‘Drawing is the way I understand things,” says Karen Reyes, as she sits and sketches on Chicago’s L-train, her fanged mouth tight with concentration. It’s 1968 and Karen, a 10-year-old girl who thinks she’s a werewolf, has a lot to digest.
The 2017 first volume of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters saw her turn detective after her beloved neighbour, Anka Silverberg, was found with a bullet in her chest under neatly tucked bedcovers, her doors bolted from the inside. This debut – at once a child’s diary, a murder mystery and a showcase for the fantastic beasts of Karen’s fertile imagination – is one of the best graphic novels of the 21st century so far.
