Asterios Polyp, by David Mazzucchelli
Mike Morgan
Book "There are just two things you need to fix here: the interior and the exterior," is the tart advice offered to a student by Asterios Polyp, the brilliant, haughty architecture professor who is the namesake of David Mazzucchelli's new graphic novel. In deftly rendered comic panels, and with a sharp (but sympathetic) eye for his characters' pretenses and foibles, Mazzucchelli tracks his hero through a midlife crisis in which Polyp re-evaluates his career as a celebrated "paper architect." $29.95; Pantheon
