Last November, Joy and Jia Jia fell in love with Monstress, the fantasy comic from Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda that centers on a girl wrestling with a monstrous power inside her. We drooled over the scale and detailing of the world; the multitude and diversity of female characters that, for us, was the first time a piece of content truly began to represent the full humanity (good and bad) of women; the beautiful drawings and much more.

Now, six issues in, we continue to be hooked. With each issue, Marjorie and Sana pull us deeper into a world that is new yet familiar, resonant with cultural influences from across the world, full of imaginative wonder and realistic grit.

***SPOILER ALERT!!! Read on only if you’ve finished Issue #6 of Monstress. ***

Challenging simplistic conventions of fantasy and hero narratives

Jia Jia: I had an odd mind glitch reading Monstress this time. I noticed how “delicate” the drawing style is and how “cute” characters like Kippa (the fox girl) are and felt surprised that such softness can occur in a violent world where people are cut up and experimented on. The contrast was so sharp that it almost felt incongruous. But why? After all, the real world that we all live in embodies impossible contrasts everyday.

The reason, I suspect, is that I’ve been watching superhero movies and Game of Thrones lately where the conventions are pretty clear cut. It’s either light drama, light comedy and popcorn action (superhero movie style) or heavy drama and heavy violence (GOT style). The two styles don’t mix, making for straightforward entertainment that can deliver an emotional punch within the safe confines of “entertainment.” In contrast, some Japanese anime and manga that I’ve seen bring together seemingly “incompatible elements” to create an experience that both enthralls and disturbs—for example Miyazaki films can be adorable one moment and monstrous the next. Monstress has a similar quality which I really appreciate because it feels like a more complete reflection of human psychology as we encounter the world.

Joy: I’m also struck by the artistry with which Marjorie’s balanced the violence so far in this series. It’s bloody but different from some of the bloodier graphic novels that I’ve read. It doesn’t feel gratuitous for the sake of some adolescent bravado of insisting, “We’re adult, we swear, we’re way past the comics code—just look at the shit we’re willing to put on the page!” It’s not that at all.

It’s mature, elegant, but brutal at the same time. It’s WAR. It’s the violence that happens in war, with the beauty and the horror, and that’s exactly how it feels.

It takes mastery to mix and match conventions like this without it seeming like appropriation or a disjointed mishmash. Marjorie and Sana both, in the writing and in the art, have this pegged. They can take a classically cute character like Kippa and put her next to a brooding elegant Corvin and it’s still coherent to the universe.

A wide-ranging mythology that goes far beyond Anglo-Saxon-Greco inspiration

Jia Jia: I’m excited that we finally get to see the arcanics and their court. The animal dominance of this group is quite exciting—kind of reminds me of the Monkey King (from Journey to the West) and Egyptian Gods. I’ve no idea if Marjorie and Sana were consciously pulling from these cultural traditions but I really enjoy the fact that the mythology feels so much broader than Anglo-Saxon or Greek roots. I love Euro mythology but there is so much other cool stuff to be tapped from the stories of the world.

Joy: Now that you mention it—absolutely! Completely reminds me, strongly, of the Monkey King (or Hindu mythology too, Hanuman, etc.), and Egyptian gods, Anubis, Bast, etc. And it’s nice the scope afforded by broadening this from an exclusively anthropocentric understanding of magic/deity/mythology (à la the Greek pantheon).

Sexuality, intrigue and male characters in a universe that is authentically female by default

Jia Jia: Let’s talk about the plot twists. First off, in Issue #5, seeing Atena kiss Sophia confirmed my instinct that they were lovers—pretty bold to have not just two women kiss, but one who’s badly burnt. Kudos to Marjorie and Sana for not prettying things up. But then of course came the twist—when we discover that Atena’s an arcanic undercover and in league with her brother the male slave Resak. I did NOT see that one coming. I might be reading too much into this but this scenario of deep undercover definitely resonates with stories I’ve heard of Communists going deep undercover in the Nationalist forces during the Chinese civil war (some of them stayed undercover their entire lives). Plenty of that going on in the Cold War too of course à la The Americans.

Joy: Loved the Resak thing! I hope he comes back. It actually struck me in a similar way as Corvin did—it’s interesting to have these very cool male characters that stand out. I’m finding myself relating to them similarly as in a “normal” story that’s overwhelmingly male, with that one very cool female character (the one undercover slave girl, the one fiercely proud warrior woman, both against a backdrop of male characters). Marjorie has flipped that particular norm, but not in a way that seems deliberate in that trying-too-hard sort of a way. It feels very natural, very proper to her universe, and very right. It fits. And that’s cool.

Something like Bitch Planet is anti-patriarchal, deliberately, defiantly. Monstress just feels like it’s stepped completely outside of it, in a way that good fantasy can do, but that we rarely see in the heavy-handed fantasy schlock that gets sloshed around.

I find myself so inside of the universe that I don’t even notice until the second reading of Issue #5  that the diagrams of the “Races of the Known World,” what would usually be in a Eurocentric anthropology text of “mankind,” are all (with the exception of the cats and the old gods) discernibly female. It’s that I didn’t notice it on first reading, that it becomes so quickly a natural part of the backdrop, that’s so refreshing.

Our wild speculations, favorite characters and moments

Jia Jia: So, any guesses for characters’ back stories and how things are going to develop? I think that Maika’s the Empress Shaman reincarnate—she’ll definitely be able to unlock the Empress’ power but will be more ambivalent in the face of such power. My guess is that the Empress did something similar to Fëanor in Lord of the Rings. Just as Fëanor created the Silmarils and opened the door for Morgoth, so the Empress made the mask which ended up summoning unspeakable evil. At which point the monstra was summoned to fight the demon, so it’s both fighting what the Empress did and protecting her and her descendants. Which is a tension that I like.

Joy: I’m really interested in the monstra now. I expected it to be more of a metaphor or foil through which we explore Maika as a character—I didn’t expect it to become a character in and of itself.

I feel like Marjorie is deconstructing the fantasy trope of the monster, a bit, and that’s actually pretty deep. Can’t look at orcs the same way again. Very interesting.

Jia Jia: I continue to enjoy Kippa and Master Ren (the cat). Kippa’s so feisty sometimes, like when she’s threatening Sir Corvin! And my favorite recent scene is when Kippa gives Master Ren a talking to after realizing that he betrayed Maika to the Dusk Court. He looks exasperated and guilty, with beads of sweat running down his head. It’s so anthropomorphic that it cracked me up!

Joy: Shit yeah. Dynamic duo, those two. Usually Kippa is the kind of character that would actually annoy me (too cute, too one-note), but I love how she works in the dynamic of this world and this narrative. She’s a little spark of light, and it adds a necessary texture to the cast of characters.

Jia Jia: And can I just say that Master Corvin is fine! As a child, I used to watch Chinese period dramas and love the emperors and warriors who could fight and looked fabulous with long hair.

Well here’s a man-raven arcanic warrior, with awesome wings, beautifully scarred face and a permanently dynamic hair day! Who turns out to have a moral compass. Yay!

Joy: To end back on our heroine, what I’m really intrigued to know now is the Tuya/Maika backstory. Is that in the upcoming issue…?