’s nowhere close to entertaining, has nothing to say, and the overwritten pages were always dreary to read. Barry Windsor-Smith is an incredibly talented artist but not much of a writer or storyteller - that was the case back in the �80s and he’s not gotten any better since. Monsters is a monster-sized book but also unfortunately monstrously dull.
Maaaaaaaan, what a project reading this was - 370 pages of densely-worded, BORING garbage! The first 120 pages is a lot of tedious military characters talking about experiments and whatever, the next 140(!) or so pages - the worst part of the book - is about a sad wife/mother getting knocked around by her abusive husband, over and over, and then, for the last 100 or so pages, we’re in the final days of WW2 where Nazi scientists try to figure out how they’re gonna explain their insane experiments to the Allies who’re hours away from rumbling them.
For such a pain-stakingly put-together work, I’m sure Windsor-Smith was trying to say something “important�, but I couldn’t tell you what it was. As far as I can see, the “monsters� the title is referring to are, 1) abusive men, 2) genetically-modified people made to look like Quasimodo, and 3) Nazi scientists (or just Nazis generally). And so� what? Don’t most people already think those three things are monsters? It’s not like Windsor-Smith is telling or showing us anything mind-blowing.
Nor do I see what the allusions to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein did for this book. The project to transform Bobby Bailey into the monster on the cover is called Prometheus and the subtitle to Shelley’s novel is “The Modern Prometheus�. The final part of the book takes place in Schongau, which is near Ingolstadt, a prominent place in Frankenstein. Other pointlessly derivative literary allusions is having a couple of characters who essentially have the Shining in all but name.
Neither do I see the point of the experimentation. The Nazi scientists horrifically deform their test subjects - to what end? Who wants an oversized, lumbering creature with the mind of a child who can barely walk? Why would any military pour so much money into such a useless end goal?!
Windsor-Smith uses lots of dates and places to set up scenes but they add nothing to the context - who’s really going to remember that this scene is taking place three months after the one before last?
The Jan Bailey section - the battered housewife part - had far too many pages full of cursive handwriting that were a chore to slog through. Not just because of Jan’s whiny voice, or that deciphering cursive slowed down an already ploddingly-paced read, but because these pages never added anything to what we already knew. We see her husband drinking, knocking her around, being a dick, and then we read a page or two of her telling us her husband has been drinking, knocking her around, and being a dick. Ugh. This book didn’t need to be anywhere close to 370 pages long. This entire section is absurdly repetitive.
McFarland, the dude with the Shining, is less of a character and more of a plot device - so much so that you could say this character IS the plot because without him there is no book. He happens to have an extremely contrived connection to the Baileys and he just happens to recommend Bobby Bailey for the Prometheus project and he just happens to have the Shining which helps resolve the whole story that he set in motion. I just found everything about this character far too convenient.
We also never find out what drove Tom Bailey (the abusive husband/father) looney tunes. We’re told that he lost it in the war, when he was a German interpreter for the Allies, so, when we finally get to that part of the book with Tom discovering the Nazi scientists� lab and what they’ve been doing, I thought we’d see the descent into madness - but no. He’s basically crackers from the get-go. What a rubbish, anticlimactic cop-out.
I will say that I was always impressed with Barry Windsor-Smith’s black and white art. As near-comatose with boredom as I was while reading most of it, I always found something to appreciate with the artwork. I particularly loved the scene with Jan Bailey and Jack Powell in the rain - you really feel the power of the rain and to draw in black and white convincing wetness is really something. And parts of the fall of Schongau were mildly interesting - how the surviving Nazi scientist came to be the only survivor had some actually compelling moments.
Still, I can’t recommend this bland block of a book. It’s nowhere close to entertaining, has nothing to say, and the overwritten pages were always dreary to read. Barry Windsor-Smith is an incredibly talented artist but not much of a writer or storyteller - that was the case back in the �80s and he’s not gotten any better since. Monsters is a monster-sized book but also unfortunately monstrously dull.
April 21, 2023
I am a big Barry Windsor-Smith (BWS) fan; his Conan for Marvel is one of the first books that showed me that there was more to comics than just SH. This GN is powerful: of course the Nazis would have their own 'Super Soldier Serum' - but what would they do to see it come to fruition? We (USA) think that we would draw that bright ethical line that they could never see - but in 1964 we cover it in over - and the monsters come home. This book deals with EXTREME issues that may not be for the faint of heart - but I believe it will be one of the few GN that transcend 'Comicdom' - highest recommendation.
May 8, 2021
After reading this massive tome, I find myself speechless.
Monsters, which comic book industry veteran Barry Windsor-Smith worked on for 37 years, is his masterpiece. The pages may be black and white, but every panel bleeds red. In many ways, it feels like a monument to pain. This isn’t a book BWS wanted to create, it’s one he had to create. The sincerity and naked vulnerability is nauseating at times, with vivid depictions of cruelty and anger that can only come from someone who is intimately familiar with these things.
I don’t think many people will ‘enjoy� this. I certainly didn’t. But, when I finally reached the last page, I felt like I’d gained something profound. Perhaps it was a deeper understanding of the stuff of humanity, or some similar cliche... or perhaps it was just another emotional gauntlet, adding to a lifetime of emotional trials that have shaped me into what I am. I could wax philosophical about it all day, but the bottom line is that this affected me severely.
Regarding the style and technique; Barry both wrote and illustrated Monsters. It’s clear that he used his 37 years wisely, as every single piece of every panel is completely necessary. There’s no fluff here.
It took me days to finish this, but not due to any lagging or slogging dullness... on the contrary, I had to force myself to put it down periodically for my own emotional wellbeing. This is a mentally and emotionally exhausting read. Parts of it are also terrifying. Not in a creepy, spooky way... in a very real horror of life sort of way. It’s frightening in the same way an angry adult about to lose their temper was scary to me as a child. It’s a mostly joyless read.
I recommend this to everyone, but with a massive CW. This is triggering shit. My recommendation is because I believe it’s important literature, and a someday iconic classic of our time. It’s an example of just how serious, mature and transcendental a comic book can be. I think it made me a better and wiser person.
Anyway, when you’re ready...
Monsters, which comic book industry veteran Barry Windsor-Smith worked on for 37 years, is his masterpiece. The pages may be black and white, but every panel bleeds red. In many ways, it feels like a monument to pain. This isn’t a book BWS wanted to create, it’s one he had to create. The sincerity and naked vulnerability is nauseating at times, with vivid depictions of cruelty and anger that can only come from someone who is intimately familiar with these things.
I don’t think many people will ‘enjoy� this. I certainly didn’t. But, when I finally reached the last page, I felt like I’d gained something profound. Perhaps it was a deeper understanding of the stuff of humanity, or some similar cliche... or perhaps it was just another emotional gauntlet, adding to a lifetime of emotional trials that have shaped me into what I am. I could wax philosophical about it all day, but the bottom line is that this affected me severely.
Regarding the style and technique; Barry both wrote and illustrated Monsters. It’s clear that he used his 37 years wisely, as every single piece of every panel is completely necessary. There’s no fluff here.
It took me days to finish this, but not due to any lagging or slogging dullness... on the contrary, I had to force myself to put it down periodically for my own emotional wellbeing. This is a mentally and emotionally exhausting read. Parts of it are also terrifying. Not in a creepy, spooky way... in a very real horror of life sort of way. It’s frightening in the same way an angry adult about to lose their temper was scary to me as a child. It’s a mostly joyless read.
I recommend this to everyone, but with a massive CW. This is triggering shit. My recommendation is because I believe it’s important literature, and a someday iconic classic of our time. It’s an example of just how serious, mature and transcendental a comic book can be. I think it made me a better and wiser person.
Anyway, when you’re ready...
June 24, 2021
What a disappointment! It took BWS 37 years to create this and it felt like 37 years for me to read this 370 page story. This is such an overwritten slog that could have been edited down to half as long and still gotten BWS's idea across.
The story is told backwards with a young man being turned into a monster by a Nazi working for the American military in the 60's. There's also a Scatman Cruthers character named McFarlane who has the Shine although it doesn't fit with the rest of the story at all. I'm not sure what the character with supernatural sight adds to this story at all other than BWS must have read a lot of Stephen King over those 37 years.
Then we flash back to the young man's family as a boy. The story is told from his battered mother. She writes in her diary and there are pages and pages of diary entries written in cursive that add zero to the story. BWS illustrates everything in the diary entries in the preceding pages so I don't see the point of these entries at all other than adding to the page count and boring the reader to tears.
