3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man

by Matt Kindt

What would it be like to stand head and shoulders above everyone else - and to keep growing? Unable to interact with a fragile world that isn't built to withstand your size? To live in a house that doesn't fit you anymore - with a wife who doesn't either? Craig Pressgang's life is well documented in his official CIA biography, "Giant Pillar of America," but the heroic picture it paints is only half the story. The continuous growth caused by Craig's strange medical condition brings a variety of problems as he becomes more isolated and unknowable. Told in three eras by three women with unique relationships with Craig, 3 Story follows his sad life from his birth to the present. Harvey Award winner Matt Kindt (Super Spy, Pistolwhip) brings his innovative design and storytelling sensibility to this poignant look at what it really means to be different, alienated from the rest of the world.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Fantasy, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book, Adult

192 pages, Hardcover

First published September 13, 2005

Reviews

[The Lion's Share · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here lies the problem...

Kindt is undoubtedly a good story teller, but at some point during all his stories there comes a point in the story, a really small point but important nonetheless, that makes me go...'eh? what?...err, but when did that happen, I don't get it?'

That happened in 3 Story. It's split into 3 stories. One from his mother's point of view, one from his wife's point of view and one from his daugthers pov. During the wife story, story 2, they're so in love, but he's getting bigger and way too big, but they're still madly in love and then I turn the page and his wife is having sex with some stranger in a small house built within a bigger house.

That was when he lost me. It made no sense whatsoever.

For some reason, even though he cannot draw for toffee I really get on wtih his artwork, it attracts me, but this story about a giant man was just a bit dull for my liking.

[Seth T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an author, there are a couple of ways to approach a sci-fi concept. One can take the idea and simply run with it, expecting readers to give in to the demands of suspendable disbelief. Alternatively, an author can exert a lot of effort to couch his concept in plausibilities, striving to explain things in scientific terms (or at least in terms that could be scientific). Each method has its fans, but generally in the last few decades anecdotal evidence leads me to think that all but the lowest common denominators in our culture appreciate authors who will put at least some effort into the conveyance of Believability. Most contemporary authors, I believe, will find themselves somewhere in the middle, wanting to focus on their stories but still feeling the responsibility to at least offer tacit explanations for the strange and amazing things that happen in their stories.

To that end, we have the writers of LOST toying with concepts of electro-magnetism and quantum theory. We find Brian K. Vaughan using socio-scientific theory to explain the plague he unleashes in Y: The Last Man . We get movies like Moon and Jurassic Park. We also have George Lucas turning the mystery of the Force into an empirically quantifiable convocation of microscopic organisms. (So it doesn't always result in wooing the audience.) Matt Kindt, with 3 Story, finds himself in this set of authors—and he succeeds better than many of them.

When you write a story about the tallest man in the world, a man who eventually will grow to be the size of skyscrapers, you may be tempted to leave it at that. Maybe settle on solely focusing on the troubles that go with (physically) not fitting in? Maybe let him be a hero worthy of his (physical) stature? I actually don't know what could be done in a story with a giant man. (I may actually have satisfied the whole of my interest in giant-man stories because Kindt's is so deliciously composed. More on composition later.) What Kindt does, beyond providing a throwaway explanation for Craig Pressgang's abnormal lifelong growth spurt, is propose a couple possibly reasonable side-effects to a human attaining such a size. I don't know how plausible Kindt's extrapolations of Pressgang's condition are, but they seem fairly reliable and may have been developed from verified difficulties experienced by Robert Wadlow, the Giant of Illinois (the tallest-recorded man in the world).



In the end Kindt's fidelity to medical accuracy, while a particular charm of 3 Story, is probably unnecessary to the effect of the work upon the reader. The book works well with these details but I imagine it would work well without them. At heart, the story of Craig's life (as told by the three primary women in his life) is about alienation and community. And while details like Craig's inability to register physical contact in meaningful ways heighten our sense of his distance from those around him, the tableaux on which Kindt paints is bleak enough that such particulars—while decorative—are not foundational to the work.

