Image taken from the NY Times Review by Douglas Wolk, whose book Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What they Mean eagerly awaits on my bookshelf
When I was little I never had superhero comics, or action figures, or even watched the shows on Saturday Morning. I think it was an overprotection first child type of thing. So my introduction to cartooning, to comics in general, was with stacks and stacks of Archie comics from the late seventies and early eighties from my grandparents’ house, and also from hunting through New Yorker cartoon issues. Then one day in fifth grade the Scholastic book fair came and I bought my first Calvin and Hobbes collection, and from then on I was done for.
Now, ten years later, I still don’t know anything about superheroes, but I love cartooning, and I love comic strips, and I’m growing to love graphic novels.
I just finished rereading Asterios Polyp, written by David Mazzucchelli and published in summer 2009. I’d seen a lot of great reviews and was excited to find a copy of the book in the Bass Library graphic novel collection, and after first reading it I saw another review, this one by comics pioneer Scott McCloud, who offered this advice:
“If you’ve read Asterios Polyp once…
Read it again.
Seriously, Mazzucchelli’s book is a great re-reading experience. There are things you’re only likely to notice the second or third time around, and at least a few locked doorways in early sections that only open with keys from later chapters. And they’re much more fun if you find them on your own, so again you might want to ignore the rest of these ramblings if you haven’t plunged back in yet.”
A short time after reading the review, I did just that. And it was wonderful. Much like second and third and tenth viewings of Arrested Development episodes, rereading the book was a brand new experience, albeit with significantly fewer seal and hand puns.
Asterios Polyp is the story of a world renowned architect of the same name whose work has all been, to this point, wholly theoretical; none of his buildings have ever been built. Divorced from his wife and living alone in Manhattan, the book begins when his apartment is struck by lightning. With all (almost) his worldly possessions, Asterios abandons New York and heads west, eventually settling in an unnamed town in the Midwest where he works as a mechanic. The book’s art was too much to take in on the first reading, and discovering previously unnoticed details was one of the best parts of the reread. More than anything, however, the second read gave me more time to appreciate a masterwork that Mazzucchelli spent more than a decade creating. Speaking with only the slight hyperbole, there are breathtaking moments throughout the book, none moreso than a fantastic double page spread in the center of the book, which connects to the impactful, unforeseen conclusion.
The debate about where exactly graphic novels should fall on the art and literature spectrums is old and tired, and I won’t add to it here, except to simply say that this book is one of the finest examples of both I’ve ever experienced, and I loved reading it.
