The art is 10/10, it's stylistically dynamic, and Mazzuchelli commands a voice which is so distinct from anything else I've ever read or seen that I couldn't put this book down.

Like many graphic novels, the scenes aen't confined to rigid panels, but the way the author makes use of the page, the negative space, and color to force the charcters' various personalities (some heavily formalistic and dualistic, others more free-spirited) onto the page is masterful. Different characters using different fonts, and even imitating or mocking one another by appropriating their font is so cool and vaguely reminds me of House of Leaves.

Asterios' posed wireframe vs. Hana's hewn figure is so cool. The book is filled with double layers, opposites, and even the occasional triplicate. I also thoroughly enjoyed how well Mazzucchelli is able to bring the "serious" / "highbrow" space of literature into the comic medium. Plays on Greek tragedy, re-imaginations, all the while poking post-modernist fun at the form and format of itself and what it's mocking is so well done. The whole story is ornamented with symbolusm, drawn out across flashbacks where we can see the protagonist's overbearing personality cling onto his diametrical worldview only to have his marraige wrecked by an even more insufferable iteration of his aloof self.

Perhaps confusingly, Asterios is bludgeoned by the version of himself that could have been, and this is what it takes to "assassinate his character" and humble him to the point where Hana might entertain them getting back together. The irony of the conclusion is understated and overstated simultaneously, and not a stroke is wasted on the page.

So good

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