Monsters seem inevitably linked to humans and not always as mere
opposites. Maaheen Ahmed examines good monsters in comics to show how
Romantic themes from the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries persist
in today's popular culture. Comics monsters, questioning the distinction
between human and monster, self and other, are valuable conduits of
Romantic inclinations.
Engaging with Romanticism and the many monsters created by Romantic
writers and artists such as Mary Shelley, Victor Hugo, and Goya, Ahmed
maps the heritage, functions, and effects of monsters in contemporary
comics and graphic novels. She highlights the persistence of recurrent
Romantic features through monstrous protagonists in English- and
French-language comics and draws out their implications. Aspects covered
include the dark Romantic predilection for ruins and the sordid, the
solitary protagonist and his quest, nostalgia, the prominence of the
spectacle as well as excessive emotions, and above all, the monster's
ambiguity and rebelliousness.
Ahmed highlights each Romantic theme through close readings of
well-known but often overlooked comics, including Enki Bilal's Monstre
tetralogy, Jim O'Barr's The Crow, and Emil Ferris's My Favorite Thing Is
Monsters, as well as the iconic comics series Alan Moore's Swamp Thing
and Mike Mignola's Hellboy. In blurring the otherness of the monster,
these protagonists retain the exaggeration and uncontrollability of all
monsters while incorporating Romantic characteristics.
