It is primarily told from the point of view of Bertrand Russell, and so is almost a biography of this important 20th century mathematician/philosopher. In fact, I did learn a lot about Russell from reading it. However, to enhance the story, the authors have him interact directly with the people whose work is related to his including Frege, Cantor, Hilbert and Gödel, even though these meetings are not historical. Moreover, interwoven with the story are scenes featuring the authors and artists as the discuss what form the book should take. (For instance, somewhere in the middle Papadimitriou suggests the title.)

The book is stylishly illustrated, the writing is clear and interesting, and the math (such as it is) is essentially correct. So far so good. However, the authors have very different ideas of the main point. Whereas Doxiadis sees it as a tragedy about the relationship between logic and madness, Papadimitriou sees it as the foundation for the wonderful world of computer science. Perhaps the self-referential aspects of the authors discussing the book in the book and the comparison of these two viewpoints could itself be a selling point. However, whereas Papadimitriou (at least his representation in the book) seems to have a mild dislike for Doxiadis' viewpoint, I personally find it very offensive. Not only do I think his notion that there is a link between insanity and math research (which I complained about in UPGC and I find no more appealing now that he focuses it only on logicians) is misguided, I disagree with his implication that this story indicates the ultimate failure of logic. (As regards the former, it is quite easy to create the impression that a link between madness and mathematics exists when the author is able to select which characters to discuss, which moments in their lives to look at and what to emphasize. For instance, we are told about relatives of Russell who had mental disorders and that he briefly had suicidal thoughts as a child. If one does not employ logic, this might seem like evidence. But, if logic is utilized, and in this context one ought to, you realize that Doxiadis did not list whether non-mathematical characters might have had the same "links" and probably did not even check to see. I remain skeptical, and worried that this stereotype is harmful to the discipline. And, as regards the latter, in my opinion the fact that logic is powerful enough to recognize its own limitations is a triumph, not a failure.)

I do recommend this comic book to people who want to learn about the foundations of mathematics, but would urge them not to get too carried away with Doxiadis' viewpoint. Just as his brief biography on the back cover of Logicomix exaggerates the truth when it claims that his UPGC was the first novel of mathematical fiction (a claim which can obviously be disproved using this database), his tragic view of the history of mathematics should be considered skeptically.

A very positive review of Logicomix appeared in The Guardian in 2009, and the November 2010 issue of the AMS Notices contained a review with a lot of useful information and apparently sharing my dislike of the "insanity" hypothesis that the graphic novel promotes.

Yes, Sandro, I see what you mean. It is on page 143 in my copy. His "word balloon" shows an equation where the left side appears to be the nth partial derivative with respect to x_i of F(y) and the right side is one over h factorial times an infinite sum of antiderivatives of the nth power of F. Since the left side depends on i and y and the right side does not, I do not see how this could make sense. But, it is difficult to imagine that the authors were satisfied just writing down random mathematical notation here. Does anyone know of a reasonable formula that is not too far from this one that might have been miscopied by the letterer? Or, maybe the authors just do not have a high opinion of Gösta Mittag-Leffler!