Childhood. What a nightmare. Being a kid sucks. You’re small, you’re powerless, you have no idea of what is going on - people think you don’t amount to much. The list goes on. It’s tough as well. You’re not prepared for what life throws at you. You lack the tools, comprehension, and self-assurance gained through experience to determine who you are, what your place in the world is, and how you’re going to get what you want. Because of this, kids develop grand fictions that help them make sense of the world. Be it magical fantasy worlds like Narnia or Terabithia, or concepts that a child can change into something or someone else. These escapist ideas often fuel many days spent exploring the world in a way that makes sense to the child. However, this ability to craft grand narratives can go awry, causing real world problems or injury to the child or others. This time around on The Graphic Reader we take a dive into three different works - wildly different in style, tone, and presentation - and show that youth is no easy feat. In fact, it can be a real nightmare. This is not a discourse on how to navigate childhood, but more of an examination of
Children often have a difficult time expressing themselves, or making sense of the world around them. sometimes, they feel like their heads may explode
three different characters in various ages of childhood that are learning to navigate their unique worlds - their triumphs, their tragedies, their discoveries and sacrifices required of them as they travel through life.
These narratives delve into various facets of this struggle, often beginning with a child's burgeoning self-awareness. Being different is one of the first things children discover as they become aware of the world outside of their own head. They begin to realize that people don’t look the same, act the same, speak, feel, or smell the same either. The child begins to question who they are, and if they don’t have a good grounding, they can begin to internalize what they perceive to be their identity. Having a strong support network (especially parents) can help allay or even dismiss fears or concerns about a child’s self-development and understanding, while a weak (or even worse, a negative) support network can amplify and accelerate negative or harmful beliefs about the self.
Peer pressure also plays a distinct role in how we view ourselves, and can direct our path on social growth. If someone is considered to be popular or well liked, they’re more likely to experience positive events in their life, as opposed to someone who is bullied or shunned for some slight (real or imagined).
Many times a child has come running home in tears due to some playground abuse hurled at them by their peers or other people. Without reassurances, the child may come to believe these insults as factual, and begin to believe and incorporate these into themselves. They begin to believe that they’re monstrous, and if they’re monstrous, perhaps they need to act monstrous.
The Graphic Reader extends a note of heartfelt gratitude to all artists, writers, and publishers. Images are Copyright respective owners, and should not be considered a challenge to said copyright. AI elements we used to clarify writing and aid in copyediting.
The Graphic Reader believes in equality and support for everyone.
If you or someone you know is struggling with bullying or dangerous ideations, please text 988
Monster Transformation (Bonka 2024)
The Little Creep
Written and Illustrated by: Pierre Paquette
Published by: Graphic Artifex, 2025
ISBN-13: 979-8310950252
$15.00
Pyaa is in constant fear of bullies, and fears his friends and family are ones as well. To mitigate this fear, Pyaa decides to beat his bullies, he must become one himself.
But will this solve his problems?
The Little Creep is the story of a little boy by the name of Pyaa, who begins to convince himself that in order to avoid being bullied, he needs to become a bully himself. It doesn’t help that all of his friends seemingly pick on him or use him as a scapegoat for their misdeeds, and his parents either don’t pay any attention, or give him all the wrong attention. Try as he might, Pyaa just can’t seem to get a break from the daily injustices from friends and family, and every effort to get back at the slights he endures (real or imagined) backfires on him, and causes more grief.
After a betrayal by a teacher, Pyaa begins to crack, and decides he really is a bad kid, and works to live up to that concept. Besides, his dad has gotten a new job far away, so it won’t matter if he hurts people where he’s currently at. He’ll be gone, and they’ll be miserable.
Fortunately for Pyaa (and by extension, the reader), there is someone out there who is willing to believe in Pyaa - and then, Pyaa changes so fundamentally that he isn’t recognizable anymore. What is this poor kid to do?
Paquette has been around for a few years now, and I discovered him completely by accident through a shared social media group. At first I was enthralled by his artwork and concepts (he had/has an entire series based riffing on Ernie Bushmiller’s character Nancy with the tagline of “Artificial Intelligence is used by the artificially intelligent”. Following that, he began to create comics of the characters of Nancy and Sluggo, but as if generated by AI (hopefully he’ll collect them into a book someday).
