Asterios Polyp - One of the Best of the Year

[droidofages]

I am currently reading one of my favourite graphic novels of the year, if not of all time and I'm not even half way through it yet! I just had to share it with as many people as possible. You won't regret checking it out.



Asterios Polyp is the latest offering from DavidMazzucchelli (Batman: Year One, Daredevil) which combines a "day in the life of" type of story, with the educational approach of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics (Scott gives us a great review of Asterios HERE). Mazzucchelli uses colour, negative space, art history and philosophy to not only give us insight to the title character's life, but a peek at the human condition too.

I highly recommend this to fans of comics, art history, graphic design, drama, romance, philosophy and life in general. Don't wait until you see it on all the nomination lists for 2009!

[droidofages]

I just finished this remarkable story and I just can't say enough good things about it. It's one of those books you just don't want to finish. The idea of not being able to continue reading about these characters was a tragic to me. I learned, I laughed, I cried and I was covered in goose bumps numerous times. This book is so good, for the first time in my life, I am going to start rereading it right away. I suspect this will be the first of many rereads to come too. Definitely one of my favourite books of all time.

"Asterios Polyp is a dazzling, expertly constructed entertainment, even as it’s maddening and even suffocating at times. It demands that its audience wrestle with it, argue with it, reread and re-examine it. Isn’t that the ultimate purpose of style?" - Douglas Wolk / NY Times

[arcturian]

Sonofagun! This graphic novel looked right up my alley and the reviews were stunning, even 4colorrebellion.com reviewed it, i think. anyway, i was just holding off because of my poverty. now with this sort of reccommendation im going to have to put it on my christmas list alongside of yoshihiro tatsumi's autobiographical 'a drifting life'. also, that second wordless page really tugs at me, i want to read it.
great design on the book itself, too.