The final section flashes back to the final days of the war and how the Nazi scientist escaped Germany and started working for the Americans. It's only goal seemed to be to show the Dr. Mengele wannabe was a monster. Surprise. Surprise. Like I couldn't infer that.
I will say this. Barry Windsor Smith is still an extremely talented artist. The artwork is fantastic. His pen and ink drawings are meticulous, drawing you in.
The story is told backwards with a young man being turned into a monster by a Nazi working for the American military in the 60's. There's also a Scatman Cruthers character named McFarlane who has the Shine although it doesn't fit with the rest of the story at all. I'm not sure what the character with supernatural sight adds to this story at all other than BWS must have read a lot of Stephen King over those 37 years.
Then we flash back to the young man's family as a boy. The story is told from his battered mother. She writes in her diary and there are pages and pages of diary entries written in cursive that add zero to the story. BWS illustrates everything in the diary entries in the preceding pages so I don't see the point of these entries at all other than adding to the page count and boring the reader to tears.
The final section flashes back to the final days of the war and how the Nazi scientist escaped Germany and started working for the Americans. It's only goal seemed to be to show the Dr. Mengele wannabe was a monster. Surprise. Surprise. Like I couldn't infer that.
I will say this. Barry Windsor Smith is still an extremely talented artist. The artwork is fantastic. His pen and ink drawings are meticulous, drawing you in.
October 27, 2023
The saddest book I’ve ever read. Like a Frankenstein retelling through an Incredible Hulk lens, if it were an indie comic. Trauma, heartbreak, war, and families pulled apart by it all. And poor little Bobby.
August 2, 2022
Congratulations to Barry Windsor-Smith for winning the top award at the recent 2022 Eisner Awards (the Academy Awards for comics), though part of me thinks it is like one of those LifeTime Achievement Awards, as he took 37 years to finish it and he’s 71. But many aspects of it are impressive, certainly.
Let me explain: Well, apparently I have my limits. I bought this epic, 360-page book, billed as Barry Windsor-Smith’s magnum opus, 37 years in the making, when it came out a year ago, and I could barely take it, so over-the-top in misery, madness and ultra-violence that I wasn’t able to read more than a few pages at a time, and I couldn’t quite begin to write about it when I was done. And trust me, I read a lot of bleak things. It made me recall Ingmar Bergman’s 1977 film, The Serpent’s Egg, which was among other things about German inhumane “experimentation� in the twenties, presaging Nazi “medical� experimentation in their murder camps in WWII. Some scenes were almost completely unwatchable. I also thought of John Wagner’s graphic novel, The History of Violence, which was so brutally violent and cruel as I read it that, while I knew it was telling a truth, I actually gave it away, never wanting to see it again. I’m not saying it wasn’t well done, but it just made me sick. Which I think was the point, to help you see something about human nature. Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian territory. Some dystopian books give this impression, too, of course.
So with all these works of art it’s not that I don’t know that human beings have the capacity for evil; it’s just that it’s sometimes very hard to read, when you struggle with so much of it every day in the present, as it is. It’s like brutal anti-war stories such as Johnny Got His Gun, which I also admire. Powerful statements, kicking us in the stomach, but you need a break afterwards. That’s what I felt about this, a powerful nightmare statement, just breath-takingly well-done as comics art, though sometimes I thought it was too relentless, too horrifying.
One of the things that I heard about the book that encouraged me to read it is that the original idea had its roots in Hulk, a kind of origin story, and maybe too was inspired by Frankenstein. The world creates Monsters, and we can’t quite control them. So that is interesting, or something we at least know and need to be reminded of from time to time. Violence begets violence, and you never completely leave it in the past. I recall My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris, where a girl who loves monster comics encounters the monsters of racism of the late sixties in Chicago, while we also meet a woman in her neighborhood who survived various abuses of anti-semitism. Unspeakable cruelty in every generation. Though there is more hope and humor in Ferris’s book than in most of Monsters (one key exception might be the psychic insights of a girl and her father that may point the way to some redemption, maybe).
Monsters reminds us of Nazi “research� (torture) that took place in their attempt to chemically produce a super soldier, the cruelty of this ambition not exclusive to the Nazis, as Americans also did inhumane research, experimentation, testing on human beings.This is basically an anti-war book where Bobby’s dad goes to war, experiences unspeakable cruelty, is driven to madness, and comes home to pass on his madness in rage and violence to his wife, the lovely and innocent Janet Bailey, and especially, his son, Little Bobby. Bobby also goes to war, to become this Frankenstein/Hulk-typer monster. Abuse in war and obsession to win war leads to domestic abuse. Almost unreadable at times. Of course, I know war is Hell and that kids grow up abused in various ways, but it is hard to see this.
So, yeah, I both admired the artwork--found it brilliant, a pen and ink masterwork--and even admired aspects of the multi-layered, storytelling about a descent into madness, but I also found it very, very hard to read this story and look at.
I dunno, maybe Monsters is a masterpiece, such as is one of the grimmest Shakespeare plays, Titus Andronicus, unspeakably horrific. Man’s inhumanity to man. It is long, though, often a kind of slog of horrors, and I so often wished it had been half the length to make the same point. But my hats off to you, Mr. Windsor-Smith, who with the help of Fantagraphics and especially Gary Groth, saw his vision come to completion, now recognized by the highest court of honor of your profession, after more than half your life devoted to it. I can’t give it five stars, though, as I felt it was too grim, too long for what it had to say (ha, like this review!). And my four-star “liking� it is not really the issue here. Sometimes I admire things for their artwork or craft or politics. Here I give a point to the two good families the artist has empathy for, the family who have some members with psychic capacities, and of course Bobby and the book’s true main character, who is a stand-in for us, Janet Bailey, Bobby’s mother.
Let me explain: Well, apparently I have my limits. I bought this epic, 360-page book, billed as Barry Windsor-Smith’s magnum opus, 37 years in the making, when it came out a year ago, and I could barely take it, so over-the-top in misery, madness and ultra-violence that I wasn’t able to read more than a few pages at a time, and I couldn’t quite begin to write about it when I was done. And trust me, I read a lot of bleak things. It made me recall Ingmar Bergman’s 1977 film, The Serpent’s Egg, which was among other things about German inhumane “experimentation� in the twenties, presaging Nazi “medical� experimentation in their murder camps in WWII. Some scenes were almost completely unwatchable. I also thought of John Wagner’s graphic novel, The History of Violence, which was so brutally violent and cruel as I read it that, while I knew it was telling a truth, I actually gave it away, never wanting to see it again. I’m not saying it wasn’t well done, but it just made me sick. Which I think was the point, to help you see something about human nature. Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian territory. Some dystopian books give this impression, too, of course.
So with all these works of art it’s not that I don’t know that human beings have the capacity for evil; it’s just that it’s sometimes very hard to read, when you struggle with so much of it every day in the present, as it is. It’s like brutal anti-war stories such as Johnny Got His Gun, which I also admire. Powerful statements, kicking us in the stomach, but you need a break afterwards. That’s what I felt about this, a powerful nightmare statement, just breath-takingly well-done as comics art, though sometimes I thought it was too relentless, too horrifying.
One of the things that I heard about the book that encouraged me to read it is that the original idea had its roots in Hulk, a kind of origin story, and maybe too was inspired by Frankenstein. The world creates Monsters, and we can’t quite control them. So that is interesting, or something we at least know and need to be reminded of from time to time. Violence begets violence, and you never completely leave it in the past. I recall My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris, where a girl who loves monster comics encounters the monsters of racism of the late sixties in Chicago, while we also meet a woman in her neighborhood who survived various abuses of anti-semitism. Unspeakable cruelty in every generation. Though there is more hope and humor in Ferris’s book than in most of Monsters (one key exception might be the psychic insights of a girl and her father that may point the way to some redemption, maybe).
Monsters reminds us of Nazi “research� (torture) that took place in their attempt to chemically produce a super soldier, the cruelty of this ambition not exclusive to the Nazis, as Americans also did inhumane research, experimentation, testing on human beings.This is basically an anti-war book where Bobby’s dad goes to war, experiences unspeakable cruelty, is driven to madness, and comes home to pass on his madness in rage and violence to his wife, the lovely and innocent Janet Bailey, and especially, his son, Little Bobby. Bobby also goes to war, to become this Frankenstein/Hulk-typer monster. Abuse in war and obsession to win war leads to domestic abuse. Almost unreadable at times. Of course, I know war is Hell and that kids grow up abused in various ways, but it is hard to see this.
So, yeah, I both admired the artwork--found it brilliant, a pen and ink masterwork--and even admired aspects of the multi-layered, storytelling about a descent into madness, but I also found it very, very hard to read this story and look at.
