The books are Asterios Polyp and George Sprott: 1894-1975; the respective authors, David Mazzucchelli and Seth. The parallels are astonishing; coincidental, yes, but I sense the influence of the invisible hand of zeitgeist.
Both Seth and Mazzucchelli first gained recognition as pulpsters of the highest calibre in the 1980s: Seth illustrating Dean Motter’s Mister X; Mazzucchelli collaborating with Frank Miller on Daredevil: Born Again and Batman:Year One. Following these early successes, each turned away from adventure comics in the 1990s to follow a more personal path.
Both cartoonists eschew strict realism; both imbue their work with a sophisticated sense of design influenced by architecture. Their latest books are fictional biographies of arrogant, patriarchal, yet somehow seductive artistes; both stories unfold as achronological mosaics, combining dreams, multiple points of view, visual poetry, and quotidian anecdotes. Both contrast wry humour with tender pathos, biting irony with a transcendent sense of wonder at the beauty of the world. And, alas, both falter for the same reason: an intermittent, intrusive, jarring first-person narrator.
Asterios Polyp follows the life of its eponymous protagonist, a brilliant architecture theorist who uses his incisive intelligence as a shield against the world. Multiple timelines crisscross, including Polyp’s life after his inevitable fall from grace, a period of greater humility. Throughout the story, though, our sympathies, as those of Polyp himself, are directed toward another character: his wife, Hana, herself a talented visual artist.
Asterios Polyp is a book I admire for its technical virtuosity, but, much like its protagonist, it is often cold, and it is marred by several problems. Its narrative shifts are often awkward, although, taken discretely, each segment is superbly executed. Sometimes, too, the design work, especially the lettering, overpowers the narrative rather than serving it. The ending, although foreshadowed, is much too ridiculous to be satisfying. And the use of Polyp’s deceased-at-birth twin as occasional narrator adds an unconvincing and distracting layer to an already densely layered story without offering any payoff.
Yet, Asterios Polyp remains compelling, filled with intriguingly eccentric characters. Most winningly, Mazzucchelli’s passion for exploring the possibilities of comics storytelling never fails to shine through.
Seth’s George Sprott:1894-1975 is only slightly marred by its anonymous, pesky, irritatingly cutesy, first-person narrator. Because Seth is an old and deft hand at the genre of the fictional biography — having authored several excellent comics in this mode, including his masterpiece, 2005′s Wimbledon Green – the occasional presence of this superfluous narrator is perplexing. Exactly the same story could have been told without these intrusions.
But I’m being persnickety. Seth’s new book, which chronicles the life of a womanizing, egocentric broadcaster, Arctic explorer, and public speaker, oozes charm. Throughout this book, Seth blends tones, moods, emotions, timelines, locations, and more with elegance. In this loving oeuvre of faux-Canadiana, Seth, while adroitly avoiding romanticization, evokes a yearning for the beauty of the past, a moving nostalgia for worlds that were and that risk being forgotten altogether. And the ending is pitch-perfect.
Claude Lalumière is the author of the story collection Objects of Worship, the Fantastic Fiction columnist for The Montreal Gazette, and the editor of eight anthologies.
