"[LOGICOMIX] does philosophy, and in particular a dauntingly formal branch of philosophy, a very large favour, rendering it both accessible and engaging." Review in The Philosopher's Magazine.

In 1958, the noted logician and pacifist Bertrand Russell wrote an angry cartoon-style book called The Good Citizen’s Alphabet, with his wife, Franciszka Themerson. The book, an abecedary of bitterly defined words, each accompanied by an illustration, signified his deep frustration with humanity. For example: “VIRTUE — submission to the government.” [ ... ]

Being on a list of the 10 best-selling comics doesn’t invariably proclaim the quality of the product — usually, alas, it doesn’t. So when I saw Logicomix ranking fifth on the Publishers Weekly list in early December, I was not just surprised: I was astounded. And my astonishment doubled when, a week or so later, I saw the book in Time’s list of the B[ ... ]

This is not, one of its authors, Apostolos Doxiadis, tells us, Logic for Dummies or a “textbook or treatise in the unlikely guise of a graphic novel.” It is a story—the story of “a man who hoped to find a way of getting absolutely right answers.” The man in question was one of the 20th century’s great philosophers, Bertrand Russell, who, [ ... ]

In examining the life of philosopher-mathematician Bertrand Russell, “Logicomix’’serves up Set Theory, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s questioning of “objective existence’’ and the work of mathematicians spanning Gottfried Leibniz and Alfred North Whitehead. Heady stuff, especially for the math-challenged. But the authors of this warm homage achieve the[ ... ]

“What Is Logic? ….. My way of telling you the story of Logic will be through the tale of one of it’s most ardent fans. Myself!”  – Betrand Russell from the pages of Logicomix. Here’s a comic you wouldn’t have seen a few years ago – a detailed study of Bertrand Russell’s life and his work; of mathematics, of  logic, of philosophy and, lik[ ... ]

A new comic romps through one of philosophy's greatest debates Of the most celebrated graphic novels recently published, R. Crumb's illustrated version of the Book of Genesis is atypically serious and David Mazzucchelli's "Asterios Polyp" is the most artistically sophisticated, but "Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth," by Apostolos Doxiadis and Chris[ ... ]

IN THIS graphic-novel biography of philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell, the book's artists draw themselves and their debates with the authors about how, say, to illustrate the concept "proof".Such self-reference is at the heart of the story, from Russell's despair at the paradox that halted his effort to put mathematics on a rigorous footing, to K[ ... ]

Though it may serve as a primer on early 20th-century philosophy and mathematics, "Logicomix" is no textbook -- it's a comic book. "The form is perfect for stories of heroes in search of great goals!" exclaims one co-author to the other. In this case, the superhero is the philosopher Bertrand Russell, and the adventure is his quest for a rational foundation [ ... ]

Tim Martin reviews a batch of comics, including Neil Gaiman's Batman and The Book of Genesis as seen by Robert Crumb.   LOGICOMIX Already a bestseller on the Continent, this 350-page comic about the search for a logical foundation to mathematics dramatises episodes from the life of Bertrand Russell, with walk-on parts for Wittgenstein, Whitehead[ ... ]

When initially approached to write a review of the US edition of Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou’s graphic novel, Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, I felt admittedly out of my league. My experience in the graphic novel genre, to this point, has included little more than recreational enjoyment of a sampling of the oeuvres of Alan Moore, Fra[ ... ]

What do Superman and Bertrand Russell have in common? More than you might think, according to this innovative graphic novel, based on the life of the British philosopher. Both are heroes whose stories are worthy of a comic book. The comic format traditionally demands a strong narrative, a battle between good and evil, and a hero at its centre. Russell's stor[ ... ]

This amazing and rewarding book presents a portrait of Bertrand Russell -- of all people -- and his quest for meaning in logic and romance. The book's creative team also appears as characters in their resonant and interesting evocation, using of the graphic format in an imaginative and engaging way. Richard Pachter is The Miami Herald's Business Monday book[ ... ]

The September issue of Harper's magazine features a piece by Mark Slouka lamenting the demise of the humanities in favour of math and science. “Let me be clear,” Slouka writes in a careful effort to side with the angels, “I write this not to provide tinder to our latter-day inquisitors, ever eager to sacrifice the spirit of scientific inquiry in the [ ... ]

Certainly the most unlikely candidate for one of the year’s great graphic novels is LOGICOMIX: AN EPIC SEARCH FOR TRUTH. Why? Because it’s about math. Let me repeat that for those among us still not paying full attention: math. And, miracle of miracles, it’s really something special. Written by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou, with[ ... ]

From the 1880s to the 1930s, mathematicians and logicians were hot to settle the foundations of mathematics. In the thick of the great quest was Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), who is at the center of mathematician-novelist Doxiadis and confreres’ dramatic graphic novel. In a New York lecture days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the famously pacifist Ru[ ... ]