I dunno, maybe Monsters is a masterpiece, such as is one of the grimmest Shakespeare plays, Titus Andronicus, unspeakably horrific. Man’s inhumanity to man. It is long, though, often a kind of slog of horrors, and I so often wished it had been half the length to make the same point. But my hats off to you, Mr. Windsor-Smith, who with the help of Fantagraphics and especially Gary Groth, saw his vision come to completion, now recognized by the highest court of honor of your profession, after more than half your life devoted to it. I can’t give it five stars, though, as I felt it was too grim, too long for what it had to say (ha, like this review!). And my four-star “liking� it is not really the issue here. Sometimes I admire things for their artwork or craft or politics. Here I give a point to the two good families the artist has empathy for, the family who have some members with psychic capacities, and of course Bobby and the book’s true main character, who is a stand-in for us, Janet Bailey, Bobby’s mother.
August 22, 2021
Wow.
I just can't fathom how anyone could call this book "boring". I read it over three days, and I only stopped because of meals and time with my family. I could have easily read it in one sitting. I was completely absorbed and sucked into the world that Barry Windsor-Smith has created.
Windsor-Smith famously began this graphic novel in 1985 as a Hulk story for Marvel, but stopped work on it after Bill Mantlo supposedly saw some pages sitting around the Marvel offices and appropriated some of the ideas (Bruce Banner as an abused child) and used them in his monthly Hulk book.
It's easy to read this now, thirty-seven years later, and see The Hulk and Thunderbolt Ross as characters, but Windsor-Smith has added so much to what must have been the bare-bones idea that this massive epic is truly entirely separate from the original concept. The sweeping story is touching, horrifying, and devastatingly effective, and the art is staggeringly beautiful.
I can't recommend MONSTERS enough.
I just can't fathom how anyone could call this book "boring". I read it over three days, and I only stopped because of meals and time with my family. I could have easily read it in one sitting. I was completely absorbed and sucked into the world that Barry Windsor-Smith has created.
Windsor-Smith famously began this graphic novel in 1985 as a Hulk story for Marvel, but stopped work on it after Bill Mantlo supposedly saw some pages sitting around the Marvel offices and appropriated some of the ideas (Bruce Banner as an abused child) and used them in his monthly Hulk book.
It's easy to read this now, thirty-seven years later, and see The Hulk and Thunderbolt Ross as characters, but Windsor-Smith has added so much to what must have been the bare-bones idea that this massive epic is truly entirely separate from the original concept. The sweeping story is touching, horrifying, and devastatingly effective, and the art is staggeringly beautiful.
I can't recommend MONSTERS enough.
February 6, 2022
When Bobby Bailey tries joining the army, he winds up being as a test subject in the Prometheus Project...
I'm a fan of Barry Windsor-Smith since his Valiant days and my wife got me this for Christmas.
Legend has it that this started off as Barry Windsor-Smith's take on the Hulk's origin for a graphic novel that was never made but elements made it into the Hulk mythos at the hands of other writers. However, this is far from a Hulk story with a lick of paint on it.
Monsters is a tale of child abuse, war atrocities, and Nazi science. Bobby Bailey's father encountered some harrowing shit in World War II and never got over it, lashing out at his family, even costing his son an eye. The story is mostly the repercussions of that event. Bobby Bailey joining the army. Jack Powell and Elias McFarland both find their fates entwined with Bobby's.
The story is dark, powerful, bleak, and emotional. The art is exquisite. I think it would still have been good if done in a classic Marvel style with color and conventional inks but Windsor-Smith poured years of his life into this book. The art is in a pen and ink style with lots of hatching and intricate linework. The result is a gritty, gloomy masterpiece.
I don't want to give much more away. If this is Barry Windsor-Smith's final comics work, it's a hell of a note to go out on.
Monsters is horrific, powerful, bleak, emotional, dark, and exquisite. Five out of five stars.
I'm a fan of Barry Windsor-Smith since his Valiant days and my wife got me this for Christmas.
Legend has it that this started off as Barry Windsor-Smith's take on the Hulk's origin for a graphic novel that was never made but elements made it into the Hulk mythos at the hands of other writers. However, this is far from a Hulk story with a lick of paint on it.
Monsters is a tale of child abuse, war atrocities, and Nazi science. Bobby Bailey's father encountered some harrowing shit in World War II and never got over it, lashing out at his family, even costing his son an eye. The story is mostly the repercussions of that event. Bobby Bailey joining the army. Jack Powell and Elias McFarland both find their fates entwined with Bobby's.
The story is dark, powerful, bleak, and emotional. The art is exquisite. I think it would still have been good if done in a classic Marvel style with color and conventional inks but Windsor-Smith poured years of his life into this book. The art is in a pen and ink style with lots of hatching and intricate linework. The result is a gritty, gloomy masterpiece.
I don't want to give much more away. If this is Barry Windsor-Smith's final comics work, it's a hell of a note to go out on.
Monsters is horrific, powerful, bleak, emotional, dark, and exquisite. Five out of five stars.
January 11, 2023
«Монстри». Найстрашніші монстри � це люди
«Чудовиська і примари існують насправді. Вони живуть всередині нас. Й іноді вони перемагають» � Стівен Кінґ завжди казав, що найгірші монстри це монстри всередині нас. Тому його твори, окрім різного роду монстрів завжди розповідають про людей. Жорстоких людей у своїх вчинках та думках, та тих, які потрапляють у лапи їхньої жорстокості. Так і в коміксі «Монстри» Баррі Відзора-Сміта від видавництва Fantagraphics в центрі оповіді є людина, яка може стати монстром у своїх діях, або ж уникнути цього. Безумовно, що цей комікс, над якими ветеран індустрії коміксів Баррі Віндзор-Сміт працював 37 років (а йому вже зараз 71 рік), є його власним шедевром. Тому «Монстри» цілком заслужено здобули премію Айзнера 2022, яку також можна опосередковано вважати премією за життєві досягнення творця.
«Монстри» � це найважчий комікс в емоційному плані, який мені доводилося читати до цього часу. Вплив війни, яка зараз у самому розпалі на теренах нашої країни, є без виключення колосальним і руйнівним для нас аспектом. Усе прочитане проходить через призму всіх теперішніх жахливих подій. Тому читати історію, яка відбувається під час Другої Світової війни та опісля її завершення вкрай важко. У багатьох відношеннях це схоже на пам’ятни� болю. Це не комікс, який Баррі Віндзор-Сміт хотів створити, це комікс, який він мав створити. Тут щирість і оголена вразливість часто викликають нудоту, з яскравими зображеннями жорстокості та гніву, які можуть походити лише від людини, яка близько знайома з цими речами.
Коли я перегорнув останню сторінку коміксу, я відчув, що моїм тілом розходиться полегшення. Але водночас я дістав щось глибоке і важливе. Через таку надмірну кількість страждання, божевілля й ультранасильства було важко сприймати прочитане настільки, що я часом не міг навіть прочитати більше ніж кілька сторінок за раз. І я звісно не міг почати писати про це, коли закінчив. І повірте мені, я читав багато похмурих речей. Я постійно змушував себе відкладати примірник на бік для власного емоційного заспокоєння. Мені знадобилися тижні, щоби закінчити читання. І ще тижні, щоб скласти думки до купи. Це було морально та психологічно виснажливе читання.
Монстри нагадують нам про нацистські «дослідження», тортури, знущання, жорстокість, які мали місце під час їхньої спроби створити суперсолдата. Жорстокість цієї амбіції не виняткова для нацистів, оскільки американці також проводили нелюдські дослідження, експерименти, випробування на людях. Це по суті антивоєнна історія, де батько Боббі йде на війну, відчуває невимовну жорстокість на фронті, де його психологічний стан доводиться до божевілля й повертається додому, щоби передати своє божевілля в гніві та насильстві своїй дружині, чарівній і невинній Джанет Бейлі, й особливо своєму сину, маленькому Боббі. Зловживання на війні та одержимість виграти війну призводять до насильства загалом та в цій конкретній сім’� особливо. Ми зараз, як ніхто, розуміємо, що війна � це пекло. І що ті люди, які безпосередньо страждають від теперішньої війни, перебувають у центрі цього пекла.
