A graphic novel inspired by the experience of the writer’s Chinese American grandparents during World War II has debut with a 72 page mega issue.
Marjorie Liu’s Monstress features a 17-year-old girl named Maika living in the early 1900s in an alternate universe in Asia populated with witch-nuns called Cumaea, Kaiju-like monsters, and Arcanics — part-human, part-supernatural people like Maika.
“I grew up hearing my grandparents tell nightmarish stories,” wrote Liu in the closing notes of issues 1. “Heartbreaking, too. And also heroic beyond words,”
Sana Takeda, who worked with Liu on Marvel’s X-23 is the artist for Monstress.
“To work with a woman, to work with a woman of color, to work with another Asian woman was incredibly important to me,” said Liu to Hitfix. “There needs to be more of us. Because of the nature of this book, because of the story I wanted to tell. I’ve worked with tremendous artists who are men, but this needed to be a woman, and I wanted the story to be told through the female gaze, whether it was the art, whether it was the writing — even our editor’s a woman.”
You can read Liu’s entire interview during which she talks about the inspiration for her story, the lack of Asian American role models and her first creator owned title in Hit Fix.