Quick—how much do you know about the life of Bertrand Russell? His childhood, his life, his loves…well, you’re about to find out a lot more, in the form of a great new work called Logicomix. It’s an intense journey, one that’s filled with the huge allure of mathematics and logic, and it’s—believe it or not—actually not dry or boring. And did [ ... ]

Of all the graphic novels out there about dead white male logicians, there is one you must read. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth (Bloomsbury; $22.95) is like no other book of its kind. It's a wonderfully imaginative, funny and gripping exploration not just of Bertrand Russell's long and eventful life (orphan, scholar, renowned pacifist, four-time hus[ ... ]

Mathematics has never been so exciting.
Bertrand Russell's Principia Mathematica (which he co-wrote with Alfred North Whitehead) is probably the most impenetrable book ever written by a winner of the Nobel prize for literature. In it, the authors famously take 362 pages to prove 1 + 1 = 2, using a method so arcane that Cambridge University Press could not f[ ... ]

Finally, Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth. This is a comic-book account of the great “crisis of foundations” that roiled math from the 1890s to the 1930s. All our favorites are here: Cantor and Frege, Hilbert and Turing, Russell and Wittgenstein, all imaginatively drawn in hundreds of colored frames. The text is by Apostolos Doxiadis, whose 1992 novel[ ... ]

A graphic novel about logic? The idea is not as far-fetched, or as innovative, as one might think. Back in the 1970s, the publishing company Writers and Readers began producing a series of comic books (as they were then called) which sought to provide entertaining and instructive introductions, both to individual philosophers (Marx for Beginners, Wittgenstei[ ... ]

Logicomix: an Epic Search for Truth Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou Two years ago, the theatre company Complicite celebrated the capacity of art to explore complex mathematics with a kaleidoscopic bricolage of original staging and technology it called A Disappearing Number. Logicomix (Bloomsbury, £16.99) is a startlingly successful attempt [ ... ]

Inspired by his love for Big Brother, the creator of Inspector Rebus enters the DC and Marvel market with Dark Entries. John Constantine looks like Sting. He is largely human, but with some demon blood. Despite apparently having strangled his twin in the womb, he is basically a good guy. His mission in life is to protect humans from themselves, and from the[ ... ]

Well, this is unexpected — a comic book about the quest for logical certainty in mathematics. The story spans the decades from the late 19th century to World War II, a period when the nature of mathematical truth was being furiously debated. The stellar cast, headed up by Bertrand Russell, includes the greatest philosophers, logicians and mathematicians of[ ... ]

Can mathematical statements be called ‘true’? This graphic novel won’t give you the answer, but makes for a compelling read. Logicomix is based on the life of Bertrand Russell, who spent years trying to find a mathematical language that could objectively describe the world. His search for logic and truth became an obsession that negatively impacted [ ... ]

Despite the modern framing at the end of this book arguing about whether or not this was a tragedy or a happy ending by bringing computers into the whole thing to support the side of happy, which puts a pimple onto something that is quite near-perfection otherwise, I will say that this is, in the imperfect vernacular, freakin’ awesome. Being an Aristoteli[ ... ]

Normally I’d wait until I finish reading a book before I write my review. But LogiComix is — er, unusual, and not just because it’s a graphic novel about a dead logician. Three chapters into it, I’m captivated and enchanted by the playful, clever, innovative use of self-reference. For example, the prologue opens with co-author Apostolos Doxiadis read[ ... ]

Some superheroes leap tall buildings with a single bound. Others catch thieves just like flies. But the ones in Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou’s graphic novel just think – really hard – about an incredibly difficult dilemma. And they get nowhere. Like all the best superheroes, they are deeply, fascinatingly flawed characters. First a[ ... ]

'Logicomix', the story of Bertrand Russell's struggles with philosophy and his sanity, takes the graphic novel into remarkable new territory. John Walsh is gripped. The comic strip hasn't, historically speaking, been considered a quite suitable medium for the transmission of profound literature or thought. Tintin and Spider-Man, yes; Les Miserables and Haml[ ... ]

Principles of philosophy and existence are colored and questioned in Logicomix, a graphic novel of depth and perception. Britain’s rara avis, Bertrand Russell, serves as the epic’s real-life philosopher/hero seeking the foundations of mathematics via logic during the first half of the 20th century. The vibrant journey traverses Russell’s troubled life,[ ... ]

  "This brilliant graphic novel wraps academia’s big ideas of Truth and Meaning into a story about the thinkers and their passions, by turns fascinating and charming, with deft color art." Read the starred review online here.

