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Thursday, February 11, 2021

License Re-request: Epileptic 2

David B.'s seminal comic biography about his epileptic brother is one of the most seminal comic works ever seen, easily outpacing the likes of Persepolis and Maus.  His drawings have a grandiose dreamlike essence with a strong Mayan influence, giving a monstrous symbolic representation of the disease that took over his brother's life.  Paul Gravett writes more eloquently about the masterpiece than I ever could.

Yet people may be largely ignorant of the fact that there was a followup after the 6-volume epic ended.

I only knew about this because there were samples made available in the pamphlets during Free Comic Book Day in 2006.  However, I only flipped through the pages of the Fantagraphics sample (inappropriately titled Funny Book #2), since I wanted to make sure I'd get my money's worth, and didn't want to get something that would take up valuable space. 

I'm guessing hardly anybody saw these pages, either from being largely unimpressed by the interior, or the subject material not being to their taste.  Don't worry if you're missing anything - you're seeing the best that the issue has to offer.  And it was freely available back then, so I have no compuctions in sharing it again now.

This seminal footnote was from Babel, and was only a scant 32 pages, with the promise of more to come.  So far, only 2 of the 3 issues have been translated.  As such, there's too little material to justify collecting everything in one comprehensive book.  It doesn't even qualify as an add-on for the already oversized tour de force tome that is Epileptic.  Not to mention that some of the material retreads stuff that was already covered before, retelling it in a different manner, making the addition somewhat redundant.

BTW, there seems to be a translation error here, where the text says "my brother ran into one of Professor T.'s assistants", when it clearly shows his parents instead.  The latter seems more likely - Jean-Christophe hardly talks to anyone outside his dwindling circle he’s not intimately familiar with.

That would've been the end of it, but there was another preview in 2008 in another FCBD book, not in Funny Book, but I.G.N.A.T.Z. instead.

There's been a smattering of David B.'s other works translated into English, such as, Black PathsIncidents in the Night, and The Littlest Pirate King, but none of these titles have really gripped my interest the same way that Epileptic does.  The only title that does is his adaption, Hâsib & the Queen of Serpents: a Tale of a Thousand and One Nights.

There were occasional forays in history and David B.'s dreams within the pages of Epileptic, but these segues however tangentially related still felt like part of the narrative.  When I read his other works, these elements don't mesh as seamlessly.  It's probably a mixture of history, violence and dream logic thrown together that works better for an adaptation than his other stories.

One fair criticism of Epileptic is that David B.'s sister makes her presence known, and then is completely neglected for the remainder of half the book.  A fault mentioned by his sibling.

I'm not entirely sure how a collection of just three(!) issues could be bound together.  It's something like how Super Spy: The Lost Dossiers was an expanded extra package never intended to be part of the narrative, just a special promotion for those who heavily invested in the property.  I don't really have a suggestion in the matter.  I just wanted to bring it up.

I greatly identify with the story, despite not being epileptic myself, seeing it as a cautionary tale for what could’ve been me.  If my parents hadn’t fought as long and hard as they did to overcome my deafness (and my Aspergers), I could’ve very well ended up like Jean-Christophe.

Despite all of David B.’s parent’s attempts to circumvent a cure for his brother’s condition, they never stopped trying, constantly moving from one to the next, never finding solace from any, as none worked for very long.  At a certain point, Jean-Christophe just gave up fighting, and became utterly dependent on his disease.  I still need help with basic living, but I can still contribute to family and society in my own special way.

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