3 Story, though telling a single story, is (appropriately) divided into three discreet narratives. With growing awareness of the presence of a culture of sexism, a story narrated by three woman who tell the story of a man might put many readers on alert. After all, there continues to be a tendency in male-penned literary media to use females to magnify male protagonists. And while it's true that in many ways these three women's lives are circumscribed by Craig Pressgang's presence in their lives, the story might be seen as being at least as much about each of them as it is about Craig. Their lives are not defined so much by Craig's maleness as they are by their relationships to him and what his condition means to all four of them. 3 Story is the story of family and the alienation and closeness that can result when circumstances cause one member to be highlighted for good or ill. Craig, for much of the story, is an impenetrable person, walled off by his condition. It's in his mother's, wife's, and daughter's words and experiences that we learn who these people are and who tragedy will shape them to be. Kindt's treatment of his characters is often spare on words, but it's in gestures and timing that his tapestry of their heartbreaks unfurls.



Kindt resumes the kind of inventive page design and formal experimentation that was such a winning choice in Super Spy . I don't know how great an illustrator Kindt is—his style (as revealed in the three books of his I've read) is rather simple and keeps any sense of photorealism at arm's length. It doesn't really matter. He could be a terrible cartoonist who really just adores the opportunities of the medium. He could be Alex Toth. It doesn't matter. His drawing is good enough for the stories he drives because his design sense is impeccable. Similar to Adam Hines, whose visual work on Duncan the Wonder Dog was one of the stand-out comics achievements of 2010 (Hines is up front about not being a talented illustrator), Kindt uses a number of texturing tricks to add body and weight to his work. In addition, adding to 3 Story's visual aesthetic with what I presume is some handy photoshopping, Kindt relies on interview-style narrative interruptions as well as the kind of x-ray-style perspective that made Super Spy a treat. These little flourishes add an immeasurable something to the work and help elevate it from being merely another exploration of the human condition. Even in the depths of the human murk, Kindt displays an evident playfulness—and that sense of play makes more winning a vaguely morose story.



In writing about Kindt's Super Spy, I concluded:

The book’s strength instead lies in the very human way in which it approaches a world that is far beyond the coping mechanisms of its contributors. These people, no matter how thinly sketched, are always people—are always worth the time of your consideration. They are just as sad, broken, and hopeful as real people are and when their stories end, those conclusions are just as stupid, pointless, and tragic as they would be in real life.

This may be safely said of 3 Story as well. For while this book ends on a slightly more buoyant note, Kindt's story about a very tall man and the women whose lives his stature dominates is just as much about real people—no matter how fictional they may be.




_____________________
[Review courtesy of Good Ok Bad]

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Look to Seth Hahne's review for an excellent and thorough treatment of this terrific novel, one of my fave's of the year, right on the heels of one of my other favorites, Kindt's Red Handed. This has a similar feel, the purposely (?) sketchy art, the postmodern reflection on the strengths and limitations of narrative, the story told from multiple perspectives, the lovely, muted watercolor washes, but this one feels more intimate to me than Red Handed. It's the story of a giant who never stops growing, who falls in love, has a kid… and who was a kind of messenger for the CIA, and internationally famous. It's not like a 7 foot giant, thug, it's someone who fall sin lobe when he is 7 feet tall, but grows to 3 stories… so this becomes magical realism or fantasy.

Now, this is fiction, but it is informed by research, including mentions of the tallest man in the history of Illinois, and the Thorne miniatures collection at the Chicago Art Institute. Each of the three stories are told by a woman in his life: his mother, his wife, and daughter, and the wife's story turns out to be the most moving, even as ridiculous as it may seem in many respects. I suppose it's like the intimacy of King Kong and Fay Wray, it simply doesn't make sense, it's silly that any emotion can come of it, but when you see it, you feel it, you understand. And maybe there's something about what we imagine to be the loneliness and isolation of the Freak of Nature, the ridicule, the awe, all distancing relationships. Now THIS is my favorite Kindt book, because of this crazy intimacy with his wife, who is an architect who does miniatures in part to help understand her husband's perspective. As with much of Kindt's work, perspective is central, heightened. Andre the Giant's story, and one I read recently in graphic bio format, is relevant here. Awesome, a giant? Well, yeah, from our perspective; from the giant's perspective, mostly sad, as it turns out.

