“You’ve always been drawn to buses.”
Helen, Baby with the Bathwater
Of all the media I have ever experienced, this is the single most memorable line. I am not sure if it was a particularly striking performance when I saw Christopher Durang’s 1983 play, if it’s the absurdity of the line or if it is the way it so perfectly encapsulates the tone — recklessness — in just six words.
Helen and John are completely unfit and dangerous newborn parents who fail to take good care of a baby along with the spontaneously appearing Nanny who can only be described as “the worst Mary Poppins.” Horrors, hijinks and absurdity ensue, including a random woman taking the baby from their apartment and running in front of a bus, an incident the baby miraculously survives by falling between the wheels, and singing a particularly violent rendition of “Hush Little Baby.” As she grows up, however, young Daisy is inexplicably compelled to run in front of public transportation.
The thing about childhood is that our experiences mold us so deeply and often in the most unexpected ways, and there is rarely a moment where I don’t think about why I am drawn to the things I am.
In Paul Cornell, Sally Cantirino, Dearbhla Kelly and AndWorld Design’s I Walk with Monsters, from Vault Comics, Jacey and David are drawn to monsters. They sniff out those that skulk the seafloor of humanity and devour them, quite literally. David has a monster inside him, one that needs to feed. Jacey comes from a violent and abusive household. She lost her brother to the Important Man (a mysterious figure who committed shady human trafficking deals with her father), and she only escaped when her father died of a heart attack.
Jacey has an anger inside her she never lets out, one that leads her to imagine doing terrible things to animals and people she should love and to run away from her new foster family. She is drawn to monsters because she believes she is one, or at least could become one. David is drawn to monsters because he may have been on his way to becoming one. We don’t know everything he did, but we do know he has a long history of terrible behavior and attitudes toward women before a curse places a literal monster inside him.
It’s never easy, but they’re used to it. Jacey confidently stares down a violent criminal, reveling in their confidence before they suffer at the hands of David as a bestial monster. They have a system, a routine. They are drawn to these monsters, abusers, violent people and the like, as a release and a rationalization so they can believe they are good people. Together, Jacey and David devour the worst of humanity, one person at a time.
According to Nanno, the worst of humanity is born during childhood, specifically during school. Girl from Nowhere is an anthology TV series centered on Nanno, an immortal girl who travels from school to school exposing monsters, students, teachers and parents who lie, cheat, steal, bully, kill, etc., all while projecting the image of a perfectly behaved piece of a model education system. She often turns their hypocrisies against them and delivers justice in the most brutal ways. She reveals how far people are willing to go for their own desires if only tested a little bit, and delivers what she feels they deserve. Nanno exposes the bullying, insecurities, jealousy, cheating and deceit in ordinary people, holding up a fractured mirror and seeing if something much darker stares back. She is horrifying, alone and has a calling.
I’m not sure I’ve ever had a calling. When I was in elementary school, I was very into “doing my own thing.” What that was changed quite often, usually displaying in two-week mini-obsessions. I remember reading during recess, carrying around a large encyclopedia from class to class, and spending one particular birthday party in my room while my friends were downstairs. I had friends, mind you, and my parents were amazing, encouraging my independence while making sure I was social by organizing playdates and signing me up for a healthy amount of sports and activities. Nevertheless, when I look back at grades 1-5, I’m always alarmed because I can distinctly remember that the word that most came to mind when I would think of my friends was “useful.”
“Useful” is also how Jacey and David likely saw each other when they first met. Their relationship was transactional in a lot of ways. At first, David and his inner monster only appeared in front of Jacey as a dog she secretly fed at night. It kept the beast satiated. The two grew closer once they began hunting terrible people, those who take children in particular. All they have is each other. It’s a codependence they survive on, and it’s one we’re able to see and not just read. Facial expressions, gestures and hands held out to one another do much more of the heavy lifting when it comes to their relationship than words alone.
There’s a reason sarcastic descriptions are often written over the actual dialogue, especially when Jacey is overwhelmed or preoccupied. It often precedes panels that fade to white under a glitchy texture resembling corrupted footage or overexposed photos. It’s one of the most powerful effects I’ve seen used to describe a triggered traumatic memory. Trauma, after all, is something so overwhelming that it can corrupt and consume the reality around you. It’s possible to lose consciousness or completely dissociate from the moment when being reminded of a traumatic experience. It happens to Jacey often in this miniseries, and it never gets easier to read. We see Jacey in these surrounded, enclosed and claustrophobic spaces as the image of her brother’s kidnapper devours her reality. David tries his best to comfort her but knows all too well there’s only so much anyone can do. It’s a match Jacey must play on her own, even when there are cheerleaders on the sidelines.
