Now, after nine years of relative silence, it has finally arrived, and nothing we've seen from him before could have prepared us for it. His heavy linework and use of shadow accentuated every unsavory detail of Gotham's grimy urban hellscape, every crease and bloodstain of the Bat-costume.Ī graphic novel adaptation of Paul Auster's City of Glass followed, along with shorter pieces in various alt-comics anthologies, but he turned to teaching as he strove to finish what would become Asterios Polyp, his first full-length work. Mazzucchelli made his bones in the '80s as the artist on Daredevil and Frank Miller's seminal Batman: Year One, where he brought a textured humanity to the superhero milieu. One reason for that: We've been waiting a while. It's true, there's a throwback element to the way Mazzucchelli embraces the open, highly stylized character design of '50s-era cartoons - you can almost imagine his titular hero tossing off bon mots in an old Bennett Cerf joke book or popping up in the background at one of those cocktail parties Dennis the Menace's parents used to throw.Īnd yes, the book has garnered a remarkable amount of attention - Asterios Polyp was released just over a month ago, but is already on its way to becoming one of the most critically acclaimed graphic novels of this or any year.

Show someone a copy of Asterios Polyp and their reaction, upon skimming a page or two of David Mazzucchelli's deceptively simple, yet supremely innovative graphic novel, might be, 'So why all the fuss?'

Asterios polyp graphic novel