Muybridge

Muybridge is a graphic biography of Eadweard Muybridge, the photographer whose work made pictures move. It opens in Sacramento, California, in 1870. Muybridge is a pioneering photographer who gets drawn into the grand delusions of Leland Stanford, a railroad baron. Stanford believes that a galloping horse has all four hooves off the ground at once, and he wants it proved. Muybridge takes up the challenge with his camera.

In the process, he inadvertently creates one of the most important technological advances of the modern age. His work leads to time-lapse photography and a mechanical way of capturing motion. Despite one career breakthrough after another, his life was also marked by betrayal, intrigue and tragedy.

The book is by cartoonist Guy Delisle, author of the nonfiction comics Pyongyang and Hostage. Delisle looks for the small details that often go unnoticed, hoping to reach a broader emotional truth about Muybridge and the people around him. The book looks at what lies in the shadow of one person's ambition for greatness. It argues that Muybridge deserves to be remembered as more than a historical footnote.

The book was translated from the French by Helge Dascher and Rob Aspinall.