Shannon read and liked Sarah's review of Asterios Polyp:

"This book was very good until the last couple of pages. I think the author took the quick, cheap way out instead of thinking of an ending that was appropriate to the rest of the story. I would not recommend this book simply because the ending ruined ...more This book was very good until the last couple of pages. I think the author took the quick, cheap way out instead of thinking of an ending that was appropriate to the rest of the story. I would not recommend this book simply because the ending ruined it all for me.(less) "

Shannon read and liked Everett's review of Asterios Polyp:

"No complaints about the beautiful form of this perfectly executed book, but if we are going to take graphic novels seriously, that means a fair critique of their quality as novels. The protagonist of Aterios Polyp is an arrogant professor of architec...more No complaints about the beautiful form of this perfectly executed book, but if we are going to take graphic novels seriously, that means a fair critique of their quality as novels. The protagonist of Aterios Polyp is an arrogant professor of architecture, obsessed by dualistic models of the universe. Are we still not done beating up this straw man? Still humiliating these characters and setting them up against wise, beautiful mystics and multi-culturalists?
One of the theses of this novel (integral to its narrative, but also awesomely realized in the drawings) is explicitly stated: "What if reality (as perceived) were simply an extension of the self?" A tidy deconstruction designed to tear down the pretensions of the all-to-confident Asterios, but it predictably leads to a pomo-emo worldview that prizes the multiplicity of individual perceptions over the extra- and inter-subjectivity of social life. Missing here is the essential correlative of the question: What if THE SELF (as perceived) were simply an extension of REALITY?
BTW, not since Beavis and Butthead have characters been drawn so consistently facing in the same direction all the time! Asterios is ALWAYS in profile!(less) "