I had a lot of trouble finding a copy of City of Glass, and ended up just reading it in a reading room at the library, which was a shame because after reading it I wanted to take it home and absorb it and really get to think about it. I liked it very much. I've read about Paul Auster (though not actually read him), and I would be very interested to see his representation of this story, because after reading it as a comic I can't imagine it any other way.

Dave Mazzuchelli's art was familiar to me from Batman Year One, and I was pleased to see him again employing the noirish clarity he used in that book- his work isn't just dark and gritty, its stark, focused, unmistakable. In Batman it lent a dose of reality to the work, and here it grounds it, so that even as the story spirals out of sanity the visual touchstones make sure we never lose it. There were so many points where he employed visual suggestions that would have been impossible, not only in any other medium, but in any other style. For example, when he speaks of the city as the labrynth, the lines faze effortlessly from city to maze in a way that is only possible because the city was being portrayed in clear, cartoonish simplicity in the first place.

The story itself recalled some of the Manhattan in the 70's wierdness of Donald Barthelme. The "characters meet the author" trope is a common one- Grant Morrison, Stranger than Fiction and Cerebus have all made use of it. But by adapting the story the dynamic is shifted slightly, characters are no longer meeting their creator, but their inspiration, the creator once removed.

Stillman's monologue was incredible, visual trickery that was absolutely essential to the text. I couldn't imagine it any other way.