His dead identical twin, Ignazio, narrates the book and constantly reminds us that our hero is physically and metaphysically divided. His fancy name suggests a polarized nature: star and anal wart (“asterios” means “star, “polyp” can mean a rectal cyst). He is both Ulysses and Orpheus, someone who has to find his way home.įor a work presumably focused on images, Mazzucchelli has a lot of fun with words. The book, with flashbacks interspersed with the present, shows Asterios’s progress from hell and back. His beloved wife, Hana Sonnenschein (whose Japanese-German name means Flower Sunshine), is nowhere to be found. Īt the beginning of the book, Asterios Polyp’s apartment is struck by lightning and, like ancient Troy, goes up in flame. In other words, Asterios Polyp manages to embody Up Synecdoche, New York and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button without losing its fluid eloquence or sly sense of humor. Later, when I grew older, I felt traditional comics-with their static panels of images and silent dialogue encapsulated in bubbles-were poor relatives of multi-sensory moving images in films.Īnd yet, I was completely blown away by Asterios Polyp, David Mazzucchelli’s latest “comic book,” a pull-out-all-the-stops package that’s funny, poignant and deep, with panels of thoughtfully shaded images that form a visual novel, a paper movie, and finally, an existential meditation on things that matter to us: religion, art, science, love and memory. Seven, putting her in situations that literally exposed her hypocrisy, like having the wind blow away all her clothes on her way to church, leaving her naked, or her long wig snatched and eaten whole by another neighbor’s giant German shepherd.īecause I had so much fun drawing these strips with my cousin, I never thought they touched on anything serious. She would pray to God then curse at children and beggars. Seven, the mean lady who lived next door to our grandparents.
This review was written by contributing writer Thuy Dinh, an editor of the webzine Da Mau and my resident expert on graphic novels.
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