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 in 2009 from Bloomsbury.

If the advance snippets were intriguing, the complete version is a delight to the eye and the mind, a result that justifies the years of work invested in it by the authors and illustrators.

“Logicomix” was written by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou, penciled by Alekos Papadatos and colored by Annie Di Donna.  Doxiadis also created the scenario and translated the English version into Greek.

The story operates on several levels.  As bookends to the main narrative, and interrupting it at intervals, the creative team introduces the original concept of seeking the foundations of mathematics and argues over how to approach it.  Their encounters usually take place in their light-filled studio or on walks in the historic center of Athens.

The team’s search is revealed through the life of the British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell.  Key scenes from his childhood and adult life, which form the basis of the narrative, are related by himself, most of them as part of a public speech at the time of the Second World War on the role of logic in human affairs.  Protesters challenge Russell—who had been imprisoned for his anti-war views during WWI—to defend what they see as his new pro-war stance.

These scenes are portrayed for the most part in neutral shades of brown and gray.  The artists deploy the classic exaggeration of comic books to convey more dramatic scenes, such as the nightmares of his childhood, haunted by the prohibitions imposed by his severe grandmother and by alarming revelations about his family that feuled his fear of madness.

Love and the consolation of mathematics deliver him from those early constraints.  Shades of sable on the seashore accompany a rare moment of jubilation for young Bertie, performing cartwheels on the sand: “Ecstasy was a new experience and a powerful antidote to any residue of fear,” reads the caption.

Yet the fear of madness lingers, fostered by encounters with brilliant but deranged logicians.  Disappointment in his efforts to build a firm foundation for mathematics sparks a horrific dream in which he sees the entire edifice of logic come crashing down, undermined by his own work.

His loves, his work with leading logicians and the turbulent times in which he lived make a riveting story.  His differences with the brilliant young Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein play out in a superbly drawn scene, where a gathering snowstorm obscures the two figures in a mournful palette of brown, gray and white.

In another strand of the story, rehearsals for a production of the Oresteia trilogy allow the team to engage in a collective, culminating riff on war, vengeance, justice and wisdom.  Encompassing hefty doses of information, ideas and entertainment, “Logicomix” is sure to be a hit.  It even boasts a dog that looks like a relative of Tintin’s Snowy.