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, with bouts of madness, awkward romances, two world wars and a philosophical revolution. The illustrations—exquisitely drawn with eye-catching detail by Alecos Papadatos—are enjoyable enough, but the sophisticated yet accessible plot structure developed by Apostolos Doxiadis (Uncle Petros and Goldblach’s Conjecture, 2000, etc.) and Christos Papadimitriou (Turing: A Novel About Computation, 2003, etc.) transports this graphic novel into unexplored territory. “We used the medium for its full potential,” say the creators. “But we also tried to do new things with it, to focus it on the kinds of abstract ideas and intellectual characters that it does not usually deal with.” The result is a far-reaching yet realistic portrayal of the precarious search for truth, with eccentric logicians Ludwig Wittgenstein and Gottlob Frege, and, in a self-referential twist, the Logicomix team all drawn together for a vivid look at life and logic.

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