Thelonious Sphere Monk and Kathleen Annie Pannonica de Koenigswarter (née Rothschild) had one of the most unique friendships in the history of jazz music, and it is the center around which this graphic novel is woven.  While Monk's career began over a decade before he met de Koenigswarter – at which point he had already recorded his most important compositions –  their relationship spanned the final three decades of Monk's life and career, and makes a great story.  And that story is, while greatly simplified here, told with a great élan which evinces an obvious passion for the material on the part of its creator, Youssef Daoudi.  There are more great comics sequences of jazz performance between two covers than any other work we can think of.  In addition to the innumerable portraits of Monk at rest, dancing to the music of the spheres, and in performance, there are portraits – mostly in performance – of a vast swath of his cohorts, including Bird, Diz, Miles, Trane and many others.

And, reading this will have you pulling out your Monk discs and giving them yet another listen (or two, or three...), which in and of itself is enough to recommend it.  Monk!

NOW OUT OF PRINT. 

ONE COPY.

Orson Welles was only 25 years old when he directed Citizen Kane, one the single most important and influential movies of all time – it was ranked "the greatest film of all time" by many film critics for decades (for example, The British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine's decennial poll, which gathers the opinions of critics, had "Citizen Kane" at the top for four decades, from 1962 to 2002).  Hard to believe, right?  Think of what you were up to when you were 25.

So, suffice it to say, starting out that big that early is going to have an effect on anyone's self-perception, and, of course, on the perception that others had of him, in turn.  Youssef Daoudi has already given us an intriguing look at Thelonious Monk that focused on his relationship with Pannonica de Koenigswarter, and here in the 272 pages of The Giant, expressively drawn black & white, he provides a look at the effects that such a level of early success had on the arc of Orson Welle's later life and career.