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Thomas Ott
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THOMAS OTT - THE NUMBER - THOM Hardcover – February 1, 2016

Italian Edition by Thomas Ott (Author)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 42 ratings
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Nel braccio della morte, il boia che ha appena portato a compimento l'esecuzione di un condannato trova vicino alla sedia elettrica un foglietto con una sequenza numerica e, affascinato dall'enigma che potenzialmente rappresenta, decide di portarlo con sé. Da quel momento i numeri cominciano ad affiorargli intorno nell'ordine in cui sono riportati scandendo ogni momento della sua quotidianità. Inizialmente la loro presenza determina una svolta positiva: a partire dal ritrovamento di un cagnolino smarrito, l'uomo inizia una relazione sentimentale e vince una somma consistente al casinò giocando proprio i numeri che ha trovato. Ma, dopo una notte felice, il risveglio porta con sé un brusco cambiamento e la sequenza numerica torna a ricomporsi foriera di sventure fino a una conclusione agghiacciante che innesca un ineluttabile meccanismo ciclico. Con questa graphic novel, Thomas Ott torna a catturare il lettore/spettatore con il suo tratto allucinante e perentorio, graffiato abilmente su tavole nere secondo la tecnica dello "scratchboard". L'aspetto grezzo connaturato alla tecnica, che consiste nel ricoprire di inchiostro nero il foglio e grattarlo via con un pennino per far emergere i disegni, è sapientemente controbilanciato dalla ricchezza di dettagli e dalla finezza delle espressioni che l'artista conferisce ai personaggi. Il segno luminoso emerge vigorosamente dall'oscurità veicolando alla perfezione l'illusione della tridimensionalità.
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  1. Language
    Italian
  2. Publisher
    Logos
  3. Publication date
    February 1, 2016
  4. ISBN-10
    8857607976
  5. ISBN-13
    978-8857607979
  6. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Logos (February 1, 2016)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ Italian
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 8857607976
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-8857607979
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.1 ounces
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 42 ratings

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Thomas Ott

Thomas Ott

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Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
42 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

curt dilger
5.0 out of 5 stars take a number....
Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2008
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I've been waiting for this book, since I am a big fan of Thomas Ott's work, some of the finest being done in graphic novels, and I was convinced this one would be special. The underlying story is deepening in his work, and now this book has resolved one of the critical conceptual problems in the graphic novel in a beautiful way. The best graphic novelists understand that the balloon is the death of creativity, unless used ironically, knowingly, and instead find other, more deeply felt ways to insinuate the textual element into the graphic narration. Shaun Tan's recent publication, The Arrival, is another fantastic realization of this issue and has its own brilliant solution. Ott here uses a long hyphenated number, a deliberately cross lingual cypher, printed on a small strip of paper, to show a hopscotch-like narrative, involving a talismanic relation between this paper "master" number carried by two different men, and their "sinthomic" relationship with fragments of this number, as they wander through the labyrinth of their mathematically foreclosed fate.

Very poignant and beautiful parable, perfect for the medium. There are no pyrotechnics with the format; it is a laconic distribution of plates, four at the most per page, its sobriety a reiteration of the story's bleak progress. But all of the drawings clearly reveal a labor of love, a superbly crafted scratchboard subtractive drawing technique that has become Ott's trade mark.

Three observations always seem to emerge from books of this quality that argue for them in favor of film. The speed with which the story can be "skimmed" its essence extracted, is amazing, far faster than filmic media, and under the control of the viewer, who can himself decide on the story's rhythm, on which drawings to linger. Also, the graphic novelist has considerably more freedom in format, instead of fairly restricted industry aspect ratios in filmic media (I'm reminded very much here of Sergei Eisenstein's essay "the Dynamic Square"). Finally, the comprehensive mise-en-scene of graphic novels is equally impressive to film (admittedly without the soundtrack), but it can be realized by one person and can represent an undiluted, uncompromised, excellent work of imaginative, innovative, narrative art, striving to capitalize its A. Very Highly Recommended. And thought provoking far beyond the work itself.
8 people found this helpful
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Josef
5.0 out of 5 stars Top Notch Ott!
Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2019
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If you're a fan of "Panoptimum" - this is a must get. It's one continuous wordless graphic story by scratch artist Thomas Ott - Loved It!
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Gio
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice graphic quality
Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2020
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Nice black and white ink work. Sorry is compelling and well told.
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GraphicNovelReporter.com
5.0 out of 5 stars A Story to Be Savored
Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2009
How long can you spend reading a book without words? Quite a bit, it turns out, and when the book is as good as The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8, you can see why. You can lose yourself for long spells in each lush image on every page.

