Asterios Polyp is a graphic novel from 2009 starring a character of the same name. Right off the bat, this novel starts with the main characters house burning down while Asterios is watching porn. Our first introduction to the character is that he is much sharper and more refined then anyone and everyone around him. Nobody has been able to challenge Asterios intellectually, presenting his character as a high brow man who earned his positions, but seems to have lost his ambition somewhere along his ascent.
There is a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor in this novel, we don't learn that the narrator is Asterios dead twin brother until a handful of pages in, and that the most complex thing about Asterios is his sex life.
The art direction is this novel is very unique. Depending on who is speaking or narrating, Asterios takes a different art style, either his flat 1 sided self, or a broken image of geometric outlines, or something between those. The way the text is delivered and the way the characters are designed are both very unique to this novel, and those two reasons alone are enough to keep me reading through this novel.
I do agree with you on how Asterios Polyp is a very smart man. However, I found his character to be cocky in a way because since he knew he was intelligent. He never completely thought thoroughly before acting or when speaking to others. I find the way the author wrote the text was very interesting, mysterious way to secretly show he was the twin brother.
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