With his shock wigs, skin-and-bones physique, and space-cadet speaking style, Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was rather cartoonish, and yet despite the comics-style format of Andy Warhol: A Graphic Biography, Michele Botton (Quentin Tarantino, illus. by Bernardo Santiago Acosta) and Marco Maraggi (Banksy, with Francesco Matteuzzi) have made him a fully dimensional character. In fact, their book hypothesizes a remarkably sympathy-arousing interior life for the artist.
Narrated by Warhol and featuring dialogue-balloon conversations throughout, Andy Warhol proceeds with a straightforward chronology, charting his move from Pittsburgh to New York at 21 and his ensuing success as an adman. The controversy surrounding his unapologetic commercial-mindedness is a touchstone in the narrative, which covers his rise via Campbell's-soup-can imagery, his Factory-impresario days, and his near-fatal encounter with gun-wielding Valerie Solanas in 1968. (When Warhol says, "Needless to say: the price of my work went up radically after my attempted murder," the reader hears satisfaction rather than bitterness.) The Velvet Underground, Edie Sedgwick, and Jean-Michel Basquiat make appearances in scenes showing Warhol at the height of his influence, although his insecurity is never entirely at bay.
Part of publisher Frances Lincoln's BioGraphics series, Andy Warhol would make a superb introduction for the Warhol-curious, including older teenagers. Maraggi's full-color art has a classic comic's clean lines and moody chiaroscuro, bringing to mind a superhero or detective strip--Dick Tracy with the emotional vulnerability of the Peanuts gang. The graphic format also allows for some devastating glimpses of Warhol in private moments. One heartbreaker shows the artist sitting alone on his bed, facing away, and wigless. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer