David B.

"In Incidents in the Night, David B. (Epileptic, The Armed Garden) sets out to explore the uncharted territories of overflowing and dusty shelves of Paris' legendary book shops. His journey quickly turns into an obsessive vision quest in pursuit of a mysterious 19th Century journal: Incidents In the Night. Mountains of books become sites of archeological digs as the author excavates layers of myth, fact and fiction in search of the elusive thread that links them all. Along the way he stumbles on fanatical Bonapartists, occult conspiracies and the angel of death" -- from publisher's web site.

Bk. 1

Incidents in the Night

Bryan Alexander

This book is a sweet treat, a savory tart offered up, but for a particular audience. Book lovers, bibliophiles, inveterate readers, compulsive browsers, book collectors: we know who were are, yes?Incidents in the Night is also a nice fantasy, but that's secondary.

Incidents in the Night is a very dreamlike tale about a Parisian book fanatic who stumbled onto a bizarre conspiracy of sorts. While browsing in an endless, jumbled store whose masses of books become walkable terrain, and where its very old owner likes to dress up as a yeti, David (yes, same name as the author) comes across a mysterious newspaper. Its masked editor is playing a desperate game with death, while also trying to resurrect Napoleon to rule the world.

To unfold this plot the graphic novel turns to dreams, visions, and surrealism, as David wanders into books themselves, tries to fight death, investigates weird clues, falls in with a vast police officer, discovers a prehistoric religion, and has a hint of love. It's like a Tim Powers novel but dreamed into being somewhere on the Left Bank.

Incidents in the Night traverses (a local pun there) this path by depicting and deploying books in all kinds of ways. Characters sleep under blankets of books, shelve books as altars to hideous gods, hide between pages, have body parts composed of books. On page 4 David B. lovingly depicts a seemingly random set of book covers, with careful hints to the subsequent story. Ah, it's splendid stuff for us, the people of the books.

As a text person I'm not too useful as a drawing critic, but I know what I like. Incidents in the Night is fascinating to look at, between very different characters and the German Expressionist illustrations of spaces.

Strong recommended.

Incidents in the Night Bk. 1

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