Before his death in 2012, the great Italian illustrator Sergio Toppi completed Sharaz-De, a ravishing, eye-popping retelling of the tale of Scheherazade and her execution-delaying tales of 1,001 nights. It is a mature artist's masterpiece and the culmination of a career that has inspired imitation worldwide.
Toppi's delicate, intricate black-and-white line work breaks free of comic-book panels with a perpetually changing layout. In the electrifying use of white space and his lavish painterly style--which for two glorious sequences explodes sensuously into color--Toppi has at his command an inexhaustible arsenal of graphic stunts and lush visual moments, a bag of tricks that appears to be bottomless, as one eye-catching surprise follows another.
He retells the ancient, well-known Arabian Nights story as though it had never been told before, with powerful, commanding images and authentically stylized language. But don't look for Aladdin or Ali Baba here. Toppi wisely selects some of the less prominent tales, rippling with deceptions and deadly intrigues, leaving their primal violence and terror intact. The storytelling is intoxicating, with a passionate Italian sympathy for the exotic, and suspense behind every turn of the page.
Toppi's respect for these time-defying tales, as well as the endless diversity of the human face in all ages and races, make this extraordinary book a feast of soul-stirring beauty and an essential experience for any lover of the graphic novel. --Nick DiMartino, Nick's Picks, University Book Store, Seattle, Wash.