Monsters [Perfect Paperback]

Ken Dahl (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 2009

Part fiction and part deranged educational film strip, Monsters focuses both on the physical symptoms and the traumatic emotional damage of an STD that rarely affects two people the same way. Following his acclaimed collection of short comics, Welcome to the Dahlhouse, Ken Dahl cements his status as one of the best cartoonists of his generation with this brutally honest account of disease and self-acceptance.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The memoir of illness is a creative nonfiction staple that, optimally, marries the story of an interesting personality to information and counsel about a malady the reader or someone the reader knows may someday contract. Since sickness tends to be unattractive, such books are seldom clinically illustrated. Merging autobiographical comics and disease info, however, Dahl defies the genre’s visual reticence. And because the complaint in question is sexually transmitted herpes, there are other reasons for visual reticence. But alternative comics, at which Dahl is the dabbest of hands, have never seen a pudendum, whatever its condition, and blinked. So there are plenty of afflicted genitalia on view, also mouths (oral is as common as venereal herpes), and because they’re intended to underline Dahl’s craven fear (he commonly draws himself inside a giant herpes cell or morphing into one), they represent worst cases only. The information Dahl parcels out as he spills his misery—almost entirely psychological and unnecessary, though he spun it out for five years—is sound, and his self-flaying humor throughout is marvellously ludicrous. --Ray Olson

Review

Ken Dahl's Monsters is probably the most entertaining educational comic ever.

Already a worthwhile read for its lessons on STDs and relationships, Dahl's excellent cartooning and humor make this book required reading for anyone who has had sex, is going to have sex or wants to have sex.

--Jeffrey Brown, author of Clumsy

Ken Dahl is one of the great unsung talents in American comics. --Jason Lutes, author of Berlin

Dahl draws and writes with a whimsical chain-of-though style that is somehow simultaneously incredibly meticulous and charmingly fluid. The persona he describes in his books may be angsty, frustrated, and lonely, but in actuality, Dahl is a levelheaded comic creator who knows exactly what he wants and precisely how to achieve that. --Nick Mercer, Anthem magazine

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Product Details

• Perfect Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Secret Acres; First edition (September 14, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979960940
• ISBN-13: 978-0979960949
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 7.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #68,542 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #13 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Disorders & Diseases > Genitourinary & STDs

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful, February 23, 2010

By 

Ash Ponders "Angry badger" (Vallekas, Madriz, Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Monsters (Perfect Paperback)

Ken Dahl's Monster is the best funny book I've read since Flight. Dahl takes you through a half decade of neurosis, horror, pain, fear, ostracism, love, and majesty, all while entertaining and educating. I am delighted and honored to have read this book.

The world should read this book, It should be placed right next to the bible in every hotel room across America.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and Moving, February 20, 2010

By 

Dan Welsch (Madrid, Spain) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Monsters (Perfect Paperback)

Ken Dahl's life changes when his girlfriend has her first herpes outbreak, and this graphic novel traces his path through the pain, worry, lack of information, loneliness, anxiety and social isolation that result. As he moves from place to place and tries to accept the disease, his tortured drawings depict the suffering he goes through. Poignant and moving, definitely worth reading.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars OMG!, September 11, 2011

By 

Forlaniz3 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Monsters (Perfect Paperback)

This is absolutely one of the best graphic novels I've ever read (next to novels such as Black Hole, Persepolis, Maus, and Stitches). The detail in which *Ken* writes about his life and the artwork that conveys the emotion is what reels the reader in while informing him or her about something everyone stigmatizes. It's been a few months since I've read the book, yet the facts and even some of the drawings remain fresh on my mind. Wow.