[Valéria. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matt Kindt's storytelling is never dissapointment. And it wasn't this time either. I must admit, it was full of sadness and depressive stuff and behavior, but also full of love. This book is told from view of three people + at the end there are short parts from the life of Craig Pressgang. I am happy I could add this to my collection of Kindt's work and I believe I'll read it once again in the future.

[Donovan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A better title would be The Curious Case for Depression. Although written in the vein of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” its potentiality and whimsy is negated by downright morbidity, characters little more than archetypes in a morality play, like Loneliness and Regret. Clearly Kindt never read the far funnier, balanced, and interesting Gulliver’s Travels.

[George Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kindt just keeps getting better. He shows a deep understanding of character. The writing is accomplished . The concept is simple but nicely explored. But in a comic I also want to see something that could not work in any other medium and this too delivers: the artwork explores the themes of scale and depth, taking the nice idea that The Giant Man's wife makes miniatures to compose pages of rooms within rooms- exemplified by the superb cover. Kindt is not for everyone and his art has a sketchiness that takes time to get used to, but I find him consistently satisfying.

[Roberta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ho preso la graphic novel quando ho fatto l'abbonamento prova al Kindle Unlimited. Grandissima storia! L'uomo gigante nasce come bambino normale, ma più cresce, in età e dimensioni, più cresce il divario tra lui e le altre persone. È una storia di solitudine, di incomunicabilità. È la storia di una diversità che col passare del tempo crea una separazione incolmabile tra il protagonista e i suoi affetti. Molto bello.

[Charles Hatfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of 3 Story is that of The Incredible Shrinking Man in reverse: the protagonist is a giant who cannot stop growing, and whose superhuman size both alienates him from human contact and, paradoxically, renders him physically vulnerable. But there are big differences between the two stories. Whereas The Incredible Shrinking Man, though also dealing with loneliness and alienation, celebrates its tiny hero's ingenuity and will to survive, 3 Story centers on a bemused and passive protagonist whose seeming physical power belies his terrible helplessness. The story has a inexorable, tragic quality, strengthened by Kindt's penchant for evoking, without entirely explaining, deep-seated emotional pain: grudges, losses, long-buried and lingering hurt.

Kindt's graphic handling of the story is distinctive and smart. His organic, slightly distressed-looking style, muted watercolor (thankfully not digital) palette, tellingly awkward figures, and expert dramatic framing of the action make 3 Story visually haunting.

The story doesn't come off quite as well. 3 Story is in part an experiment in focalization, with the three women in the giant's life (his mother, wife, and daughter) each telling her story in turn. This in itself intrigues; particularly poignant is the wife's story, as the giant's unstoppable growth sunders their love and family. Yet each story is also punctuated and complicated by "found" texts, for example an insipid official biography of the giant, or newspaper articles; also, occasional graphic footnotes give backstory that the narrators are not privy to. At times these texts shift POV in midstream, muddying the tale's perspectives. Ironies and confusion abound. I'm not sure Kindt has these entirely under control, though the total effect is provocative.

More damaging is a distracting espionage subplot: the giant becomes a spy. This move makes nothing much happen, and flummoxes me. From my POV it undercuts the book's humanizing gestures and leads to some narrative jury-rigging that needlessly complicates Kindt's fable. This is another way of saying that there are loose bits rattling around inside 3 Story that are not quite satisfactorily resolved. Pity, since the book has much going for it: a distinct aesthetic, a soulful, melancholy tone, and intelligent visual storytelling.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our public library has an adult summer reading program. I mean, I don't know how they pull it off. We always had one for kids growing up - and our public library does that, too. BUT, they've got one for adults. With great prizes. Gift certificates to local favorite restaurants, bakeries, the book store... Seriously, it's great. (I wrote that part to make you jealous. I hope it worked.)

They've got three boxes: fiction, non-fiction, pick-of-the-week.

This week is graphic novel week. So, I pulled a bunch of interesting looking graphic novels off the shelf. And I enjoy reading graphic novels. So, this is a win-win for me. Even if I lose.

3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man was another good one. 3 Story is a clever pun, as the man grows to the size of several stories. And the book is told in three distinct stories.

It's reminiscent of Kafka's Metamorphosis, as our protagonist, Craig Pressgang, is freakishly growing up and into something that is distancing him from the rest of humanity - especially those nearest to him.

