Ex Libris by Matt Madden
Take a strong dollop of Italo Calvino, add a dash of Dylan Horrocks' Magic Pen and a soupçon of Sonny Liew's The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye and Ex Libris is what you might end up with. Narratively, it's a about a character locked in a room with a bookshelf fool of comics and graphic novels who tries to make sense of his predicament by reading the comics. Graphically, this is wonderful, with each new book being drawn in a different style related to its content. I can't help but think of Marc-Antoine Mathieu and other meta-writers of the comic medium. My only real gripe is that it's too short. I felt the story never got the time to really go deep. Still, it's a tour de force in terms of construction, theme and execution. Go get it.
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