Epileptic Book: Bk. 1 [Illustrated] (Paperback)

It describes in great detail the experiences of the author growing up with his epileptic brother and the struggle that his family goes through in order to deal with it. From macrobiotics to voodoo, they try everything under the sun to find a cure and the reader is lead through a bizarre world of faith healers and alternative medicines. The book also deals with the author's own artistic development and his struggle to find his self-expression through his comics.

The book is long and sprawling and lacks some of the structural finesse found in say, Art Spieglman's benchmark "MAUS". However it makes up for this in sheer artistic expression. I've never read a comic strip wherein the author has managed to convey so much emotion and meaning through just the images. In virtually every frame of the book the author has drawn his concepts into the images without any need to express them in text. What's more, the reader can see the pictures evolving from one page to another as the author's line of thought develops and follows new avenues.

In style I think the closest thing that I have read that resembles this would be Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli's adaptation of "City Of Glass", however "Epileptic" is much the superior and doesn't share any of frustrating vagueness of "City Of Glass".

My only negative criticism of the book would be that it is a little too drawn out in places and gets a bit angst ridden towards the end.

All in all I would highly recommend this book to anyone who appreciates quality comic strip or anyone who just wants to try something a bit different.

Singing the praises of this book isn't actually particularly brave, it's not that well known due it being french and it won't be as easy to get as any of the aformentioned classics but it has become more well known and appreciated in the last year. Part 1 topped a lot of peoples lists for 'best comic of 2003' and I imagine the complete version, Part 1 & 2 together, only recently published in english, will be topping 2005s editions of the same list. It's all Justified. This is a sprawling work of fantastic imagination as we're lead through the unorthodox childhood of the author, his becoming of an artist, his private fantasy world and the his dealings with his brothers terrible epilepsy the kernel about which all other themes circle. Davids private world is beautifully drawn in a sort of ancient tapestry style using wads of sharp black ink which perfectly reflects the childishness yet seriousness of the dark visions he has. Davids inner world is, filled symbolism, that you can't put your finger on, but that fleshes out the whole feel of the book. The outer world is of course very real and sometimes distorted by David's point of view, the epilepsy haunts his brother and him as a giant chinese dragon. It's just stunning, it's a coming of age story, mixed in estericism and disease. It's certainly not catering for anyone in a similar situation, but I do think parents of epileptic children would get benefit out of reading it. It's stunning, my favourite comic, fantastical, heart-breaking, oh yeah, and very french.