Logicomix, a graphic novel, is based on the epic story of the quest for the foundations of mathematics. This is a quintessentially modern intellectual adventure, most of whose protagonists paid the price of knowledge with extreme personal suffering and, in some cases, insanity. The book’s narrator is the most eloquent and spirited of the quest’s heroes, the great logician and philosopher Bertrand Russell. It is through his eyes that the plights of Frege, Hilbert, Poincaré, Wittgenstein and Gödel come to life, and through his own passionate pursuit of absolute certainty that the various narrative strands blend together. A parallel tale, set in contemporary Athens, records the book’s creators’ clashing opinions on the meaning of the quest for foundations.
Praise for LOGICOMIX:
“This is an extraordinary graphic novel, wildly ambitious in daring to put into words and drawings the life and thought of one of the great philosophers of the last century, Bertrand Russell. Interwoven with breathtaking excursions into logic and mathematics, in language we can all understand, is the trajectory of Russell’s personal life — his parents and grandparents, his wives, his inner conflicts. The book is a rare intellectual and artistic achievement which will, I am sure, lead its readers to explore realms of knowledge they thought were forbidden to them.”
-HOWARD ZINN, historian and author of A People’s History of the United States
“This magnificent book is about ideas, passions, madness, and the fierce struggle between well-defined principle and the larger good. It follows the great mathematicians-Russell, Whitehead, Frege, Cantor, Hilbert-as they agonized to make the foundations of mathematics exact, consistent, and complete. We see how Gödel illuminates their project. We see the Erinyes of Aeschylus’s Oresteia giving up their principle of merciless revenge in favor of considered justice. And we see the band of artists and researchers-and the all-seeking dog Manga-creating, and participating in, this glorious narrative.”
-BARRY MAZUR, Gerhard Gade University Professor at Harvard University, and author of Imagining Numbers (particularly the square root of minus fifteen)
“It’s not difficult to be dazzled by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou’s Logicomix. It’s a biography of the mathematician/philosopher Bertrand Russell, a fiercely engaging examination of his elusive attempt to isolate the logical foundations of mathematics, and a rousing historical yarn. And all of Logicomix’s storytelling and intellectual pyrotechnics are delineated in extraordinarily crisp, cleverly designed and beautifully colored by the team of Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna. What a comic book! Easily one of the most impressive combinations of popular art and serious history that I’ve encountered in prose or in comics.”
– CALVIN REID, senior news editor, Publisher’s Weekly, and co-editor, PW Comics Week
“Logicomix is highly original, a rich and enthralling encounter with myth, maths, theater and the giants of 20th century philosophy.”
– POSY SIMMONDS, author and artist of the best-selling graphic novels Gemma Bovary and Tamara Drewe
“The lives of ideas (and those who think them) can be as dramatic and unpredictable as any superhero fantasy. What could be more natural than a graphic novel to show how intellectual adventure plays out in the world of experience, with all its contradictions? Logicomix is witty, engaging, visually stunning, and full of surprising sound effects, a masterpiece in a genre for which there is as yet no name.”
– MICHAEL HARRIS, professor of Mathematics at Université Paris 7 and member of the Institut Universitaire de France.
Please visit the Logicomix website for more information.
Written by Matt Cardwell, WUNDERKAMMER Tuesday, 10 November 2009 08:56 When initially approached to write a review of the US edition of Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou’s graphic novel, Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, I felt admittedly out of my league. My experience in the graphic novel genre, to this point, has included little more than recreational enjoyment of …continue reading…
Written by Tim Martin, THE TELEGRAPH Tuesday, 10 November 2009 13:57 Tim Martin reviews a batch of comics, including Neil Gaiman’s Batman and The Book of Genesis as seen by Robert Crumb. LOGICOMIX Already a bestseller on the Continent, this 350-page comic about the search for a logical foundation to mathematics dramatises episodes from the life of Bertrand Russell, with …continue reading…
Written by Dan Kois, THE WASHINGTON POST Sunday, 15 November 2009 00:00 Though it may serve as a primer on early 20th-century philosophy and mathematics, “Logicomix” is no textbook — it’s a comic book. “The form is perfect for stories of heroes in search of great goals!” exclaims one co-author to the other. In this case, the superhero is the …continue reading…
Written by Mike Holderness, NEW SCIENTIST Wednesday, 02 December 2009 00:00 IN THIS graphic-novel biography of philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell, the book’s artists draw themselves and their debates with the authors about how, say, to illustrate the concept “proof”.Such self-reference is at the heart of the story, from Russell’s despair at the paradox that halted his effort to put …continue reading…
Written by Laura Miller, Salon.com Sunday, 13 December 2009 00:00 A new comic romps through one of philosophy’s greatest debates Of the most celebrated graphic novels recently published, R. Crumb’s illustrated version of the Book of Genesis is atypically serious and David Mazzucchelli’s “Asterios Polyp” is the most artistically sophisticated, but “Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth,” by Apostolos Doxiadis …continue reading…
Written by Steven Lukes, PRINT MAG Thursday, 07 January 2010 15:55 This is not, one of its authors, Apostolos Doxiadis, tells us, Logic for Dummies or a “textbook or treatise in the unlikely guise of a graphic novel.” It is a story—the story of “a man who hoped to find a way of getting absolutely right answers.” The man in …continue reading…
Written by R.C. Harvey, THE COMICS JOURNAL Friday, 22 January 2010 11:18 Being on a list of the 10 best-selling comics doesn’t invariably proclaim the quality of the product — usually, alas, it doesn’t. So when I saw Logicomix ranking fifth on the Publishers Weekly list in early December, I was not just surprised: I was astounded. And my astonishment …continue reading…
Written by Christopher Michel, THE BROOKLYN RAIL Thursday, 04 February 2010 09:53 In 1958, the noted logician and pacifist Bertrand Russell wrote an angry cartoon-style book called The Good Citizen’s Alphabet, with his wife, Franciszka Themerson. The book, an abecedary of bitterly defined words, each accompanied by an illustration, signified his deep frustration with humanity. For example: “VIRTUE — submission …continue reading…
Written by Barry C. Smith, THE PHILOSOPHER’S MAGAZINE Monday, 15 March 2010 08:38 “[LOGICOMIX] does philosophy, and in particular a dauntingly formal branch of philosophy, a very large favour, rendering it both accessible and engaging.” Review in The Philosopher’s Magazine.
Written by Judith Roitman, NOTICES Wednesday, 01 December 2010 16:26 “What Logicomix does that few works in any medium do is make intellectual passion palpable.”
Written by Good ok bad Thursday, 27 October 2011 06:54 When age-spanning epics are called for, there are few so often drawn from the Great Well of Story Archetypes as the battle between order and chaos. In the realms of the human and the personal, some variation of Boy Meets Girl is undoubtedly the go-to narrative frame. But when a …continue reading…