Epileptic: David B

The English version of David B's graphic novel 'Epileptic' (originally published in French as 'L'Ascension du haut mal') emerged in 2005, and although it has taken me 6 years to finally read this extraordinary work, the timing is perfect. It is a synthesis of everything I have been investigating in printmaking, autobiographical comics and the human condition, making it the most resonant read I have had in a while.

The author's world is a vivid, confronting and personal account of his childhood growing up with an epileptic brother, and I have never felt more inside a narrator's universe. Panels are layered with different levels of consciousness, with the illustrations departing from the text to describe both the surreal and everyday dimensions of the story utterly seamlessly.

A beautiful and haunting graphic novel.

                                                  
                                                   A panel from David B's 'Epileptic'