I was fortunate enough to be one of the chosen few to get an early copy of The Little Creep, even though he had posted each page as they were released. The big difference is that
Excerpt from The Little Creep 2025
when you read them all at once, instead of one every couple of days, the true power of the narrative really comes into focus. Paquette has eschewed his trademark humor and love of sight gags for a deeply moving, insightful little tale that worms its way into your heart, and then punches it down into your stomach. This story hits home with so many triggers that you feel like he has crawled into your memories and pulled the skeletons out of your closet to showcase for the reader. At first blush, someone may look at this and think the artwork is too simplistic, it’s too MS Paint in style. I would heavily argue that the simple character designs actually work to enhance the story itself, and allow some truly amazing backgrounds to contrast with the characters.
Excerpt from The Little Creep 2025
If the characters were more realistic, everything else would feel hollow, and Pyaa’s transition wouldn’t be as shocking or heartbreaking as he goes from an innocent kid to an attempted demon. The use of watercolor in the background evokes a homey, realism that grounds everything else and really drives home Pyaa’s struggles to define himself and who he is - not just to his peers and community, but to himself as well.
A clever hook that Paquette has also included in the book is an honest to goodness checkout card that you used to find in library books. His request is that if you loan the book out, keep the card inside the book so the borrower can sign it. If you give the book away, keep the card and write the name of the recipient in it.
On a side note, Paquette has just finished the follow-up to The Little Creep, entitled The Little Creep: Uprooted, now available on his website. I have not had a chance to read it yet, but I can’t wait to see what happens to Pyaa next.
Chicago, 1960s. 10 year old Karen Reyes lives with her mother and older brother, Deeze, in a brownstone apartment with other curious tennants. Her mother is a devout christian; her brother well meaning, but secretive. Karen herself is a monster - at least that’s what she believes and how she sees herself.
Karen loves monster movies, and wants nothing more than to become a creature of the night, so she can bite her mother and brother, and they can live together forever, unchanging and forever powerful. When one of the fellow residents of the apartment complex is found
My Favorite Thing is Monsters vol.1
Written and Illustrated by: Emil Ferris
Published by: Fantagraphics, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-1606999592
$ 39.99
Karen Reyes believes she’s a monster. Living with her mother and older brother in Chicago in the 1960s, Karen is compelled to investigate the death of her neighbor, a mysterious woman who survived the concentration camps. However, Karen’s investigations turn up more than she bargained for.
shot to death, Karen takes it upon herself to solve the mystery of who killed Anka Silverberg, a survivor of the Nazi death camps.
In delving into the interconnected stories of her family and the neighborhood, Karen begins to discover that the world is a much larger, much less forgiving place than the worlds her beloved monsters inhabit. She learns that monsters in the real world are much more dangerous than film monsters, and often much harder to identify until it is too late. Karen’s investigation begins to uncover both the past and present, all intermixed and juxtaposed with personal and national politics. The truth may set Karen free, but it also threatens everything and everyone she holds dear.
My Favorite Thing is Monsters is fascinating in all sorts of ways. The story is compelling and engaging from start to finish (there’s two volumes). The character of Karen is immediately likable and familiar. The sense of being different, or being a ‘monster’ is something that everyone has felt at some point in their lives, and the cast is a fascinating rogue’s gallery of residents who could be anyone in an inner city neighborhood.
The artwork is stunning. Ferris illustrated the entire thing with Bic pens and felt tip markers for the dialog. Not only is the artwork absolutely stunning, but this was Ferris’ first work, originally developed as a form of rehabilitation from West Nile related paralysis.
Excerpt from My Favorite Thing is Monsters 2017
Excerpt from My Favorite Thing is Monsters 2017
Within the pages of Karen’s journal, the entire story unfolds in a loping, semi-dream style of narration, complete with asides and observations from Karen as she navigates an increasingly expanding world outside her door.. Deeze, Karen’s older brother, works for a local gangster in exchange for being kept out of Vietnam, while their mother tries to make sure Karen grows up ‘right’ in the Catholic faith. The pages appear to be sheets in a spiral bound notebook, while chapters or location changes are often signalled with illustrated covers of pulp magazines.
One of Karen and Deeze’s favorite pastimes is to visit the art museum, and Karen’s recreations of the artwork is nothing short of stunning. Ferris recreates famous works of art from Goya, Daumier, and Gentileschi (whose Judith Slaying Holofernes has to be seen to be believed) in such a loving and respectful way that you get lost in the imagery for far longer than you mean to. As the story continues, Karen grows in ways that drive home just how terrifying and awful childhood can be, and that growing up isn’t always cracked up to what it is supposed to be.
My Favorite Thing is Monsters has been honored with several awards, including two Ignatz Awards, three Eisner Awards, A Division Award from the National Cartoonist’s Society, and was nominated for a Hugo Award. The French version won both the ACBD’s Prix de la Critique and Fauve D’Or from the Angoulême International Comics Festival in addition to being listed as a top favorite by many publications for 2017.
