<b>The triumphant return of one of comics&#8217; greatest talents, with an engrossing story of one man&#8217;s search for love, meaning, sanity, and perfect architectural proportions. An epic story long awaited, and well worth the wait. </b><br>Meet Asterios Polyp: middle-aged, meagerly successful architect and teacher, aesthete and womanizer, whose life is wholly upended when his New York City apartment goes up in flames. In a tenacious daze, he leaves the city and relocates to a small town in the American heartland. But what is this &#8220;escape&#8221; really about? <br>As the story unfolds, moving between the present and the past, we begin to understand this confounding yet fascinating character, and how he&#8217;s gotten to where he is. And isn&#8217;t. And we meet Hana: a sweet, smart, first-generation Japanese American artist with whom he had made a blissful life. But now she&#8217;s gone. Did Asterios do something to drive her away? What has happened to her? Is she even alive? All the questions will be answered, eventually.<br>In the meantime, we are enthralled by Mazzucchelli&#8217;s extraordinarily imagined world of brilliantly conceived eccentrics, sharply observed social mores, and deftly depicted asides on everything from design theory to the nature of human perception.<br><i>Asterios Polyp</i> is David Mazzucchelli&#8217;s masterpiece: a great American graphic novel.