You know, I just read another fun and weird graphic novel like this: The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil. Both of these are recommendably good. They'd be interesting to read together and discuss.

[Maria Kramer · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a strange little book. A brief look into the life of a man who never stopped growing, as told by his mother, wife and daughter. Maybe it's a metaphor for how people grow apart? Maybe it's just a weird story about a giant man and how his condition eventually means he can't live in this world anymore. Very unique. I loved it!

[Tony Laplume · Rating 5 out of 5]

The clearest recommendation I could make concerning 3 Story is that Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump, Cast Away) need to make this a movie. It would be a perfect project for them.

Matt Kindt is one of the best creators in comics at the moment, and that's not up for debate. He's the rare creator who actually manages to blend the superhero realm (the stuff fans like) and the graphic novel realm (the stuff critics like). He can do anything. Most importantly, he's a born storyteller.

When Kindt is illustrating his own scripts, as he does with 3 Story and has with some of his longer projects, like Mind MGMT, he might find a harder time getting the superhero crowd to appreciate his work, although the graphic novel folks will still love him. Superhero fans tend to almost favor the art over the writing (although even they had to admit that the imbalance can't be entirely lopsided, as they discovered in the '90s). Kindt's art is fairly loose, but it's also strangely expressive. He draws the world the way he writes it, as a mystifying realm.

The story of 3 Story is actually three stories, three narratives from people who knew the so-called Giant Man, Craig Pressgang: his mom, his wife, and his daughter. Each has a unique perspective on what exactly Craig was and how it was living in his (heh) shadow. Not surprisingly, the daughter who never really knew him is most enamored with Craig.

The results try to take Craig's unusual condition (he never stops growing) as straight as possible. The details a lot of other writers would've focused on are merely suggested by Kindt, and that's part of his appeal, as always. He tends to trust his readers, which often means some readers just won't get it. But it's not for everyone, even though he creates comics that do speak to everyone, in that uncomfortable way, and again, maybe that's why he isn't as widely known as he ought to be. (If you read only one of his superhero comics, make it his Divinity cycle.)

This sort of thing is right up my alley.

[47Time · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a depressing story that shouldn't be read before bed. It keeps building up to a tragic end and it's obvious at every point that it can't be a happy one. The difficulties of growing so big have basis in science, something I personally enjoyed. The main character's size makes his body very fragile and all human interaction strained or even impossible, making him feel alone even when surrounded by people.

Craig is a boy who has grown way beyond normal human height. This starts to cause issues in his school activities, but later on he becomes a local celebrity. His mother feels that Craig is slowly growing apart from her. She ends up alone, given that her husband died in the war, but she still speaks to him as if he were alive and by her side.

Jo has felt an attraction to Craig ever since she first saw him. They soon get close, even given the extreme height difference. She designs a house to fit him and he helps her the whole way. His growth eventually makes it impossible for them to be intimate and Jo lives in constant fear that something bad could happen to him.

He gets offered a lifetime insurance from the CIA in exchange for them running tests on him. They discover the cause of Craig's growth: a brain tumor that is difficult to operate. He refuses the operation which would stop his growth because of the risk of not surviving it. He is fitted with extra support for his proportionately weak body and hired as a spy for the CIA.

Jo, now Craig's wife, takes refuge in her art and is regarded as a talented artist. She still loves Craig dearly, but he has become a 'giant ghost' to her. Craig decides to leave so he won't hurt Jo or anybody else. He feels the end coming.

Years later, his fully-grown daughter, Iris, goes searching for her father. She never finds him, but writes a successful book about the journey.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully told stories of the life of Graig Pressgang, this mysteriously grown giant over the years. Really good story-telling from his mother’s perspective, his wife’s perspective and his daughter’s perspective. The previous two stories are sheer sadness, unfortunately. The third story is loneliness itself. As a graphic novel it is beautifully drawn as well. Very picturesque.

[Matt Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wonderfully strange and melancholy story, somewhat let down by some confusing plotting from the midway part. Matt Kindt’s art adds a great sense of surrealism throughout.

[Jodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a 6’5″ woman, I am drawn to stories about the incredibly tall, or Giants as they are called. It’s the same thing that drew me to Beverly Cleary’s Beezus when I was a child, the ability to find comfort in a fictional kindred spirit when one cannot be found in your actual life.

