Publisher's Synopsis
Emblemático en el mundo de la historieta, este libro es un impactante análisis de los motivos más ìntimos que impulsan la inspiración artìstica.
Editada inicialmente en seis volúmenes con el tìtulo de El ascenso del Gran Mal, Epiléptico es la obra más ambiciosa de David B. y su publicación supuso una auténtica revolución en el mundo del noveno arte.
Con un dominio magistral del blanco y negro, David B. nos introduce en la vida de su familia desde el momento en que descubren que su hermano mayor sufre epilepsia, una enfermedad de difìcil tratamiento en los años sesenta que los estigmatizará para siempre. Los padres buscarán desesperadamente la curación de su hijo, comenzando un largo periplo que los llevará de la medicina a la charlatanerìa, de la ciencia a la magia.
Asì, para explorar cómo una infancia tan atìpica, en cierta medida disfuncional, le afectó tan profundamente, el autor se pone en la piel del niño que fue y recorre el camino desde la niñez hasta su eclosión como artista, al final del cual le espera una cruel paradoja: en la enfermedad de su hermano está la génesis de su creatividad. Pero ¿cómo asumir que la desgracia que destruyó a su hermano es lo que dio razón a su vida?
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
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-François Beauchard in a small town near Orléans, 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-François 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-François's grandparents and we relive his grandfathers' experiences in both World Wars. We follow Pierre-François through his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, all the while charting his complicated relationship with his brother and Jean-Christophe"s losing battle with epilepsy. Illustrated with beautiful and striking black-and-white images, Epileptic is as astonishing, intimate, and heartbreaking as the best literary memoir.