In Girl from Nowhere, Nanno is a being who creates the match, the fans, the players and the game. The only thing she doesn’t create are the underlying emotions. Joining schools as a new student with a mysterious past and an occasional rebellious streak, often an inquisitive one, sometimes a flirtatious one, and always one that naturally garners attention, Nanno has a knack for bringing bubbling emotions to the surface. These emotions often have a universal component to them, typically revealed through a question proposed at the beginning of each episode, such as, “What is humanity’s driving force?” or “What really determines something’s value?” but they are always dissected through situational events that could only take place at school. There’s something about those eight hours every day that are highly constrained and surveilled but contain regular but brief periods of freedom where students can interact in ways and with people they might not be able to see outside of school, free from the eyes of a broader society. It’s almost as though everyone is a covered pot, but there are short, manufactured intervals — passing periods, lunch, extracurriculars, etc. — where the steam can be let out. Nanno is adept at finding those who are about to boil over and exposing them.
What makes the show enthralling is that none of those she chooses are 100% abhorrent people. Few ever present themselves as monsters, and even fewer embody the term to the fullest. Nanno is quick to point out that it is often those who make a mistake and go on to dig a deeper hole and make more that deserve to be judged. One day, for example, she joins a school and becomes the co-manager of the soccer team, quickly earning all of the players’ attention. Bam, the other co-manager who’s been there all along, becomes jealous and writes something hateful on the wall. The wall is enchanted, and anything hateful becomes true.
Presumably, if Bam realized this, erased it and never used that wall again, Nanno would simply move on. Instead, Bam takes advantage of this power time after time until more people learn about it, start to use it, become hospitalized or worse. Bam isn’t introduced as a particularly spiteful person. Perhaps obsessively lovestruck, sure, but we also learn about her taste in ice cream, her home life and her budding hobby as a writer, none of which provides a lot of context to her jealousy, but all of which makes her more human.
It was early on in middle school when I began to realize something might be missing. It’s often common to use experiences to define specific feelings. Perhaps you don’t have the word for it, or maybe there isn’t one, but if someone describes how they’re feeling by recounting the time they single-handedly won a game of dodgeball, forgot a homework assignment, lost their favorite eraser, etc., most people will easily get the picture. I never did. At first I thought it was because I might have been sheltered. Maybe I just didn’t have enough experiences. I can remember countless times in sixth and seventh grade where I would participate or act not for the sake of an experience I wanted, but for a feeling described to me in a way that was linked to it. I felt happy, sad, angry or any basic emotion on Plutchik’s wheel, but nothing more nuanced than that. I’ve asked myself if it’s possible I just wasn’t mature enough to recognize the more subtle differences, but every time I think back, it’s clear to me just how stagnant my emotions were — barely fluctuating and always to the exact same places. No matter whether I got a bad grade on a test or lost a loved one, it felt … strangely the same.
Jacey and David start planning to take down the kidnapper of Jacey’s brother like it’s the same as any other monster, but it quickly becomes clear that it’s not. For one, the Important Man is just that: important. He is a public figure running for political office. This means David finds a lot more security and potential pitfalls when he’s scoping out the place by sniffing out emotions. It’s a rather clever power displayed through scent lines that move in and around where people have been. The color relates to the person, and the lines twist, turn and fluctuate as the emotions do. It’s a great and dynamic way to manifest emotion through the use of dimensionality. Jacey also wants to kill the Important Man, which disrupts the balance of the relationship between her and David. David has always done the killing so the beast and the hunger can be quelled and so Jacey can be spared.
As cruel and brutal as Nanno’s justice often is, those who deserve it are spared, and not everyone gets the same punishment. She’s essentially a manifestation of karma. In one episode, a student who frequently steals items from classmates and the school transfers at the same time as Nanno. At first, Nanno befriends him with the intention of competing with him to expose his habit, but after learning he does it to attract the attention of his negligent father, she softens up a bit. Students who have an inner jealousy at an all girls’ school obsessed with beauty only have their own beauty tarnished. A graduating class fondly attending their reunion 10 years after a senior year filled with secrets and bullying learn the terrible secrets covered by their fond memories while hallucinating violence and murder. They leave knowing each others’ hypocrisies while the violence is just something of a fever dream concocted by Nanno.
In eighth grade, I came to the realization that a friend of mine was wholeheartedly better than me in every way I could imagine, had what one might call my first crush, unlocked a small pocket of emotions I hadn’t felt before … and concocted a plan. This plan involved a couple of lies, a lot of manipulation of mutual friends and very much backfired. It was probably the first time I realized people were more than “useful,” or that they couldn’t simply be seen as tools. I had been called cold and unfeeling before, but this was the first time I was at the center of drama and being stared at or talked about. This was the first time relationships changed in an instant or where everything fluctuated so quickly. This was the first time I realized something was truly broken.