It’s why The Giant’s House by Elizabeth McCracken is in the top five of my all-time favorite novels. It’s why I picked up Matt Kindt’s excellent graphic novel 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man even though I could tell from the cover it was going to break my heart.

Since this is a graphic novel, let’s talk about the cover for a moment. What you can’t see from the image up there is that the cover is die-cut. The window is actually a window, and when you pop open the cover, you’re greeted with Craig Pressgang, the giant man, staring forlornly into space. Close the cover and he’s peeking into the living room of his own home. A home he is too big to fit into anymore.

Read more

[Roman Stadtler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The life story of a man who grows at an unnatural rate, taking him beyond normal human existence, told from the viewpoint of the three most important women in his life. This is well-told, touching and surprising in the ways the characters cope (and don't cope) with his condition, and truthful about the hardships the main character and his wife face.
The book is also subtly creative graphically, such as tails of word balloons leading, not to typical word balloons, but entire panels that are pictorial thoughts & flashbacks. The art is all sparse watercolors (I think), but highly evocative too. I was very pleasantly surprised with 3 Story, as I didn't care for Matt Kindt's previous book, Super Spy.

[Raina · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of Kindt's more accessible works, I feel.

Three stories from the perspectives of three figures in the fictional Giant Man's life.

In this case of humans-of-unusual-size, the Giant Man continues to grow until he can no longer relate to anyone - metaphoric, perhaps?

Surreal, detached, with Kindt's usual mastery of the medium.
Read with Giants Beware! and The Giant and How He Humbugged America.

[Marissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not totally sure what it was about this comic book that rubbed me the wrong way, but I had a really hard time getting into it. It's just one of those books where it feels like the writer thinks they're a lot deeper than they actually are. He tells the story in a unique way and it's an interesting concept to explore, one that's on a magical realist par with Aimee Bender, one of my favorite short story writers, but it just never quite gets out of its own way enough to resonate and make you feel connected to the characters.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kindt is a master at weaving stories together to form a complex and cohesive whole. I'm currently halfway through superspy, another excellent example. 3 Story tackles a completely different subject than superspy but with similar themes of tragedy and melancholy. True human connection is only temporary, and Kindt illustrates this belief with unusual stories that isolate and underscore the principle because of how far removed they are from everyday life. We are all alone, and yet we are never alone. Our connection to each other is deep and intense but oh so fragile.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fantastic and moving story by Matt Kindt. Three short stories telling of the family and friends of a giant man, the hardships they (and he) had to endure in loving and living with him. It really reminded me of The Time Traveler's Wife in many ways.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty depressing book, but a very creative and original approach to the topic. I would have liked this to be about twice as long and more fully-developed, but it's not bad as is.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so, so sad. I don't really know what else to say. Poor Craig. Poor Jo.

[Hannah Garden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Och Matt Kindt my heart. Who does woe so well as he!? Basically no one except Jeff Lemire who also och my heart.

[Francisco Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Por novelas gráficas como esta es que corroboro con mucha certeza que los cómic pueden ser un medio sumamente poderoso a la hora de comunicar.

Este libro por ejemplo se puede emparentar de lleno con obras como ‘Asterios Polyp’, ‘Fun home’ o cualquier otro donde el autor consigue mediante la asociación de lo netamente visual y elementos narrativos construir un obra desde tres miradas distintas donde la emocionalidad y las preguntas que se hace se sientan tangibles y necesarias.

Podríamos situar la historia desde un opuesto a “The Incredible Shriking Man (1957)” donde el protagonista se encogía continuamente. Esta es la historia de un gigante, pero asistimos a su vida desde la óptica de 3 mujeres a lo largo de sus años: La madre que lo pierde, la esposa (tal vez el relato más interesante) que se alivia con su partida y su hija quien lo busca tras su desaparición.

Hay viñetas preciosas: como cuando su esposa le pide estar a solas y él, un gigante que le es difícil esconderse, la lleva caminando a lo profundo del mar, los planos de la casa con los pensamientos trémulos de la pareja sobre el futuro, los recortes de noticias que parecen querer impostar una verdad sobre un hecho que la mayoría del tiempo vemos desde la interna, nos permiten hacernos un sentido más amplio de lo que leemos. No solo completando, si no resignificando la historia.

