A gorgeously painted work of high fantasy comics storytelling from the French bandes-dessines master, Civiello. Page after page of beautiful artwork entices the reader into a complex and breathlessly paced tale. Enjoyed by tens of thousands of readers worldwide during its serialized presentation in the renowned comics magazine Heavy Metal.
Bit Of Madness
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Big fantasy stories are called epics when they involve a heroic quest over a lot of physical territory and conflict over a world's fate. Genuine epics--Homer's, Virgil's, Milton's--however, explain and justify the way things are. Civiello and Mosdi's graphic novel is genuinely epical, explaining how one significant part of reality came about. What that part is isn't disclosed until the satisfying surprise ending, which caps . . . a heroic quest. Igguk, a scholarly elf accompanied by different helpers at different times, must find the means to save Faerie from utter destruction, now that its queen is dead, by forces of darkness led by the Lucifer-like turncoat fairy Oberon. So stereotypical a scenario, replete with monsters and monstrous metamorphoses, might pall but for Civiello's mind-boggling color artwork. Civiello mixes media and techniques to conjure a murky, decaying world of riotously misshapen rocks and vegetation that is rendered much eerier by vertigo-inducing angles of vision, overlapping panels of illustration, and the occasional tapestry-like montage. Dizzying, perhaps, but never boring. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Civiello and Mosdi's graphic novel is genuinely epical, explaining how one significant part of reality came about. What that part is isn't disclosed until the satisfying surprise ending, which caps . . . a heroic quest. Ray Olson --Booklist
The images really are incredibly beautiful, and the large format makes the experience unusually intense. This truly is art at its best. Stefan Isaksson --Glomie Production
Frenchman Civiello has created a visually stunning work, each panel in the graphic novel an art masterpiece in the Pre-Raphaelite tradition. Jon Ottinger --Grasping for the Wind
The images really are incredibly beautiful, and the large format makes the experience unusually intense. This truly is art at its best. Stefan Isaksson --Glomie Production
Frenchman Civiello has created a visually stunning work, each panel in the graphic novel an art masterpiece in the Pre-Raphaelite tradition. Jon Ottinger --Grasping for the Wind
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stunning images; but not so easy to understand,
By
This review is from: A Bit of Madness (Paperback)
Comics aren't always very easy to read. No matter how skilled the artist is, sometimes it's difficult to make out what's really going on in the pages, the dialogue isn't always easy to follow, you can't always be sure in what order you're supposed to look at the images or read the text, and many of the best comics really demand you to concentrate hard and really focus on what you're doing.
But, if you're willing to do just that and not give up easily, a well-drawn and well-written comic can be a truly amazing experience. And A Bit of Madness is just that. Frenchman Emmanuel Civiello's incredible fantasy epic in four chapters was initially published by Heavy Metal magazine, but now Checker Book Publishing Group has, fortunately, decided to publish all four chapters in one single volume. The format is oversize, 23 x 32 centimetres, and that's a size that fits Civiello's work, because I've rarely seen such a well-drawn comic. The images really are incredibly beautiful, and the large format makes the experience unusually intense. This truly is art at its best. However, it's not an easy read. But it's worth a try. Inspired by, among others, J.R.R. Tolkien and Celtic mythology, Civiello has created an epic fantasy adventure where we follow Igguk, an elf chosen to save his homeworld from a horde of demons bent on destructing everything light and beautiful. Accompanied by, among others, a troll with a speech impediment and a human sorceress, Igguk finds himself in a bunch of strange situations; all the while looking for The Heart of the Crystal, which is the only thing that can save his world. Well, to be truly honest, I didn't always quite understand everything that happened, but I didn't mind that much, since the beautiful images and interesting dialogue made it worthwhile to re-read pages I never understood. Civiello has, by all rights, been praised for his creation, and I wouldn't mind a bit having some of his images enlarged, framed, and put up on my walls. A Bit of Madness is an incredibly beautiful comic, both exciting and funny from time to time, but beware, it might a difficult read to people not used to complex comics.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A painterly, epic fantasy,
By wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (TOP 500 REVIEWER)
This review is from: A Bit of Madness (Paperback)
I'm glad they chose an oversized format for this book. Civiello's complex paintings of this detailed fanatasy world deserve the attention, brought to life in a beautifully printed volume. The imagery becomes hard to read in places, but always entices the reader to take the time needed to appreciate its narrative meaning.
That gorgeous art illustrates a complex story of a little band attempting to save the lands of faerie from a deadly invasion. This starts as a workmanlike bit of fantasy, but takes a startling turn near the end, where multiple levels of reality interleave in the story. A very strong story emerges, much better than many other graphic novels would lead you to hope for. That about sums it up: storytelling well above average with exceptional illustration. I recommend it highly. -- wiredweird
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