Доречно сказати, що «Монстри» дуже ефективно використовують проміжки часу. Історія починається в 1949 році жорстоким насильством, коли мати Боббі, Джанет, боронить свого маленького сина від його розлюченого батька Тома. Через п’ятнадцят� років Боббі йде по слідах свого батька-ветерана та потрапляє до армійського призову. Його заява про те, що він не має сім’� чи кваліфікації, робить його обраним для зловісного досліду. Кілька місяців по тому ми бачимо його просякнутим дротами та підвішеним у смердючому басейні, а його шкіра розпухла від м’язі� і порізана шрамами. Його хімічно вдосконалене тіло тепер є інвестицією армії, але він має неочікуваного союзника з планом втечі.
Секретний проєкт починається з нацистського вченого, який поправляє свої окуляри рукою-кігтем, тоді як благородний рятівник армієць Бейлі, � афроамериканець зі здібностями «худу» (це набір духовних практик, традицій і вірувань, які були створені і приховані від рабовласників поневоленими африканцями в Північній Америці), � бажає допомогти Боббі. Інший сценарист міг би підняти це кліше ще на один щабель вище і зосередитися на насильстві та драмі супер-солдата на волі в Америці 60-х. Так, Віндзор-Сміт справді дає нам перестрілки, напади та погоні, але «Монстри» більше зацікавлені в тому, щоби повернути час назад. Цей комікс про втраченого хлопчика, його матір, над якою знущалися й жорстокого, травмованого батька, про грізні вечері та про його посттравматичний розлад і про те, як потрібно створити монстра, щоб забути про якусь там мораль.
Задумливі, драматичні панелі Віндзора-Сміта пізніше показують молодих Тома та Джанет, щасливих перед війною. Новоспечений батько надсилає ніжні листи з фронту, його погляд на все навколо такий, що він міг би описати французьке село та звуки війни в одному милозвучному реченні. Але після шокуючого відкриття в хаосі німецького відступу він повертається іншим. Руки, які колись писали любовні листи, замість цього тягнуться до пляшки віскі та накидаються на його дружину та сина. Тепер на секунду зупиніться й усвідомте, що це все відбувається прямо зараз у нас. Тому споглядати це все вкрай важко.
Вміння Віндзора-Сміта володіти камерою сцени, позами та жестами у своєму малюнку це щось дивовижне. Товсті руки Тома, стиснуті від напруги чи плечі Джанет, що покорено опускаються, � оживляють персонажів та змушують відчути все повністю в емоційному плані. А деякі образи залишаються надалі й після прочитання: велосипед із зігнутими колесами серед високої трави чи дим, що здіймається над обіднім столом в офіцерській їдальні. Поруч із натуралізмом ховається щось дивне, яке змушує вирувати уяву, як коли сосиски перетворюються на відрізані пальці. Дорослий Баррі знову переживає свої дитячі травми, його велике, спотворене обличчя та химерна статура, скуті на сходах, коли навколо нього вибухають суперечки його батьків з минулого � образ, який особливо запам’ятавс� й постійно зринає в пам’ят�. Віндзор-Сміт зображує це жахливо ідеально, де у сцені перемішалися дві часові лінії. Батьки, коли він ще був юний і час, коли він вже є понівечений монстр. Це все має шокуючий вигляд. Світ створює монстрів, і ми не можемо ними повністю керувати. Тому насильство породжує насильство, і ви ніколи не залишаєте його в минулому.
Одна з речей, яка спонукала мене прочитати цей комікс, полягає також у тому, що оригінальна ідея сягає корінням до знайомого всім Галка, свого роду історії про походження монстра, і також була натхненна Франкенштейном. Я рекомендую «Монстри» Баррі Віндзора-Сміта всім, але з величезною обережністю. Читання цього коміксу викликає найжахливіші почуття та містить багато лайна. І взагалі не уявляю, як цей, не побоюся цих слів, геніальний сценарист і художник міг 37 років працювати над такою складною й важкою роботою. Але все ж рекомендую, тому що вважаю, що це важливий комікс і колись стане культовою класикою нашого часу. Це ще один приклад того, наскільки серйозним, зрілим і трансцендентним може бути комікс.
«Чудовиська і примари існують насправді. Вони живуть всередині нас. Й іноді вони перемагають» � Стівен Кінґ завжди казав, що найгірші монстри це монстри всередині нас. Тому його твори, окрім різного роду монстрів завжди розповідають про людей. Жорстоких людей у своїх вчинках та думках, та тих, які потрапляють у лапи їхньої жорстокості. Так і в коміксі «Монстри» Баррі Відзора-Сміта від видавництва Fantagraphics в центрі оповіді є людина, яка може стати монстром у своїх діях, або ж уникнути цього. Безумовно, що цей комікс, над якими ветеран індустрії коміксів Баррі Віндзор-Сміт працював 37 років (а йому вже зараз 71 рік), є його власним шедевром. Тому «Монстри» цілком заслужено здобули премію Айзнера 2022, яку також можна опосередковано вважати премією за життєві досягнення творця.
«Монстри» � це найважчий комікс в емоційному плані, який мені доводилося читати до цього часу. Вплив війни, яка зараз у самому розпалі на теренах нашої країни, є без виключення колосальним і руйнівним для нас аспектом. Усе прочитане проходить через призму всіх теперішніх жахливих подій. Тому читати історію, яка відбувається під час Другої Світової війни та опісля її завершення вкрай важко. У багатьох відношеннях це схоже на пам’ятни� болю. Це не комікс, який Баррі Віндзор-Сміт хотів створити, це комікс, який він мав створити. Тут щирість і оголена вразливість часто викликають нудоту, з яскравими зображеннями жорстокості та гніву, які можуть походити лише від людини, яка близько знайома з цими речами.
Коли я перегорнув останню сторінку коміксу, я відчув, що моїм тілом розходиться полегшення. Але водночас я дістав щось глибоке і важливе. Через таку надмірну кількість страждання, божевілля й ультранасильства було важко сприймати прочитане настільки, що я часом не міг навіть прочитати більше ніж кілька сторінок за раз. І я звісно не міг почати писати про це, коли закінчив. І повірте мені, я читав багато похмурих речей. Я постійно змушував себе відкладати примірник на бік для власного емоційного заспокоєння. Мені знадобилися тижні, щоби закінчити читання. І ще тижні, щоб скласти думки до купи. Це було морально та психологічно виснажливе читання.
Монстри нагадують нам про нацистські «дослідження», тортури, знущання, жорстокість, які мали місце під час їхньої спроби створити суперсолдата. Жорстокість цієї амбіції не виняткова для нацистів, оскільки американці також проводили нелюдські дослідження, експерименти, випробування на людях. Це по суті антивоєнна історія, де батько Боббі йде на війну, відчуває невимовну жорстокість на фронті, де його психологічний стан доводиться до божевілля й повертається додому, щоби передати своє божевілля в гніві та насильстві своїй дружині, чарівній і невинній Джанет Бейлі, й особливо своєму сину, маленькому Боббі. Зловживання на війні та одержимість виграти війну призводять до насильства загалом та в цій конкретній сім’� особливо. Ми зараз, як ніхто, розуміємо, що війна � це пекло. І що ті люди, які безпосередньо страждають від теперішньої війни, перебувають у центрі цього пекла.
Доречно сказати, що «Монстри» дуже ефективно використовують проміжки часу. Історія починається в 1949 році жорстоким насильством, коли мати Боббі, Джанет, боронить свого маленького сина від його розлюченого батька Тома. Через п’ятнадцят� років Боббі йде по слідах свого батька-ветерана та потрапляє до армійського призову. Його заява про те, що він не має сім’� чи кваліфікації, робить його обраним для зловісного досліду. Кілька місяців по тому ми бачимо його просякнутим дротами та підвішеним у смердючому басейні, а його шкіра розпухла від м’язі� і порізана шрамами. Його хімічно вдосконалене тіло тепер є інвестицією армії, але він має неочікуваного союзника з планом втечі.
Секретний проєкт починається з нацистського вченого, який поправляє свої окуляри рукою-кігтем, тоді як благородний рятівник армієць Бейлі, � афроамериканець зі здібностями «худу» (це набір духовних практик, традицій і вірувань, які були створені і приховані від рабовласників поневоленими африканцями в Північній Америці), � бажає допомогти Боббі. Інший сценарист міг би підняти це кліше ще на один щабель вище і зосередитися на насильстві та драмі супер-солдата на волі в Америці 60-х. Так, Віндзор-Сміт справді дає нам перестрілки, напади та погоні, але «Монстри» більше зацікавлені в тому, щоби повернути час назад. Цей комікс про втраченого хлопчика, його матір, над якою знущалися й жорстокого, травмованого батька, про грізні вечері та про його посттравматичний розлад і про те, як потрібно створити монстра, щоб забути про якусь там мораль.
