Monday, August 10, 2009

Two great new graphic novels

I'll write more about both of these titles later, but I wanted to draw everyone's attention to two great new graphic novels, one that is out now and the other that is coming out in September.


Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli is out now and is garnering a lot of well-deserved praise. It's a beautiful book with many of the pages works of art in their own right. The titular character is a brilliant but self-absorbed architect whose invincible egoism leads him to a crisis point in his personal life. Subtle details connect events in the story and it concludes with such a powerful moment that I had to take a long walk to clear my head of the effect.


Logicomix will be out in late September and tells the story of Bertrand Russell's quest to find a universal language of logic. It doesn't sound like the kind of topic suited to the comic genre but the book's creators do a brilliant job using their medium to communicate complex and challenging philosophical ideas. They also make this a real story, casting Russell, and many of the people around him, as traditional, questing heroes for truth. Despite all the heavy thinking, the authors create moments of humor and triumph that make the work a great story as much as it is a philosophical exploration.

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