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from saturday's books section


You have to hand it to David Mazzucchelli. Few other cartoonists in the history of comics have successfully reinvented themselves as often as the 48-year-old New Yorker, who began his career working for DC and Marvel in 1983.

Inside of five years, Mazzucchelli was a bona fide mainstream star, thanks to a bold naturalistic style that has been credited with injecting new blood into the somewhat moribund superhero genre. His stark moody art for Frank Miller's Batman: Year One, for example, contributed to his reputation as an innovator and remains a touchstone for many cartoonists today. (It also served as one of the chief - if unheralded - inspirations for the 2005 blockbuster movie Batman Begins.)





In the late 1980s, Mazzucchelli turned his back on superheroes and took a one-year sabbatical from comics to try his hand at print-making and reconsider his approach to comics as a whole. In 1991, he re-emerged a fully fledged practitioner of alternative comics, which he presented to the world in his self-published anthology Rubber Blanket. Following three exquisite issues, and an acclaimed 1994 co-adaptation of Paul Auster's novel City of Glass, the hermetic Mazzucchelli vanished once again - this time to devote himself to teaching comics.

Now, after a decade-and-a-half, he has re-re-emerged with Asterios Polyp, an epic, emotionally rich, symbol-laden work that promises to redefine the graphic novel.

Published by Pantheon Books (home to master-class cartoonists such as Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware and Dan Clowes), Asterios Polyp is Mazzucchelli's first graphic novel. It is also happens to be his masterpiece, the culmination of 25 years of promise.

Asterios Polyp is a "paper" architect who has won countless awards for his countless groundbreaking designs, none of which has ever been built. He's a textbook womanizer and major-league egoist with a habit of stubbing his toes on his own firm principles, and we are introduced to him at his nadir - lying in his filthy Manhattan apartment on his 50th birthday, watching surveillance tapes of the moment he fell in love with his ex-wife, Hana.

His wallowing is interrupted by a bolt of lightning which sets his apartment (and existence) aflame, and sends him spiralling onto a journey of self-reflection and realization.









The balance of the book's 344 pages tracks Polyp as he attempts to forge a new life in a town called Apogee, while a narrator (his still-born twin brother) provides us with flashbacks of the architect's first 50 years on Earth. This narrative is inter-woven with ruminations on everything from Greek mythology, ontology and the history (and purpose) of design, to meditations on style versus substance, and the possibility - or impossibility - of real love.

Yes, it's a bit complicated. So fair warning to those who are accustomed to a less demanding species of graphic novels (such as, say, Persepolis); you may find Asterios Polyp a bit bewildering at first blush. But make no mistake, Mazzucchelli has made a beautiful, elaborate construction that coyly juggles style and content in a way few cartoonists are capable of.

There is so much going on in Polyp that it not only holds up to repeated readings, it kind of demands them. (I read it three times, and each time I made dozens of thrilling little discoveries.) The first thing most readers will twig to is the story's parallels with the Odyssey, Homer's epic prose-poem: from Polyp's headquarters in Ithaca (New York) and his residence at the water-logged home of an Earth-mother named Ursula Major (a dead ringer for Homer's witchy Circe), to Willy Illium, Polyp's chief antagonist - Ilium being a Latin derivative for "Troy."

All this winking and nudging is at its best (by which I mean its least distracting) when it comes to the similarities between Polyp and Odysseus. Both protagonists share a fierce intellect matched only by their arrogance, and both suffer a major loss at the hands of their own hubris. This realization on Polyp's part, and his subsequent journey to redeem himself, deliver the biggest emotional punch in the book.





Of course, there are other themes to explore as well, including - but not limited to - the concept of duality (Asterios argues that it is the chief organizing principle of the universe) and the pull of space and time; from Ursula (Ursa) Major and "Apogee" to Kalvin Kohoutek, a composer who happens to share his name with a famous comet.

Mazzucchelli has packed enough hidden symbols and cryptic cultural clues in to his book to fuel a hundred masters theses. But for me, the book really sings when you begin to appreciate his sheer mastery of the craft.

One of Mazzucchelli's trademarks has always been his obsession with the process of making comics. I am happy to say that this obsession is now in full bloom.

This is evidenced by his innovative composition (just try finding a traditional nine-panel grid) down to his word balloons and the lettering inside of them, which are unique to each character thus providing each with a recognizable individual "voice." I'm still marvelling at one bravura sequence in which Asterios's discovery of a blister on his foot triggers a wash of mundane memories about his ex-wife Hana, the sum total of which offers the reader the first real glimpse into Polyp's soul.

Then there's Mazzucchelli's use of myriad styles in his character design as a means of reflecting their state of mind or being. When Polyp first meets Hana, he is drawn in blue lines; an architectural blueprint. Hana meanwhile is rendered in rich magenta line-work; all texture, and no straight lines. As they gradually fall for each other, their appearances merge as well, with cyan and magenta (two of the three primary colours used in the printing process) becoming a solid purple. As their relationship begins to falter, they slip in and out of their original states.

I know, it sounds very formalist, but there's a lot to love in this book. I barely got around to the many sly nods to comics history, from Asterios's screw-headed (or screw-topped?) profile (homage to icons like Nancy and Dick Tracy) to the "Bushmiller" beer Polyp drinks and the Herriman brand cat food he feeds his cat.

They say that all art is best approached with an open mind. Make no mistake: All fans of comics art should welcome Mazzucchelli, and Asterios Polyp, with not only an open mind, but with open arms.

Brad Mackay is an Ottawa writer. He co-edited The Collected Doug Wright: Canada's Master Cartoonist, to which he contributed a biographical essay. He is also director and co-founder of the Doug Wright Awards for Canadian cartooning.

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