Jacey and David also think they’re broken. They warn each other not to get too close, and they refuse to let each other do things out of kindness. There will be no sacrifices, and they’re always bargaining to save the other added pain. I understand this line of thinking. Gifts make me extremely uncomfortable, and while I’ve learned to politely take compliments, I think I’ll always feel a bit of uneasiness.
The dark and dramatic content and the self-deprecation of I Walk with Monsters could leave a cloud hanging over the reader. While it definitely isn’t the most comfortable read, it’s not the gloomy shadow of a story you might think it is, thanks to the snippy and sarcastic dialogue between David and Jacey, as well as Kelly’s colors. I’m not sure of the exact reason the book takes place in autumn, but it does wonders for the story because it means that between the leaves, the campfires and the occasional food scene, there’s plenty of warmth radiating from an admittedly icy book, and it doesn’t feel like an accident. I rely on nature, trusted friends and good food to cope, and it feels like these elements are meant to get Jacey, David and the readers through this journey as well. There’s plenty of light peeking through the shadows if you look hard enough, and in some ways, it helps emphasize the darkness even further.
Such a contrast is also present in Girl from Nowhere as Nanno often projects an image of purity and righteousness to reveal the hate and jealousy harbored by others. Nevertheless, we consistently see the innocents are rarely caught in the crossfire through Nanno’s direct actions. It’s often her “targets,” those she’s trying to expose, who will put others in danger, subject them to various cruelties or commit reckless actions. It’s easy for this to be thought of like any other anthology with something to say, aping Black Mirror, and showing sensationalized brutality for the sake of some message or warning we should heed. Sure, some of those elements are there, but one thing that draws me in that many of the other anthologies don’t have is Girl from Nowhere’s basis in reality. The episodes are based on real stories and real headlines. The brutal inciting events that start a chain of cascading and cruel situations are very real. The supernatural only comes into play when Nanno decides to turn the world against the perpetrator and seek justice for the victims. Her maniacal laugh and twisted, clever and consistently well-planned efforts toe this strangely satisfying line of raw justice and hedonistic violence. Nanno’s interest in people evolves into obsessions and then into grotesque manipulations that are always fascinating to watch.
After I realized my lack of empathy, I became obsessed. I would come home from school and extracurriculars and spend 90% of my spare time researching stoicism and emotional spectrums and whether it was normal to not feel the things those around me were feeling that I couldn’t understand. I took every emotional intelligence quiz and empathy quotient test I could find on the internet or at the library, and the results scared me a little bit when they were low across the board. I saved $300 (just in case as I had no idea how much a single appointment would cost) and went to a counseling session, because in Illinois, minors can receive a limited amount of counseling treatment without parental consent unless the psychologist believes disclosure is necessary. I remember the psychologist reaffirming that I wasn’t broken and that everyone feels differently. I remember the psychologist saying I could learn to feel things more deeply and differently with additional age and experience. I wanted to know what I had and why I was different. The psychologist said there may not be a name for it and that I was likely too young for any formal diagnosis, but they did have some tests I could take if I was adamant in doing so. The condition, however, was that depending on the results my parents may be notified.
The scariest part about the first confrontation in I Walk with Monsters is how unafraid the Important Man is. Jacey has a shotgun, and the Important Man doesn’t shout or react suddenly but rather talks calmly and in full control. It’s quite enraging how confident and collected bad men in power seem to be and what little appears to be a real threat to them. Meanwhile, Jacey can’t go through with it. All of the begging to David and hunting for kidnappers was built up to this confrontation, but it’s different when it’s personal. After she escapes the house, she attacks David in anger because he can’t be hurt in beast form, and it sinks in that David may only be in this partnership because he feels it’s what he deserves. Jacey asks David year after year to help her hunt abusers and kidnappers, and David repeatedly declines. When he finally does accept, he doesn’t like talking about it. Time and time again we see that David doesn’t like talking about violence, himself or his abilities. It’s only because he feels it’s what he deserves, and it’s why he hopes, after Jacey confronts the Important Man, that they can finally stop, that he can finally move on.
It’s when you think you’ve finally understood Girl From Nowhere, in the middle of season 2, that things begin to fall apart. This is due to Yuri entering the equation. Yuri is a girl Nanno takes a particular interest in, one who is consistently being used by her rich friends because she likes being popular. It’s a simple premise that goes very, very awry. It’s one of the most brutal episodes of the series, as it’s revealed that Yuri was planning to betray these friends all along. She didn’t need Nanno’s help to do anything, but when those plans fail, Yuri and Nanno both end up dead in a bathtub. Except Nanno’s immortal, so her bloodied corpse eventually gets up and walks away. But while Yuri’s drowning, all alone, she ingests a bit of Nanno’s blood, and that’s enough to make her immortal as well.
