City Monster
by Reza Farazmand
Plume, 2020


City Monster is a graphic novel by the creator of the webcomic Poorly Drawn Lines. It introduces a new cast, but keeps the same tone and sense of humor.

A young monster moves to the city. Once there, he sits on the couch playing video games and smoking weed all day. He finds city life less fulfilling than he had expected. As it happens, he has a ghost in his apartment, who also sits around smoking and playing video games all day. One day, our protagonist and Kim (the vampire who lives next door) notice the ghost sneaking off to visit the local museum. This is pretty much the only interesting thing going on in their lives, so they follow him.

They find the ghost staring at an old painting; perhaps this is who he was in life? (It's a painting of the King of Spain, so probably not.) They decide to help him discover who he was, and in doing so they meet some new friends and gain a little bit more perspective on their own lives.

Okay, this isn't a very plot-driven story. Just as with the webcomic, the point is the understated humor, the confidant statement of trivialities, and bits of weirdness accepted without comment. It is a bit short for a graphic novel, and the art is, for lack of a more apt description, poorly drawn. But it is 100% a Poorly Drawn Lines production (but with the cute animals replaced with cute monsters), and if you like the webcomic, you will like the graphic novel.

SFQ22

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.