Ex Libris revolves around a character trapped in a room with nothing but a futon and a bookcase full of comics.
As they peruse covers, read stories and fragments of stories, they begin to suspect that the comics contain hidden messages and.
a threat.
Fiction and reality blur; sanity and madness become increasingly intertwined as the reader becomes convinced the key to their predicament is to be found between the panels of the strange books.
With a dizzying array of inventive visual and narrative styles, Ex Libris continues the line of exploration and play that Madden initiated with 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style .
Ex Libris is a tribute to the meta-fictional tradition of writers like Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Vladimir Nabokov, and Italo Calvino (whose novel, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, was the inspiration ).
MATT MADDEN (NYC 1968) is a cartoonist, teacher, and translator.
His best-known book is 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style , a comics adaptation of Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style .
His recent work includes the comic books Drawn Onward and Bridge .
He has been living in Philadelphia since 2016.
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Uncivilized Books Ex libris, hardcover/matt madden
