In an era of fast-food popular culture, where even ambitious literary graphic novels are rushed out the door to feed an insatiable market, Monsters is a 10-course meal full of exotic dishes and layered flavors: some cheesy and rich, others balanced with sweetness or acid. At over 350, it is nearly overwhelming, requiring a War and Peace-like commitment to savor every moment of it. The density of the black and white drawings, the deliberate pacing (some conversational scenes run to 10 or more pages) and the complexity of the story would have made this a slow read at 150 pages. It’s no wonder it took decades to complete. The artwork in the book is a highly evolved variant of Windsor-Smith’s famous style, full of incredibly detailed linework and impeccable technique.

When the story culminates in a shocking act of violence, the impact is visceral.

Windsor-Smith transcends the cliché by the depth, intensity and emotional realism he brings to the character relationships. It’s become trite to observe that in certain horror stories, “humans are the real monsters!” but that is definitely one of the subtexts here. The first several dozen pages of hard-hitting, monster-driven action and spy-story intrigue give way to a human story of the soldier’s wife and child awaiting his delayed return from the war, and how they deal with the violence, ugliness, jealousy and cruelty that emerges once he finally gets back. Much of Monsters is a deliberate inversion of expectations.

Monsters by barry windsor smith