Задумливі, драматичні панелі Віндзора-Сміта пізніше показують молодих Тома та Джанет, щасливих перед війною. Новоспечений батько надсилає ніжні листи з фронту, його погляд на все навколо такий, що він міг би описати французьке село та звуки війни в одному милозвучному реченні. Але після шокуючого відкриття в хаосі німецького відступу він повертається іншим. Руки, які колись писали любовні листи, замість цього тягнуться до пляшки віскі та накидаються на його дружину та сина. Тепер на секунду зупиніться й усвідомте, що це все відбувається прямо зараз у нас. Тому споглядати це все вкрай важко.
Вміння Віндзора-Сміта володіти камерою сцени, позами та жестами у своєму малюнку це щось дивовижне. Товсті руки Тома, стиснуті від напруги чи плечі Джанет, що покорено опускаються, � оживляють персонажів та змушують відчути все повністю в емоційному плані. А деякі образи залишаються надалі й після прочитання: велосипед із зігнутими колесами серед високої трави чи дим, що здіймається над обіднім столом в офіцерській їдальні. Поруч із натуралізмом ховається щось дивне, яке змушує вирувати уяву, як коли сосиски перетворюються на відрізані пальці. Дорослий Баррі знову переживає свої дитячі травми, його велике, спотворене обличчя та химерна статура, скуті на сходах, коли навколо нього вибухають суперечки його батьків з минулого � образ, який особливо запам’ятавс� й постійно зринає в пам’ят�. Віндзор-Сміт зображує це жахливо ідеально, де у сцені перемішалися дві часові лінії. Батьки, коли він ще був юний і час, коли він вже є понівечений монстр. Це все має шокуючий вигляд. Світ створює монстрів, і ми не можемо ними повністю керувати. Тому насильство породжує насильство, і ви ніколи не залишаєте його в минулому.
Одна з речей, яка спонукала мене прочитати цей комікс, полягає також у тому, що оригінальна ідея сягає корінням до знайомого всім Галка, свого роду історії про походження монстра, і також була натхненна Франкенштейном. Я рекомендую «Монстри» Баррі Віндзора-Сміта всім, але з величезною обережністю. Читання цього коміксу викликає найжахливіші почуття та містить багато лайна. І взагалі не уявляю, як цей, не побоюся цих слів, геніальний сценарист і художник міг 37 років працювати над такою складною й важкою роботою. Але все ж рекомендую, тому що вважаю, що це важливий комікс і колись стане культовою класикою нашого часу. Це ще один приклад того, наскільки серйозним, зрілим і трансцендентним може бути комікс.
October 14, 2023
BWS tenía que haberse buscado un guionista para, al menos, redactar los diálogos (lo que seguramente habría conducido a una poda de páginas) y corregir las incoherencias del relato (¿junio de 1945? ¿No debería haber sido mayo de 1945? ¿Qué cojones hacen los nazis en esa casa?). Pero entonces nos habríamos perdido parte de arte, y Monstruos es un tebeo para mirarlo y remirarlo mientras te deleitas con los detalles de las ilustraciones en glorioso blanco y negro. El excelente trabajo sobre las tramas y en el detalle de ciertas estampas que se ajusta a lo que demanda la narración, morosa en la mayoría de las partes, precipitada al final.
Aprecio mucho el esfuerzo por ajustarse a una historia de monstruos de género, pero que sobre todo abunda en los de nuestro día a día. Y aquí también está la gracia; a pesar de los fallos del guión, tiene sus aciertos. El mayor, cómo conecta a los personajes y las situaciones tan diferentes que viven a través una tragedia global; una violencia cotidiana alentada por el racismo, el machismo y la desigualdad. Si no te molesta leer poco a poco y ser indulgente, merece la pena.
Aprecio mucho el esfuerzo por ajustarse a una historia de monstruos de género, pero que sobre todo abunda en los de nuestro día a día. Y aquí también está la gracia; a pesar de los fallos del guión, tiene sus aciertos. El mayor, cómo conecta a los personajes y las situaciones tan diferentes que viven a través una tragedia global; una violencia cotidiana alentada por el racismo, el machismo y la desigualdad. Si no te molesta leer poco a poco y ser indulgente, merece la pena.
April 25, 2021
Windsor-Smith's novel has the feeling of an instant classic - a novel later in the author's life where he is trying to say it all. (Much like Brother Karazmozov was to Dostoyevski). Indeed, in an interview with the author, he said he had been writing Monster for over 30 years.
I first thought the novel was going to be a dark version of the Captain America super soldier story. Or a take Frankenstein (Prometheus serves as the name for the secret project in Monsters and the subtitle of Frankenstein). Monsters has elements of those two work on its focus of how what we create says the creator. Yet focus� less on the titular monster created by a botch super soldier experiment than the monsters the lie with so many of us -the darkness that is inherently there that can be set off by others. Although there is true love and unselfishness, the monsters fate is poignant. So this is not a depressing book. Through he large format - both page size and number - allow Windsor-Smith to develop he story and character slowly. I can’t recall another graphic novel with pages of dialogue. The way time moves helps show the interconnected nature of the stories.
I first thought the novel was going to be a dark version of the Captain America super soldier story. Or a take Frankenstein (Prometheus serves as the name for the secret project in Monsters and the subtitle of Frankenstein). Monsters has elements of those two work on its focus of how what we create says the creator. Yet focus� less on the titular monster created by a botch super soldier experiment than the monsters the lie with so many of us -the darkness that is inherently there that can be set off by others. Although there is true love and unselfishness, the monsters fate is poignant. So this is not a depressing book. Through he large format - both page size and number - allow Windsor-Smith to develop he story and character slowly. I can’t recall another graphic novel with pages of dialogue. The way time moves helps show the interconnected nature of the stories.
August 5, 2021
Well that was disappointing. I got more and more annoyed with this the longer it went on. An initially interesting story spoilt by a series of long flashbacks that spell out the plot. Plus a massive amount of coincidences that stretched credibility to breaking point for me. Ah well, ever onward, the next book awaits.....
September 27, 2021
Big book. If only it were as good as it is heavy . . .
A weird but ultimately boring mash-up of Captain America, the Hulk, The Shining, and domestic tragedy begins with an army recruiter in the 1960s delivering up a prospective candidate for a dubious super-soldier program.
The first psychological sidetrack dumps us into the recruiter's mental breakdown as he struggles with his guilty conscience. Then a giant, powerful subject of the program escapes and we're dumped into a second psychological sidetrack as events flash back to 1949 and the diary of the behemoth's mother. She recounts how her husband has come back from the war different and dangerous, but it takes forever to actually reach the horrible moments of violence we are told about upfront.
Surely, now we're ready for the big finale? But no, now we must flash back to the final days of the Allied invasion of Germany to find out the bizarre and grotesque events that are the roots of all that has come before.
By the time we finally reach a conclusion the story is so full of forced coincidences that the author feels compelled to mention "fate" and "destiny" to make excuses for the ridiculousness.
I've enjoyed Barry Windsor-Smith's work in the past, but this one unfortunately left me cold and bored.
p.s., The history of how this book came to be is actually more interesting to me than the book. It probably would have been awesome at 30 pages and me still in my teens:
A weird but ultimately boring mash-up of Captain America, the Hulk, The Shining, and domestic tragedy begins with an army recruiter in the 1960s delivering up a prospective candidate for a dubious super-soldier program.
The first psychological sidetrack dumps us into the recruiter's mental breakdown as he struggles with his guilty conscience. Then a giant, powerful subject of the program escapes and we're dumped into a second psychological sidetrack as events flash back to 1949 and the diary of the behemoth's mother. She recounts how her husband has come back from the war different and dangerous, but it takes forever to actually reach the horrible moments of violence we are told about upfront.
Surely, now we're ready for the big finale? But no, now we must flash back to the final days of the Allied invasion of Germany to find out the bizarre and grotesque events that are the roots of all that has come before.
By the time we finally reach a conclusion the story is so full of forced coincidences that the author feels compelled to mention "fate" and "destiny" to make excuses for the ridiculousness.
I've enjoyed Barry Windsor-Smith's work in the past, but this one unfortunately left me cold and bored.
p.s., The history of how this book came to be is actually more interesting to me than the book. It probably would have been awesome at 30 pages and me still in my teens:
May 2, 2021
This may well contend for greatest graphic novel of all time. Seriously. Believe the hype.
September 7, 2021
4.5 stars-- The classic Frankenstein story gets a mid-century remake in this story of a tragic young man who becomes hideously mutated in terrifying post-WW2 experiments. While there are several familiar tropes in display here, the story is still affecting and a compelling read with amazingly detailed illustrations.