Writer and illustrator Thomas Ott sets the tone early. His detailed, line-filled black-and-white drawings recall film noir, and his "Twilight Zone"-like tale of obsession and greed creeps steadily along to a conclusion you know must come but desperately hope to avoid.

With no words or dialogue, Ott's unnamed protagonist, an electric chair operator for the local prison, arrives at work to do his job. From the executed prisoner's last possession, his Bible, falls a strip of paper with the numbers 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 printed on it. Their meaning is lost, but the executioner keeps the paper anyway, and soon he notices their importance. Everything in his life is running on a pattern, the numbers repeating in strange and unexpected ways: a dog tag, a phone number, an address, a sequence of winning numbers on a roulette wheel.

Unable to resist the temptation of using this numerical foreknowledge for his own gain, he falls prey to his own vices. This is where The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 truly begins to shine, as a smart morality tale with a devious twist. It works as a sharp allegory to the notion that people see what they want to see, form patterns where they wish them to appear, and surrender logic to passion. Those patterns repeat, seemingly on an endless loop, and while it appears to be a wonderful progression at first, the horror of the entire situation slowly dawns on reader and protagonist alike.

Ott has a wonderful way of capturing the mysterious beauty of the unknown through the eyes of his everyman. In the timeless era in which the story is set, nothing feels real, yet everything is as familiar as the back of one's hand. There's an overwhelming sense of danger lurking just somewhere in the edges, hidden in the shadows of these drawings, pervading every scene with that terrible prescient feeling things are far different from what they seem and that everything will be changing soon. Even the passage of time is shrouded in mystery, or at least obscured.

Sustaining this ominous feeling throughout the entire story is a difficult task, but Ott manages it with ease. Credit his natural ability to tell a story in pictures with keeping this ambitious project from ever sinking to the level of trite. With or without words, The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 is a story to be savored--and one that resonates.

-- John Hogan
5 people found this helpful
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EisNinE
5.0 out of 5 stars Not Just Another Comic; This Book Is An Art Object
Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2014
Thomas Otts' mastery of the scratchboard -- each page of this book was created on a thin, gessoed, masonite board covered in dried black ink, and pictures are made by scratching away this ink to reveal the white surface below -- is the result of years spent practicing this difficult medium. It is anti-intuitive, the reverse of drawing... lines are revealed, not drawn. This wordless tale about inexplicable coincidences and the human tendency to find patterns and meanings everywhere they look, tied up around a supernatural revenge drama concerning a condemned man and his executioner, is the product of many hours of work. The results are amazing, some of the most beautiful comic art ever created. The books' design matches that of Otts' other two most recent works, 'Cinema Panopticum' and 'RIP: The Best of 1985 - 2004', released as hardcovers by Editions Moderne (available through amazon.de & .fr) and Fantagraphics. The hardcovers are 6" x 9" with cloth-wrapped spines and black board covers; they use a very heavy and glossy black stock to best display the details of the artwork. This book is an art object in its' own right, and rewards frequent rereadings.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Glemonat
5.0 out of 5 stars Magistrale disegno
Reviewed in Italy on July 19, 2023
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Tecnica eccezionale. Storia più che discreta. È senza testo.
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BixiMai
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic
Reviewed in Germany on November 23, 2021
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Fantastic story and drawings!!!
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user177
5.0 out of 5 stars Edición buena y obra suprema!
Reviewed in Spain on October 11, 2021
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Edición buena y obra excepcional de Thomas Ott
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Ruth vine
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 28, 2018
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The Art work in this book is so beautiful, the story is very clever too
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DIACONO
5.0 out of 5 stars diventerà la vostra ossessione.....
Reviewed in Italy on April 2, 2016
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Premessa: non sono un cultore ne un appassionato di fumetti.

Posto questo definire l' opera di Ott un fumetto non sarebbe corretto e soprattutto riduttivo, si tratta di una storia cupa e ossessiva, fatta di sole immagini ( non ci sono dialoghi, caratteristica peculiare della produzione dell' artista svizzero) realizzate con una tecnica straordinaria e unica che ha colpito anche un profano come il sottoscritto; tornando alla storia si denota uno straordinario sviluppo, inquietante e circolare, che fa leva su ossessioni tipiche del comportamento umano.
Un altro eccezionale punto a favore è che nonostante si divori questo capolavoro in brevissimo tempo, dopo poco si avrà la necessità di riprenderlo per cercare di cogliere tutti i dettagli nascosti nelle immagini per avere l' illusione (di questo si tratta, in quanto le chiavi di lettura sono molteplici) di risolvere l' enigma.
Opera quasi cinematografica con riferimenti al cinema espressionista tedesco e sotto l' influenza di Lynch e autori simili.
Imperdibile
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