Emil Ferris (listenⓘ; born 1962) is an American writer, cartoonist, and designer.[1] Ferris debuted in publishing with her 2017 graphic novel My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. The novel tells a coming-of-age story of Karen Reyes, a girl growing up in 1960s Chicago, and is written and drawn in the form of the character's notebook.[2] The graphic novel was praised as a "masterpiece" and one of the best comics by a new author.[3][2]
Ferris worked as a freelance illustrator and toy designer for clients such as McDonald's and Takara Tomy before being an author.[8] Ferris identified early in her life as a lesbian but later on came to see herself as bisexual.[9] Ferris was sexually abused as a child, which she says negatively affected her ability to draw in a cartoon style for many years.[10] Ferris' mother took diethylstilbestrol when pregnant, leading Ferris to say she was biologically male but transformed to female in utero, and she therefore identifies with others who have gender dysphoria.[11]
In 2001, when she was 40, Ferris contracted West Nile fever from a mosquito bite. Three weeks after going to the hospital, she was paralyzed from the waist down and lost movement in her right hand. She eventually regained motor functionality and returned to working and drawing, receiving a MFA in creative writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.[1]
While recovering from the paralysis, Ferris worked on her graphic novel. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters tells the story of Karen Reyes, a 10-year-old girl and fan of monster movies (like Ferris herself) who, growing up amidst the social tensions of 1960s Chicago, investigates the death of her upstairs neighbor. The book is written and drawn in the form of Reyes' diary notebook, with crosshatched artwork drawn with a ballpoint pen.
My Favorite Thing is Monsters was to be released in 2016, but the Chinese company shipping the books went bankrupt and the entire run was held at the Panama Canal. The 400-page book was eventually released in 2017 by Fantagraphics, receiving praise from authors like Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel, and Chris Ware; it was regarded as one of the best comics of 2017.[12]
In April 2022, Ferris was reported among the more than three dozen comics creators who contributed to Operation USA's benefit anthology book, Comics for Ukraine: Sunflower Seeds, a project spearheaded by editor Scott Dunbier, whose profits would be donated to relief efforts for Ukrainian refugees resulting from the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[13][14]
^Ferris, Emil (2019). "How Cartoons Became My Friends...Again". In Noomin, Diane (ed.). Drawing Power: Women's Stories of Sexual Violence, Harassment, and Survival. Abrams Books. pp. 243–249. ISBN9781419736193. I was visiting relatives and one evening I asked to see a Mr. Magoo T.V. special while I sat on the bedroom floor in front of a little T.V., the folding door of the room was shut and I was alone with a person who had repeatedly subjected me (and, as I later learned, other cousins) to sly, sexually-oriented brutalities. [...] Even now, even looking at my drawing of a Magoo-like character, I feel panic.