There are many monsters in this story, and most don't look like hulking otherworldly creatures. If you were expecting a superhero story or lighter fare, please put that assumption aside before opening this book. There are *very intense* scenes of family violence, war crimes, PTSD, etc.
There are many monsters in this story, and most don't look like hulking otherworldly creatures. If you were expecting a superhero story or lighter fare, please put that assumption aside before opening this book. There are *very intense* scenes of family violence, war crimes, PTSD, etc.
July 8, 2021
Supposedly it took 30 years to make this crosshatched downer and I thought it might take as long for me to read it. The art is great in parts and other times I wanted a less-is-more approach. The story is depressing with a touching ending but it felt a little relentless. That’s me. You might feel differently. Regardless, it’s a masterwork and deserves attention.
April 22, 2023
Esse me deixou um pouco perturbado. Não pelas partes envolvendo os experimentos nazistas (que são bem pesados, mas aceitáveis dentro do contexto de uma história de horror), mas pelos capitulos envolvendo a violência de um pai abusivo. Tem uma grande força narrativa, e a arte é belíssima, mas eu não teria o estômago do artista para ficar quarenta anos mergulhado nessa história.
June 9, 2024
I started this before but I couldn't finish it. This time, I did, and actually, for all its disturbing content, it resolves really well.
It's an emotionally tough read, but it's also brilliant in its way.
It's an emotionally tough read, but it's also brilliant in its way.
January 3, 2022
This is a big book and, admittedly, sometimes a bit of a slog to get through. But the artwork is sublime and the cumulative power of this sad story cannot be denied.
September 13, 2023
Monsters is a graphic novel written, drawn, and inked by Barry Windsor-Smith. It is published by Fantagraphics and was originally released in 2021.
Set in 1964, young Bobby Bailey is down in his luck and wants to join the military l. With no surviving family or friends to care for him, the military recruiter Sergeant McFarlane thinks Bobby is the perfect candidate for their top secret Project Prometheus to create a super soldier using plans from a defected Nazi scientist. The experiment is disastrous and turns Bobby into a mutated lumbering giant with almost no higher brain functions. Sergeant McFarlane is haunted knowing what his actions have done to this young man and frees Bailey from his military captivity leading to a nationwide manhunt for the monster.
Throughout the book we get flashbacks to different characters and events that lead everything back to Bobby Bailey’s escape from the military. These haunting events all lead to further tragic events. Who is the real monster in this story?
Barry Windsor-Smith originally pitched this story to Marvel back in the 80s as a possible Hulk book. Marvel turned him down and then incorporated a lot of these elements into Bruce Banner’s back story. BWS decided to develop the story as his own book and worked on it for 37 years before it finally getting published. The book is well worth the wait. It’s an extremely disturbing reading where young Bobby Bailey is hurt at so many points in his tragic life.
The cross hatched ink art in this book perfectly captures the tone of the story and gives it a timeless feel. You can tell that BWS put a ton of effort in crafting every portion of this book. If I had one small complaint, it is that many of the adult males look very similar and can be difficult to tell apart, especially if they are wearing a hat. With a book this long, it is incredibly impressive that BWS was able to keep up the quality for such an extended time.
Monsters is a modern telling of Doctor Frankenstein and his monster. I highly recommend this book.
Set in 1964, young Bobby Bailey is down in his luck and wants to join the military l. With no surviving family or friends to care for him, the military recruiter Sergeant McFarlane thinks Bobby is the perfect candidate for their top secret Project Prometheus to create a super soldier using plans from a defected Nazi scientist. The experiment is disastrous and turns Bobby into a mutated lumbering giant with almost no higher brain functions. Sergeant McFarlane is haunted knowing what his actions have done to this young man and frees Bailey from his military captivity leading to a nationwide manhunt for the monster.
Throughout the book we get flashbacks to different characters and events that lead everything back to Bobby Bailey’s escape from the military. These haunting events all lead to further tragic events. Who is the real monster in this story?
Barry Windsor-Smith originally pitched this story to Marvel back in the 80s as a possible Hulk book. Marvel turned him down and then incorporated a lot of these elements into Bruce Banner’s back story. BWS decided to develop the story as his own book and worked on it for 37 years before it finally getting published. The book is well worth the wait. It’s an extremely disturbing reading where young Bobby Bailey is hurt at so many points in his tragic life.
The cross hatched ink art in this book perfectly captures the tone of the story and gives it a timeless feel. You can tell that BWS put a ton of effort in crafting every portion of this book. If I had one small complaint, it is that many of the adult males look very similar and can be difficult to tell apart, especially if they are wearing a hat. With a book this long, it is incredibly impressive that BWS was able to keep up the quality for such an extended time.
Monsters is a modern telling of Doctor Frankenstein and his monster. I highly recommend this book.
October 16, 2021
There's an old writing adage that says show don't tell. BWS manages to do both -- at the same time. He shows us what's going on and then has a character write down what just happened in her journal. Or people will talk about what's happening as it's happening. This doesn't just happen once, but over and over again.
We see not one, but two characters descend into madness. Wait, that's not true. We don't see the descent, they just go insane, quickly and seemingly without reason. First, there's McFarland, a black man with an Irish name, who feels guilty for reasons that would be unfathomable if he didn't coincidentally have psychic powers. These powers impossibly let him know he did wrong. (How comes those powers didn't stop him from throwing Bobby to the wolves?) There's no hint of second thought during the moment he refers Bobby Bailey into the Prometheus program, but then, suddenly, he's twisted up over it. Then he completely loses it when given sick leave and stays in his basement for weeks on end. Even as I read it, I thought, why is this happening?
The other character who loses it is Bailey's father, an interpreter during WW II, who just seemingly goes mad for no reason other than the story needed him to because we've spent two hundred pages telling you he went mad during the war -- and now we're here so he has to go insane.
Lastly, this book desperately needed an editor as it repeats its themes and moments over and over again. (E.g. there's a scene where two characters talk endlessly on the phone for more than ten pages... reading it, it just went on and on with virtually no point whatsoever.)
Honestly, I'm shocked by all the five star reviews who somehow find this profound. When it isn't obvious, the story has to bend over backwards with coincidence after coincidence to intertwine the fate of the characters in ways that border on absurd. So many comments discuss the epic 37 years it took to make. So what? It's still not a good story.
We see not one, but two characters descend into madness. Wait, that's not true. We don't see the descent, they just go insane, quickly and seemingly without reason. First, there's McFarland, a black man with an Irish name, who feels guilty for reasons that would be unfathomable if he didn't coincidentally have psychic powers. These powers impossibly let him know he did wrong. (How comes those powers didn't stop him from throwing Bobby to the wolves?) There's no hint of second thought during the moment he refers Bobby Bailey into the Prometheus program, but then, suddenly, he's twisted up over it. Then he completely loses it when given sick leave and stays in his basement for weeks on end. Even as I read it, I thought, why is this happening?
The other character who loses it is Bailey's father, an interpreter during WW II, who just seemingly goes mad for no reason other than the story needed him to because we've spent two hundred pages telling you he went mad during the war -- and now we're here so he has to go insane.
Lastly, this book desperately needed an editor as it repeats its themes and moments over and over again. (E.g. there's a scene where two characters talk endlessly on the phone for more than ten pages... reading it, it just went on and on with virtually no point whatsoever.)
Honestly, I'm shocked by all the five star reviews who somehow find this profound. When it isn't obvious, the story has to bend over backwards with coincidence after coincidence to intertwine the fate of the characters in ways that border on absurd. So many comments discuss the epic 37 years it took to make. So what? It's still not a good story.
May 15, 2021
I've been a fan of Barry Windsor-Smith for years. I enjoy his work on Conan and love all the illustrations of his I've seen including his books Opus 1 and 2.
But this was completely unexpected!
The art is great, as expected, but the story is wonderful. Highly recommended.
But this was completely unexpected!
The art is great, as expected, but the story is wonderful. Highly recommended.
January 27, 2025
"Monstruos" de Barry Windsor-Smith es una novela gráfica de gran ambición, que aborda la historia de Bobby Bailey, un joven recluta que, en los años 60, es víctima de experimentos militares destinados a crear un superhombre. Estos eventos desencadenan un relato oscuro que explora los efectos del trauma y los ecos de la violencia generacional. Aunque la trama puede sentirse un tanto extensa y los giros narrativos resultan deliberadamente pesados, el trasfondo emocional logra mantener el interés en buena parte de la obra.