But we can’t have two manifestations of karma, can we? It turns out Yuri’s brand of “justice” appears a bit more like vengeance. Yuri and Nanno’s behavior each reveals how closely related, yet clearly distinct, vengeance and karma can be. You see, Yuri is just a bit more … impulsive. She feels she often doesn’t need to play the long game to uncover the full dimensionality of the students at each school. She can determine enough right away, and why wait when others can so easily be convinced to kill those who’ve wronged them? It’s the impatience and the resulting ignorance that become truly frightening.
The psychologist’s words scared me. The idea that I could have something so bad that the psychologist could deem it necessary to break confidentiality must have meant the possibility of something so unfixable that I may never learn to feel. I politely declined, left and never went back (I have since returned to counseling for other things, but have always strayed away from these issues). For most of high school, I was determined to learn how to feel not for the betterment of myself, but to spite those around me who said I couldn’t. I was driven by my desire to prove any made-up assertion that I couldn’t grow empathy or learn to feel wrong. Needless to say, I didn’t make much progress.
Progress and self-improvement are a lot of what I Walk with Monsters is about in the end. It revolves around leaning into your discomfort, trauma and demons, confronting them and making it out the other side. Obviously Jacey and David’s more blunt and direct style of reckoning would not work for everyone, but the whole idea of giving in and “letting yourself be what you most need to be” spoke to me quite a bit. Frankly, our lives aren’t really built in a way that allows us to let go. We’re all burdened by some responsibilities all of the time, so we’re rarely afforded the time it must take to completely let go. When the Important Man lets go, we see the all-powerful politician become a baby who needs to be taken care of. When David lets go, we see him become the true family he and Jacey both need. It’s a touching bit of light that shines out the other side of a dark tunnel that I really appreciated. Earlier, we see a life Jacey could have had, a budding interest in astronomy and the stars that was never explored. It was tragic then. Maybe now it’s the other side Jacey can aspire to reach. .
Nanno doesn’t really have an “other side” to look forward to. She’s a manifestation of karma with a job to do until Yuri introduces doubt into the equation. You see, Yuri’s “vengeance” often leaves someone involved satisfied and is a lot faster than Nanno’s carefully researched “justice.” Nanno begins to wonder if she’s really necessary if people can’t always tell the difference anyway. After all, when vengeance can feel so good, who is going to wonder if there might be more to it all? Season 2 of Girl from Nowhere is really this epic clash between two core motivators in the universe that share a lot of fundamental truths while occupying distinct metaphysical spaces, and all of it is played out in various high schools across Thailand. It is grounded in real stories with real victims and subverted using a bit of supernatural flare and experimental cinematography. The show does wonders with lighting, camera work and sound effects. There’s an episode almost entirely in black and white with pops of color representing that which is forbidden. Other episodes make creative uses of cellphone cameras, old video cameras, live-streaming platforms and other technologies, old and new, to further entrench viewers in the narrative. It is, at the same time, something I’d never encounter while also showing glimpses of attitudes, feelings and behaviors we encounter every day.
It wasn’t until I got a fresh start at university and took a class about comics that my motivations began to change. I had no one I knew around me to spite and a budding interest in art that depicted an infinite range of emotions in vastly different ways. This writing seminar changed my life. What started as a simple interest in superheroes grew into the first time I had ever enjoyed writing. If I could grow to love something I had previously hated, could I not grow in other ways? I began to seek opportunities for personal growth and development. I would put myself in situations that made me uncomfortable (in good ways) in hopes I would learn to feel more, all while continuing to seek art that did the same. Honestly, it’s what still keeps me going now.
Comics and art have genuinely helped me feel more nuanced emotions and come a long way from who I was, but through all of my engagement, I have always been drawn to stories about dark sides of humanity like in I Walk with Monsters or Girl from Nowhere. I think it’s because deep down, if I didn’t care or if I ignored what was going on around me after my experience in eighth grade, I fear I would have become a monster myself.
In the end of Baby with the Bathwater, Daisy gets married to one of his partners in the thousands of reckless sexual encounters he’s had and has a baby of his own. We hear him singing a version of “Hush Little Baby” that isn’t quite as violent or hurtful as the one Daisy’s parents sang to him, representing that little by little we can improve and not make the mistakes of our past or our parents. Maybe that’s why I remember that line so much; because it reminds me that I only need to keep trying to improve little by little. That’s why I hope you’ll stay with me on my journey in learning to feel.
I Walk with Monsters will be available in trade Oct. 27 from Vault Comics.
Ari Bard is a huge comic fan studying Mechanical Engineering so he can finally figure out how the Batmobile works.