An ambitious full-color exploration of the life and ideas of philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell, the book meticulously interconnects Russell’s life, the timelessness of his ideas and the process of creating the book. While a comic about the “quest for the foundations of mathematics” may seem arduous, it is engrossing on many levels; the st[ ... ]

While it’s not unusual for comics to take on any subject, a new book coming from Bloomsbury in the fall will up the ante for using the comics medium to present a serious and complex subject in a thoughtful and entertaining literary package. In October Bloomsbury will publish Logicomix: An Epic Search For Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadim[ ... ]

Gutter Geek, a discontinuous review of graphic narrative By Beth Hewitt
Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, and Alecos Papadatos, Logicomix (Bloomsbury, 2009); and Mark Schultz, Zander Cannon and Jevin Cannon, The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA (Hill and Wang, 2008). My decision to review these two books together bega[ ... ]

Paul Gravett on Logicomix

Logic, madness and the life of Bertrand Russell are explored in “Logicomix.” Readers of these pages had a sneak preview of the graphic novel “Logicomix” after its presentation at the Thessaloniki Book Fair in May.  The book is available from Ikaros publications, following the October 20 launch at the Benaki Museum.  Its English version is due out [ ... ]

LOGIC AND mathematics. Subjects that enthral co-authors Christos Papadimitriou and Apostolos Doxiadis, but hardly the stuff for a graphic novel, much less a bestseller.

But since its publication in Greek in 2008, and then a dozen languages, including English, a year later, Logicomix has topped sales charts in Holland, the UK and the US, in some cases sellin[ ... ]

Download the pdf of the interview by clicking on the image below.

Could graphic novels could be the perfect way to make sense of the recent IPCC controversy? Is there anything comic books can't do? Any subject too big, mature or complex to be encompassed by a graphic novel? This is the question that presents itself after reading Logicomix, a gripping account of the lives and ideas of logicians at the beginning of the 20th[ ... ]

So it’s obviously impossible to narrow down yet another year of awesome things to read to a best-of list of only five titles. I have nevertheless done so (disclaimer: there are so many other equally or potentially even more awesome books this year) with an eye to please many different kinds of readers. The five books below shouldn’t be the only ones you [ ... ]

Bertrand Russell's struggle to reconcile philosophy and pacifism through the purity of numbers proves a surprisingly lively tale as told by writers Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou in Logicomix. Artist Alecos Papadatos uses changing fashions and technological updates to propel the English mathematician's bio from rigid Victorian upbringing th[ ... ]

It makes a kind of looking-glass sense to approach a subject as ostensibly lofty and abstruse as the life of Bertrand Russell, one of the great logicians of the 20th century, through the medium of the comic book. Apostolos Doxiadis' charming dialogue and Alecos Papadatos' simple, affecting drawings give the story an immediacy and approachability that nothing[ ... ]

In this graphic-novel biography of philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell, the book's artists draw themselves and their debates with the authors about how, say, to illustrate the concept "proof". Such self-reference is at the heart of the story, from Russell's despair at the paradox that halted his effort to put mathematics on a rigorous footing, to [ ... ]

Of my five favourite graphic novels of the year, two (Stitches by David Small and Grandville by Bryan Talbot) were recently reviewed, leaving three to particularly recommend here. The first is Logicomix (Bloomsbury, £16.99; Buy this book), written by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou and sensationally drawn by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di [ ... ]

In this season of tight wallets and open hearts, it might be wise to choose holiday gifts that will stay around for a while. And who better to turn to for reliably stirring seasonal picks than your trusty independent bookseller? This year, the booksellers reach into their shelves and pull out tomes on a wide range of weighty topics, from a family in mournin[ ... ]

Bertrand Russell is an unexpected comic book hero, but then, "Logicomix" is full of surprises. It's a graphic novel about an abstruse intellectual quest involving some of the greatest mathematicians and philosophers of the 20th century, and it's told as a story within a story within a story. But you don't need a background in symbolic logic and meta- fi[ ... ]

                     
Superheroes fly. They walk through walls. They shoot sticky, webbed netting from the palms of their hands. And now, they’re explorers in search of the logic of mathematics. "Logicomix,’’ the newly released graphic novel by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou, traces the ta[ ... ]

The philosopher and mathematician, probably the best-known public intellectual of his generation, spent much of his early career on this mission. It eventually led him and Alfred North Whitehead to pay for the printing of their Principia Mathematica (1910) - a book that took 362 pages to prove that 1+1=2. This hardly sounds like a promising topic for a grap[ ... ]

Mathematics theory hardly sounds like comic book material, but a pioneering Greek graphic novel on maths in early 20th century Europe has become an unlikely hit, grabbing bestseller spots on online bookshop Amazon. "Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth" tracks the battle of mathematical minds -- often against madness -- before the invention of the comput[ ... ]

