Icongraphics - David Bowie is a graphic novel that tells the story of David Bowie behind the extravagant showmanship.

This was unfortunately a hard DNF for me around 23%. I'm usually not one to DNF a graphic novel, especially about something I'm interested in. However there were multiple factors that led me to DNFing this.

The primary factor that led me to DNFing this graphic novel was the font used. I know it's a more typical font within the graphic novel scene - however the spacing between letters made it nearly impossible for me to read the words. At first I thought it was simply that my eyes were fatigued from reading all day, so I slept on it and returned to the graphic novel the following day. However, that was unfortunately not the case and I still found the font difficult to read after returning to it.

The other factor is that this graphic novel does jump around a lot. Even with the beginning, it's slightly hard to follow and picture at what point we're at within Bowie's life.

In my opinion this graphic novel is definitely something that will be more of a collectors item to put on display than something to actually read.

The art and illustration is absolutely gorgeous! It was a bit slow and stilted to start and it took me a little longer than I normally like to get into it, but overall an interesting and mildly enjoyable read.

As a Bowie fan I was excited to read this and at first it really worked for me. It opens by asking 'Who was David Bowie to David Bowie?' and those early pages feel personal and thoughtful. The art is cool and fits the Berlin mood, and I liked how Iggy Pop and Brian Eno show up as actual characters and not just background names.

But the middle started feeling like bits of Wikipedia pasted into panels. It tells you facts about albums and songs instead of showing you Bowie's story, and it loses some of the emotional pull it had at the start. The ending picks up a little with Bowie talking about finding joy in simple things, but by then I felt a bit disconnected.

Rating: 3.5/5 – visually striking and worth checking out for fans, but the storytelling could flow better.

I don’t know how to feel about this. I liked the illustrations, their colours and placements, but I felt like the execution was somewhat undone. I think that to enjoy this book, you have to be a big fan of Bowie. You can’t be only someone who enjoys the music, you also have to be interested in his personal life. I tought I was a fan, but while reading this, I felt like I was missing pieces of a puzzle. I don’t think everyone could read this and enjoy it.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book.

I didn’t know what to expect but it wasn’t that. This felt like a story mixed with a Reddit thread of someone stating what all Bowie’s songs were about. It felt super choppy at times and felt like it jumped around a lot. The artwork wasn’t my favorite but it wasn’t bad by any means.

Really vibrant and interesting art work. I am a big fan of Bowie and I loved this Icongraphics books. Thanks for the opportunity to take a look!

Amo David Bowie, anche grazie a mio padre che è suo fan da sempre, e penso che questa graphic novel dalla sua non abbia solo i disegni pazzeschi, ma anche una storia che ti tiene incollato per tutte e 65 le pagine. È sempre bello entrare nella mente di un genio come era Bowie, il Duca Bianco, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, e il pretesto di usare un'intervista di fine anni 70 per raccontare la storia la trovo un'idea geniale. Sicuramente mio padre lo leggerà volentieri!