Epileptic - Softcover

David B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 2844140858 ISBN 13: 9782844140852

Publisher: Fantagraphics Books, 2002

Synopsis

Visually recounts the story of the author's childhood in the 1960s and 1970s as his family experiments with acupuncture, spiritualism, and macrobiotic diets in search of a cure for his brother's epilepsy.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Hailed by The Comics Journal as one of Europe's most important and innovative comics artists, David B. has created a masterpiece in Epileptic, his stunning and emotionally resonant autobiography about growing up with an epileptic brother. Epileptic gathers together and makes available in English for the first time all six volumes of the internationally acclaimed graphic work.
David B. was born Pierre-Franois Beauchard in a small town near Orleans, France. He spent an idyllic early childhood playing with the neighborhood kids and, along with his older brother, Jean-Christophe, ganging up on his little sister, Florence. But their lives changed abruptly when Jean-Christophe was struck with epilepsy at age eleven. In search of a cure, their parents dragged the family to acupuncturists and magnetic therapists, to mediums and macrobiotic communes. But every new cure ended in disappointment as Jean-Christophe, after brief periods of remission, would only get worse.
Angry at his brother for abandoning him and at all the quacks who offered them false hope, Pierre-Franois learned to cope by drawing fantastically elaborate battle scenes, creating images that provide a fascinating window into his interior life. An honest and horrifying portrait of the disease and of the pain and fear it sowed in the family, Epileptic is also a moving depiction of one family's intricate history. Through flashbacks, we are introduced to the stories of Pierre-Franois's grandparents and we relive his grandfathers' experiences in both World Wars. We follow Pierre-Franois through his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, all the while charting his complicated relationship with his brother and Jean-Christophe"slosing battle with epilepsy. Illustrated with beautiful and striking black-and-white images, Epileptic is as astonishing, intimate, and heartbreaking as the best literary memoir.

From the Back Cover:

"David B has created a wildly beautiful fantasia on human frailty, on the making of an artist and the unmaking of his own brother -- a memoir that is hopeful and bitterly poignant all at once." -- Paul Collins, author of Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism

About this edition

• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 2844140858
• ISBN 13: 9782844140852
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 168