A scene from “Logicomix,” written by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou and illustrated by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna If you want proof that graphic novels can be about anything, behold “Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth,” which chronicles the philosopher Bertrand Russell’s journey to establish the logical foundatio[ ... ]

A book about a gang of logicians, philosophers and other super-geeks struggling to establish the foundational truth of mathematics doesn't sound like one of those things you just can't put down. But then, "Logicomix" isn't just a book. It's a graphic novel, basically a long-form comic book, that actually makes this "Epic Search for Truth" (the subt[ ... ]

Catching a glimpse of reading's future at the Book Expo. NEW YORK - Book publishing and reading are clearly amid sweeping transition. The industry has been struggling with sagging sales and is looking for cheaper and more efficient ways to deliver content to readers who want more flexibility in how they buy and read, whether on paper or a handheld device.[ ... ]

The book publishing industry may be in a crisis over the future of BookExpo America, but you couldn’t tell that from talking to comics and graphic novel publishers at the show. Comics publishers big and small seemed to have nothing but praise for this year’s BEA, citing a steady stream of foot traffic, meetings, deals and new opportunities during the s[ ... ]

There are so many “big books” being presented at the show this year, so many household name authors in every genre, that it couldn’t be a more exciting time for booksellers and booklovers. With so much uncertainty about the business of publishing and the winds of change in the industry, it’s a good time to focus on what BEA is all about: getting the [ ... ]

This year's BEA will be a much changed affair, and with fewer attendees, fewer galleys and reduced booth space for many giant publishers, but graphic novel publishers will still be there. In many ways graphic novels—an exotic newcomer at Book Expos seven or eight years ago—are now mainstream. For instance, graphic novels will be spotlighted on both buzz [ ... ]

Giveaway galleys might be fewer in number this year, so find your favorites and get there early. While galleys might not be piled to the ceiling at BEA this year, many publishers are still bringing them in good quantities, especially in connection with those award-winning authors whose names roll off our tongues. From publishers, editors and publicists, w[ ... ]

Logicomix is already a bestseller in Greece and has been eagerly picked up by publishers around the world An unexpected kind of comic book hero is set to emerge this autumn: Bertrand Russell, the philosopher, logician, mathematician and Nobel prize for literature winner who wrote the seminal work on mathematical logic, the Principia Mathematica. [ ... ]

In the Bertrand Russell archives we’re always on the lookout for new and old material about Russell’s life and times and the people and events in his extraordinary circle of influence.  We try to leave no stone unturned, and no subject matter is beyond our obsessive search and ever-expanding ken (with apologies to Dr. Kenneth Blackwell, the Ho[ ... ]

The author of a graphic novel on the life of philosopher Bertrand Russell is one of the London Book Fair's visiting authors this year. Greek novelist Apostolos Doxiadis, the author of Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture, has spent five years on the project, co-created with Christos H Papadimitriou and artist Alecos Papadatos. Titled Logicomix: An Epic Sea[ ... ]

IF THE life of Apostolos Doxiadis were ever set to film, its most triumphant scene would come only moments before its tragedy. The fifteen-year-old Apostolos, just admitted to the Columbia University in New York City to study mathematics, leads his father, internationally renowned architect Konstantinos Doxiadis, up a staircase to his tutor's office. Descri[ ... ]

See Christos's Oct. 28th presentation, followed by a conversation with Harry Lewis, former dean of Harvard and computer scientist, on iTunes U (free of charge).   Click here to visit iTunes U.

Watch Christos's lecture on Logicomix at the Snell Library in Boston, Massachusetts, where he puts the story in the larger context of the "foundational quest in mathematics."   Click here to watch on youtube.

Apostolos talks with Claire Armistead as she explores the best brand new books on the market. Click here to listen.

Apostolos spoke to Alex Finch on Resonance fm's comics program, Strip!, on Thursday, December 3, as the first part of a series on education and comics.   Click here to listen to the podcast.

Christos talks with Mark Lynch about the inspiration for Logicomix, why the authors chose the graphic novel format to tell their story, and tells us more about story and its characters. Click here to listen.

What's a grovella? Is this the golden age of comics? These questions and much more were dealt with by comics greats Dave McKean, Joe Sacco, Ian Rankin, and Apostolos Doxiadis, when they spoke about their craft to Kirsty Lang of Front Row, on BBC's Radio Four. Click here to listen.  

Apostolos was on NPR's Science Friday with Ira Flatow, talking about Logicomix, on Friday, November 13. Click here to listen.  

Christos spoke with Zlatan Damnjanovik on October 7, about the history of mathematics, the backstory of the birth of the computer, and the tragedies and triumphs of the characters in Logicomix.   You can listen to the podcast here.