THE MONSTER MALL

In the sequel to The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo (2017), aspiring journalist Charles Thompson works closely with Margo Maloo, who resolves problems between children and the monsters they encounter.

Eager to begin his Pulitzer quest, Charles begins to assist Margo in her work and discovers the secret world of monsters and is determined to show the world—through his blog—that they are not as dangerous as humans make them out to be. In episodic graphic chapters, Charles and Margo help Fyo, a baby imp, find his family and address the concerns of teenage vampires who live in an abandoned mall. While the child characters are representative of limited races—Charles is white, Margo is Indian-American, and Kevin is black—the often misunderstood monsters allow a lot more room for a lot more interpretation. Characters are deftly developed through dialogue bubbles and visually, the gremlinlike Fyo’s distress at discovering his former home knocked down taken just as seriously as Margo’s tender relationship with her elderly uncle, who appears to be slipping into dementia. The graphic narrative points out that different is not necessarily bad and that humans and monsters are afraid of one another primarily because of misinformation and miscommunication—a valuable lesson for human-human relations as well.