Mourning...

 

I'm in mourning this morning, purely because as a spoilt-brat consumer of glorious comics, I now know that the mythical book cover displayed to my left is A) a complete fabrication and B) will never come to be. This came straight from Emil Ferris herself last night on Twitter and what followed was a short exchange between myself and the mega-talented artist herself. 

I just tweeted one word...

"Heartbroken"

...and she kindly responded (which I didn't expect) with...

"I know. So am I and for so many reasons that I'm not yet ready to speak about. My condolences. I wish I could send you a Monster Hug."

The exchange went on for a few lines more, I described myself as a massive gushy fanboy (which is true) and she took that as a compliment. At that point I realised that I was conversing with one of my idols and thought I'd wind my neck in before I said something REALLY stupid. 

"My Favourite Thing is Monsters" is one of my favourite graphic novels of all time, if not my favourite (and that comes from someone who's read a LOT of these things. I've written about it a lot in other blogs and it's always the first out of the gate when anyone asks me for recommendations for "Grown up" graphic novels to ease them back into reading comics. My preorder for Volume 2 remained my longest-standing Preorder on Amazon (until this morning when I cancelled it - Emil herself would probably like it if all the major sellers would delist the book as the other thing I realised last night was that she must be SO SICK AND TIRED of people pestering her about it). 

Quite simply, I feel a weird mixture of grief and relief at the thought that MftiM will stand alone as a single volume, and I can only imagine the amount of work it took to produce the first, and what it must be like for a creative to need to produce lightning in a bottle a second time with a follow-up. 

Emil Ferris - Comics megastar

Whatever the circumstances or reasons, some things are just not meant to be. Emil handled my comment with grace and politeness and I'm hugely grateful for that. If you have somehow missed "My Favourite Thing is Monsters" up till now, you owe it to yourself to pick it up and be completely dazzled by it even without the prospect of a follow-up.