El arte en blanco y negro es detallado y meticuloso, mostrando el dominio técnico de Windsor-Smith, especialmente en las expresiones faciales y la ambientación. Sin embargo, la densidad visual y narrativa puede ser abrumadora para algunos lectores. A pesar de sus momentos difíciles, "Monstruos" es un trabajo destacable, especialmente para quienes aprecian los cómics que se adentran en temas complejos con un enfoque más introspectivo.
Me ha interesado sobre todo la parte de Janet, la madre de Bailey. Una lectura interesante, obviamente de una calidad excelente, aunque se me hizo cuesta arriba en ciertos momentos. Hubiese estado bien adentrarse algo más en la parte de ciencia ficción, y darle algo más de dinamismo.
El arte en blanco y negro es detallado y meticuloso, mostrando el dominio técnico de Windsor-Smith, especialmente en las expresiones faciales y la ambientación. Sin embargo, la densidad visual y narrativa puede ser abrumadora para algunos lectores. A pesar de sus momentos difíciles, "Monstruos" es un trabajo destacable, especialmente para quienes aprecian los cómics que se adentran en temas complejos con un enfoque más introspectivo.
Me ha interesado sobre todo la parte de Janet, la madre de Bailey. Una lectura interesante, obviamente de una calidad excelente, aunque se me hizo cuesta arriba en ciertos momentos. Hubiese estado bien adentrarse algo más en la parte de ciencia ficción, y darle algo más de dinamismo.
July 22, 2021
Well, given the hype surrounding this rather imposing looking volume I had expected a lot more; actually the story is rather unremarkable, a sort of pick and mix of elements from classic and not so classic horror films with a strong melodramatic slant. The sentimentality seemed unearned and the supernatural elements more Ghost Whisperer than M Night Shyamalan. The artwork is fine, but can't carry the narrative burden. Not a waste of time but not the instant classic it's being touted as.
March 18, 2025
Rating:
5/5
10/10
(Spoiler Free)
MUST READ!
Originally meant to be a Hulk story that was offered to marvel but pulled away due to some plagiarism drama involving Bill Mantlo which we won’t get into here.
This story takes place in 1964 and mainly focuses on the tormented Bobby Bailey as we follow events that take place in his past and present. on a ground level the story is mainly about the government “recruiting� Bobby Bailey due to him being easily forgotten with no attachments in life and turning him into some form of a super soldier they can weaponize through the mysterious prometheus program. The story once you get into it is much more than that and I would honestly split it into 3 different stories that explore 3 different genres and characters completely.
(In Preparation)
My reading experience was a journey to say the least. This book took me a very long time to finish due to how dark and dense the subject material is which caused me to have to take breaks frequently. I found this story to be masterfully written and because of that it often caused a cloud to form above my head after reading sessions. So while I think it is a story everyone should experience due to how incredible it is, I wouldn’t recommend it to just anyone or everyone especially not those that may already be struggling in one way or another.
(Possible Spoilers)
The opening right away is spine chilling but also extremely sad. As stated before This is not one you wanna read to cheer yourself up, and I recommend taking frequent breaks like I did if possible.
So as I said previously, at its core this is a political thriller that revolves around Bobby Bailey That has notes we have often seen elements of in stories that follow more mainstream characters likes ones at marvel such as captain America, Hulk or even Wolverine. All 3 of those characters and there stories have similarities to this that you can very much feel as you read. As I said this was meant to be a Hulk story and those bones are still very much present so if your a fan of stories like weapon x also by BWS or even Hulk Gray by Loeb or any stories that follow heroes with traumatic aspects then you might enjoy this.
Once you get past this stories core and dive into the meat and potatoes you find out that it truly follows more then just Bobby Bailey and actually follows his family consisting of him, his traumatized and conflicted mother Janet and his PTSD riddled WW2 veteran father Tom and those they came into contact with throughout life.
As stated the story can be separated into 3 parts that all have different genres and a revolving cast of characters that enter and exit the story several times due to us always jumping forwards and backwards in time which is also made incredibly easy to follow thanks to the writing and art.
The first half is a political thriller with notes of historical dialogue due to it taking place in the 60s and following Sergeant McFarland who is a black man in the military that is also responsible for getting Bobby Bailey recruited into the prometheus program.
The second half is a mystery mixed with a tragic slice of life with elements of a romance oddly enough. In this part we follow Bobby Bailey’s mother Janet as we explore her story and involvement with a man named Major Powell.
The 3rd part is the climax where we see everything we have read and followed come full circle as the deeper story elements get fleshed out.
We learn more and more about the dark and sinister roots of the story including the origin of the Prometheus Program while also being introduced to a supernatural element of the story during parts 1 and 3 of the title.
The fleshing out of what project prometheus is, Toms time during WW2 and what happened to the Bailey family leading up to the start of the story is pulse pounding and thought provoking and beyond well done. The end is simply incredible. It’s a happy ending but also somehow not at the same time. It’s ambitious yet ambiguous and leaves you asking questions about life, what happens after life, and what caused our path and trajectory throughout life. It leaves you asking questions about the story and its characters from beginning to end and every aspect is all truly masterfully done.
Art wise this is yet again a masterpiece. The rawness yet elegance of the art contributes perfectly and fits masterfully as the visual representation of this story we are reading.
The figures and the backgrounds in each panel pull away from the pop art or bombastic style we know comics for and instead leans heavily into a more Neo romanticism style.
It is also super detailed to the point you can see every fine and minute detail going on in a scene which paints the picture perfectly while reading, to the point you feel you can smell the snow in the air or hear the trees rustle from the summer breeze. While reading you will notice many “mistakes� art wise where a line overlaps with another or an area is heavily cross hatched muddying the details. These “mistakes� or flaws contribute to the raw and emotional nature of the story and build up the immersion into the story even more. The art does not shy away from the dramatic, gruesome, or trauma inducing details at all. The entire story is in black and white with pure inks, and I honestly think that decision by Barry Windsor-Smith was an extremely successful one.
This book and story is proof that a comic or graphic novel can be regarded as literature. Especially when masterfully put together by a creator that is legendary and in a class of his own completely. It is still mind blowing that every aspect of this book came from one creators mind and hand from beginning to end. The story its self diving deep into the red line theory and curating a story completely around it despite the theories complexities is incredible and so beautifully done and immensely thought provoking. You walk away with so much more than just simply absorbing a great story or witnessing amazing art.
I truly believe this is a story that once more people read it and give it a chance will go down in history and be held side by side with greats like Watchmen, Incall, or Maus.
Stay Nerdy!
This is a MUST READ!
5/5
10/10
(Spoiler Free)
MUST READ!
Originally meant to be a Hulk story that was offered to marvel but pulled away due to some plagiarism drama involving Bill Mantlo which we won’t get into here.
This story takes place in 1964 and mainly focuses on the tormented Bobby Bailey as we follow events that take place in his past and present. on a ground level the story is mainly about the government “recruiting� Bobby Bailey due to him being easily forgotten with no attachments in life and turning him into some form of a super soldier they can weaponize through the mysterious prometheus program. The story once you get into it is much more than that and I would honestly split it into 3 different stories that explore 3 different genres and characters completely.
(In Preparation)
My reading experience was a journey to say the least. This book took me a very long time to finish due to how dark and dense the subject material is which caused me to have to take breaks frequently. I found this story to be masterfully written and because of that it often caused a cloud to form above my head after reading sessions. So while I think it is a story everyone should experience due to how incredible it is, I wouldn’t recommend it to just anyone or everyone especially not those that may already be struggling in one way or another.
(Possible Spoilers)
The opening right away is spine chilling but also extremely sad. As stated before This is not one you wanna read to cheer yourself up, and I recommend taking frequent breaks like I did if possible.
So as I said previously, at its core this is a political thriller that revolves around Bobby Bailey That has notes we have often seen elements of in stories that follow more mainstream characters likes ones at marvel such as captain America, Hulk or even Wolverine. All 3 of those characters and there stories have similarities to this that you can very much feel as you read. As I said this was meant to be a Hulk story and those bones are still very much present so if your a fan of stories like weapon x also by BWS or even Hulk Gray by Loeb or any stories that follow heroes with traumatic aspects then you might enjoy this.
Once you get past this stories core and dive into the meat and potatoes you find out that it truly follows more then just Bobby Bailey and actually follows his family consisting of him, his traumatized and conflicted mother Janet and his PTSD riddled WW2 veteran father Tom and those they came into contact with throughout life.
As stated the story can be separated into 3 parts that all have different genres and a revolving cast of characters that enter and exit the story several times due to us always jumping forwards and backwards in time which is also made incredibly easy to follow thanks to the writing and art.