Como un dios entre mortales pero sin esa invulnerabilidad presenciamos como se va distanciando de todo, como todo se encamina funestamente a un término anunciado, donde los personajes parecen meros espectadores. Los términos y los autoexilios. Esos lugares donde ni las pinturas gigantes, ni las maquetas en miniatura importan, porque la soledad siempre parece morder fuerte.

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man is a strange graphic novel by Matt Kindt, about a boy suffering from a form of gigantism that will take him to building size. A 3-story man, if you will, but also a life told in three "stories" using the points of view of three women - his mother, wife and daughter, and never his own. It's really a book about emotional distance, so a directly unknowable character is at the center of it. His height makes him more and more distant to those around him, and even his body's extra-long nerves delay sensation to his brain. His mother feels the distance between her and the father, killed in WWII. The wife feels the distance growing most immediately. The daughter seeks her vanished father through the clues and footprints he has left behind. In every case, we are at kept at a distance from the man himself and like the latter women, are discovering him through secondary sources - the comic is filled with newspaper clippings and the like that fill us in on the details. Kindt's art is very sketchy, but I've always liked it. I think his watercolors in this are especially beautiful.

[Vittorio Rainone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bella la confezione, il volume è attraente, i pastelli di Kindt, suo marchio di fabbrica, ormai, si lasciano osservare e sono a tratti davvero gradevoli. E la storia prende: questo essere che cresce non volendo, e poi si lascia crescere, intestardendosi ad esplorare fino alla fine la sua storia di alienazione. Di sicuro è un fumetto diverso da altri, di sicuro ha qualcosa dentro che ti cresce con le pagine. Mentre Craig Pressgang si allontana dall'amore, dall'amicizia, dall'umanità, si sente l'ineluttabilità, sotto traccia. Bella la struttura tripartita: la donna che rinuncia, la donna che soccombe, la donna che riscopre. Bello il finale, bella l'idea di questa autobiografia che si integra con le notizie e con le pubblicità. Insomma, un volume molto interessante. Forse, ecco, un po' costoso.

[Jeff Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man is another weird sci-fi comic from Matt Kindt. In this one, a boy grows out of control into a man that is three stories tall. Kindt goes a little tongue-in-cheek to make this story three stories: one from the from perspective of the Giant Man’s mother, one from his wife, and one from his daughter.

Of course, a giant man isn’t weird enough for Kindt. He had up the weirdness by throwing in the CIA and Vietnam.

I think this book does a good job covering all of the various problems a giant would encounter: nerve problems, organ problems, inability to hear human speech, bones that break under their own weight, accidental casualties caused simply by walking, scarcity of food. Where this book failed for me is that Kindt hardly provides any kind of ending or closure. The story just kind of stops. Very unsatisfying ending.

[Soobie has fog in her brain · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bah, non so cosa pensare.

Da un lato l'idea mi è piaciuta parecchio. Quest'uomo che cresce, cresce, cresce e diventa troppo alto per riuscire a stare in mezzo alla gente. Perfino il trucco di far raccontare la sua storia attraverso le parole della madre, della moglie e della figlia è riuscito. Ma l'insieme non è riuscito a colpirmi.

Forse è la trama. Fin che lui cresceva era OK. La storia della CIA mi è sembrata poco credibile, così come il fatto che il tipo continuava a crescere.

I disegni sono molto particolari. Non è proprio il mio genere, ma non sono male.

L'ho preso dallo scaffale perché ha una costina bellissima!

[Anh Tran · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was great in creating a sense of loneliness and alienation but some of the events didn't really make sense. For example, it's not clear what happened between him and his mom, why did they stop talking for years? Why was the CIA involved and how can he be a spy if he literally can't talk to his wife because he's too big. I think the author made the plot is too grand and so had a lot of inconsistencies, but the general feel of it is consistent in that every is feeling a sense of loneliness and not being able to communicate their feelings.

[Garrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kindt always has such a distinct tone to his drawing/writing that feels sad and wanting of something lost or forgotten. This book has a really interesting structure of jumping between perspectives of those interacting with the title character. There is a lot in this book that left me thinking about Jeff Lemire's Essex County series. 4.25