Talk about anticipation! Mazzucchelli has spent the last decade pondering the possibilities and potentials of the comics form and Asterios Polyp embodies his findings. And now here we are, over twenty years later with his most important work. David Mazzucchelli's work with Frank Miller in the mid-80s - Daredevil: Born Again and Batman: Year One - made him a mainstream comics superstar, but then he walked away from it all to pursue his own calling of an independent, more thoughtful form of comics and became a legend in the process. Over ten years in the making, Mazzucchelli's first ever solo graphic novel, is also his first major work since his 1994 graphic adaptation of Paul Auster's City of Glass, a trailblazing, highly influential work which put him at the forefront of the then nascent 'serious' graphic novel movement. It is undoubtedly one of the best novels of the year.This is perhaps the longest awaited work in the history of comics (No? Let us know what, in your estimation, beats it.).

This is a book that stands with works by Updike, Roth, and other giants of American literature. Why does a rearview mirror block Polyp's eyes in the scene where his (future ex-) wife asks him if he'll look after her when she's old? Is the narrator-Polyp's twin brother, who died in the womb-completely unreliable? The more you study Polyp, the more there is to discover. Polyp reportedly took 10 years to make, and the book is so layered with bold artistic choices that it will create students as much as readers.

Mazzucchelli illustrates concepts with the natural ease that other masters of the form use to draw action: A conversation about duality is as engaging and dynamic as any epic Jack Kirby superhero battle (even as the narrator notes that duality 'is best suited to children's stories, or comic books'), and a dream sequence about the Orpheus myth- Polyp bursts with references to art and literature, from Calvino to Aristophanes to Rothko to Mies to Francis of Assisi-is drawn in a primal, scratchboard style that brings the raw emotional center of the book right up to the surface for one melodramatic moment. Polyp and several other characters, most notably his nemesis, choreographer Willy Illium, are usually viewed, Dick Tracy–like, in profile, to indicate their single-minded view of the world. It's impossible to describe the story without praising Mazzucchelli's art: He uses color, text, and innovative page layouts with mod flourishes to push the story forward and backward in time.

Polyp graphic novel