The first half is a political thriller with notes of historical dialogue due to it taking place in the 60s and following Sergeant McFarland who is a black man in the military that is also responsible for getting Bobby Bailey recruited into the prometheus program.
The second half is a mystery mixed with a tragic slice of life with elements of a romance oddly enough. In this part we follow Bobby Bailey’s mother Janet as we explore her story and involvement with a man named Major Powell.
The 3rd part is the climax where we see everything we have read and followed come full circle as the deeper story elements get fleshed out.
We learn more and more about the dark and sinister roots of the story including the origin of the Prometheus Program while also being introduced to a supernatural element of the story during parts 1 and 3 of the title.
The fleshing out of what project prometheus is, Toms time during WW2 and what happened to the Bailey family leading up to the start of the story is pulse pounding and thought provoking and beyond well done. The end is simply incredible. It’s a happy ending but also somehow not at the same time. It’s ambitious yet ambiguous and leaves you asking questions about life, what happens after life, and what caused our path and trajectory throughout life. It leaves you asking questions about the story and its characters from beginning to end and every aspect is all truly masterfully done.
Art wise this is yet again a masterpiece. The rawness yet elegance of the art contributes perfectly and fits masterfully as the visual representation of this story we are reading.
The figures and the backgrounds in each panel pull away from the pop art or bombastic style we know comics for and instead leans heavily into a more Neo romanticism style.
It is also super detailed to the point you can see every fine and minute detail going on in a scene which paints the picture perfectly while reading, to the point you feel you can smell the snow in the air or hear the trees rustle from the summer breeze. While reading you will notice many “mistakes� art wise where a line overlaps with another or an area is heavily cross hatched muddying the details. These “mistakes� or flaws contribute to the raw and emotional nature of the story and build up the immersion into the story even more. The art does not shy away from the dramatic, gruesome, or trauma inducing details at all. The entire story is in black and white with pure inks, and I honestly think that decision by Barry Windsor-Smith was an extremely successful one.
This book and story is proof that a comic or graphic novel can be regarded as literature. Especially when masterfully put together by a creator that is legendary and in a class of his own completely. It is still mind blowing that every aspect of this book came from one creators mind and hand from beginning to end. The story its self diving deep into the red line theory and curating a story completely around it despite the theories complexities is incredible and so beautifully done and immensely thought provoking. You walk away with so much more than just simply absorbing a great story or witnessing amazing art.
I truly believe this is a story that once more people read it and give it a chance will go down in history and be held side by side with greats like Watchmen, Incall, or Maus.
Stay Nerdy!
This is a MUST READ!
Read
July 7, 2021When it comes to comics' big beasts, there are names whose feet of clay I delight in pointing out (Stan & Jack), ones where I'm a fully indoctrinated member of the fan club (Alan Moore)...and ones like Barry Windsor-Smith, where I know I've read the odd issue but am mostly unfamiliar with the work which made his name. Still, this seemed like a big enough event that it was worth checking out. Nearly 40 years in the making, it began as a Hulk story at Marvel before being retooled as a creator-owned project from a respectable publisher, and right there you can see how the problems began. If this had come out in the eighties, it might well get talked about alongside Miller, Moore and Maus as part of comics growing up. Now, to anyone who's vaguely paid attention over the intervening decades, it feels distinctly old hat. Case in point � the question at its heart: who is the real monster? Is it the poor lump on the cover, looking like lockdown has left me feeling, and the result of the usual sinister experiments by an 'ex-'Nazi scientist? Or is it the military-industrial complex, in its suit and tie? Aaaaah. Among the insights shared along the way are the remarkable news that sometimes people who seemed quite nice before going off to war are really fucked-up when they come back. None of this is untrue, or unworthy as a subject, but nor is any of it really news anymore, certainly not in comics, and a lot of it has been handled in much more adroit fashion over the intervening years � including in Hulk comics, for that matter, which have gone over a lot of this territory while BW-S has been beavering away, and in a particularly unfortunate coincidence of timing, are as good as they've ever been right when Monsters belatedly lumbers into view.
On top of which, gods know I wouldn't make any grand claims for the quality of editing at comics publishers, but one gets a strong sense that somewhere in its peregrinations, Monsters became (contractually?) uneditable. I can certainly see 'emmigrants' and 'complaintant' sneaking through at Marvel, but in places the order of speech balloons on the page isn't remotely intuitive, and that feels like something that could have been caught and fixed were it not being treated as sacrosanct. More drastically, perhaps they could have brought the enterprise in somewhere under its current 365 pages. I've got nothing against long comics per se, even long comics on harrowing themes � From Hell is a masterpiece. But a lot of the time Monsters just feels like it's hammering us over the head with the information that bad things are bad. The military can be dicks. PTSD isn't very nice. Abusive husband-fathers are rotten. And as for Nazis and cannibalism � don't get me started! These points are made powerfully, and then sapped of all their power by repetition with slight variations over page after page after grisly page. And to be fair, they are very well-made pages. When BW-S draws a snowy woodland, or a car crash, or a hallucination, it looks amazing. The writing isn't bad either; there's some very good stuff early on about race, and code-switching, and the distinctly mixed blessing of a family history of minor psychic powers you can't altogether bring yourself to rely on. Around midway there's an extended scene around a military banquet which is full of colour and life and incident, even as it holds the seeds of the tragedies to come. But then it just keeps...on...going. There's just so damn much of it all that, grotesquely enlarged like its protagonist, the book becomes more chore than revelation.
(Publisher freebie for being on a market research thing)
On top of which, gods know I wouldn't make any grand claims for the quality of editing at comics publishers, but one gets a strong sense that somewhere in its peregrinations, Monsters became (contractually?) uneditable. I can certainly see 'emmigrants' and 'complaintant' sneaking through at Marvel, but in places the order of speech balloons on the page isn't remotely intuitive, and that feels like something that could have been caught and fixed were it not being treated as sacrosanct. More drastically, perhaps they could have brought the enterprise in somewhere under its current 365 pages. I've got nothing against long comics per se, even long comics on harrowing themes � From Hell is a masterpiece. But a lot of the time Monsters just feels like it's hammering us over the head with the information that bad things are bad. The military can be dicks. PTSD isn't very nice. Abusive husband-fathers are rotten. And as for Nazis and cannibalism � don't get me started! These points are made powerfully, and then sapped of all their power by repetition with slight variations over page after page after grisly page. And to be fair, they are very well-made pages. When BW-S draws a snowy woodland, or a car crash, or a hallucination, it looks amazing. The writing isn't bad either; there's some very good stuff early on about race, and code-switching, and the distinctly mixed blessing of a family history of minor psychic powers you can't altogether bring yourself to rely on. Around midway there's an extended scene around a military banquet which is full of colour and life and incident, even as it holds the seeds of the tragedies to come. But then it just keeps...on...going. There's just so damn much of it all that, grotesquely enlarged like its protagonist, the book becomes more chore than revelation.
(Publisher freebie for being on a market research thing)
August 3, 2021
What’s written on the back of the book pretty much sums it up for me :
“Monsters is the legendary project Barry Windsor-Smith has been working on for over 35 years. A 360-page tour de force of visual storytelling, Monsters' narrative canvas is both vast and deep: part familial drama, part political 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. Trauma, fate, conscience, and redemption are just a few of the themes that intersect in the most ambitious graphic novel of Windsor-Smith's career. Monsters is rendered in Windsor-Smith's impeccable pen-and-ink technique, the visual storytelling with its sensitivity to gesture and composition is 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.�
“Monsters is the legendary project Barry Windsor-Smith has been working on for over 35 years. A 360-page tour de force of visual storytelling, Monsters' narrative canvas is both vast and deep: part familial drama, part political 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. Trauma, fate, conscience, and redemption are just a few of the themes that intersect in the most ambitious graphic novel of Windsor-Smith's career. Monsters is rendered in Windsor-Smith's impeccable pen-and-ink technique, the visual storytelling with its sensitivity to gesture and composition is 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.�
September 18, 2021
A huuuuuge decade-spanning story about intergenerational trauma on a very personal scale (one family irreversibly fucked up by World War II) and a national scale (America’s luv affair with military force that borders on fascism). Plotwise it uses a lot of superhero comic tropes—there’s a supersoldier program that creates a Frankenstein manchild, The Shining-esque telepathy, and the occasional ghostly apparition� but the whole thing feels so grounded in the characters and gritty details of how their families and country keep them from escaping these cycles of violence. Emotionally brutal (sometimes it feels like an onslaught of misery) but so incredible!!!!! Nearly brought me to tears at the very end.
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