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,
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
, 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.