Brooklyn Dreams
Written by: J.M. DeMatteis
Illustrated by: Glenn Barr
Published by: Paradox Press, 1994
ISBN-13: 978-1606999592
$ 39.99
An adult Vincent Carl Santini invites us into his memories to see what it was like growing up in Brooklyn, New York through the 60s and 70s.
Follow along as Santini takes us on a tour that starts with a stray dog by the name of “Frodo” and ends with the epiphany of epiphanies about humanity.
Whereas The Little Creep and My Favorite Thing is Monsters deals with children on the precipice of puberty, Brooklyn Dreams is fully couched in mid- to late teenage years, with further flashbacks into youth. Vincent Carl Santini lives in an apartment complex with his parents and older sister, and presents as the epitome of a lost and listless soul, drifting through life.
His father is the typical Brooklyn father, on the bigger side, with weird
ideas about life. His mother is a semi-neurotic smoker with a skin condition that constantly causes her to scratch absentmindedly. His sister is rarely seen, and fits the bill of the bratty, older sibling who only shows up occasionally to help move the plot along.
His reminiscences of his youth are peppered with exaggerations and hyperbole at how his parents react to different events that happen in their lives, sometimes growing gigantic, or becoming demonic. Other times, their frenetic neuroses render them jagged and spaztic, suggesting a great frenzy of insecurity, fear, or anger. Juxtaposed against this are flashes of heartfelt humanity where his parents are rendered in near photorealistic vignettes.
Excerpt from Brooklyn Dreams 1994
When we first meet Santini, he’s reminiscing about his youth during one summer that began a long, winding journey that ended up with him meeting God. This (of course) is open to interpretation, and Santini is a gifted storyteller who manages to slip in asides, digressions, musings, and random bits of historical ephemera into his long rambling story.
Originally released as four separate books, the entire journey has been collected in one volume for ease of reading. The character of Santini is a thinly veiled and semi-fictional avatar of DeMatteis who draws upon his experiences growing up to relate this story of growth, struggle, disappointment, and ultimately, revelation.
As we follow Santini, we are given witness to the joys and heartbreak of furry companionship, the vicious pain of parents lying to wound offspring, the camaraderie of fellow lay-a-bouts of similar age with nothing better to do, failing your way to success through school (heavily buoyed by a teacher that believes in you), and the (literal) highs and lows of drug use (and ensuing encounters with law enforcement).
Excerpt from Brooklyn Dreams 1994
While not a horror story in the traditional sense, the start realization that the world is not a clean, carefully plotted experience emphasizes the uncertainty and unease about growing up. Combined with a naturally unreliable medium of someone’s memories, the normal tends towards the grotesque at times, reinforcing the horrific nature of memory.
If you’re not familiar with DeMatteis’ work, you’re doing yourself a major disservice. DeMatteis has been a major force in comics for over 40 years, having a hand in several highly lauded series (Spider-Man, The Justice League) as well as helping found the DC imprint Vertigo. He is an accomplished and prolific writer for print,television and film, and is currently working through his own publishing company, Spellbound Comics. Known for his gripping storylines, engrossing character development, and approach to
heavy themes without becoming overbearing, DeMatteis crafts stories that not only stick with you; they change your perspective.
Barr, on the other hand, is an extremely accomplished and successful underground artist who has been known to dabble in comics. His artwork is instantly recognizable, and is a cultural touchstone in certain circles. A combination of pop, pulp, cartoon, and urban grime suffuse his later works, but for Brooklyn Dreams it serves to not only express, but also empathize the emotions the characters are going through. The two mediums work so well together that it feels organic, and separating one from the other would outright kill the character of Santini.
So, that’s it for this edition of the Graphic Reader. In traversing the distinct and often turbulent landscapes of Pyaa's bullied existence, Karen's monster-infused navigation of a perplexing adult world, and Vincent's memory-laden journey through adolescence, these three graphic novels collectively illuminate a fundamental truth: the emotional lives of young people are as real and complex as those of adults. What children and teenagers often lack are the developed tools and accumulated experience to effectively navigate these powerful feelings, leading to the grand fictions, missteps, and internal battles explored within these pages.
Ultimately, these narratives serve as a potent reminder to approach the experiences of youth – both our own and those of others – with a greater sense of empathy and grace, recognizing the profound emotional journeys unfolding even in the absence of worldly wisdom.
​
​​(NOTE: A earlier version of this stated that Emil Ferris illustrated "Brooklyn Dreams". That was incorrect. Glenn Barr was the illustrator. The Graphic Reader apologizes for the error.)
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