Asterios Polyp, the new graphic novel from writer and illustrator David Mazzucchelli, is a staggering work, but not because of its size or the story it tells. What’s staggering about the book is its sheer inventiveness and artistic ambition. In Asterios Polyp, Mazzucchelli brazenly experiments with his medium, creating a brilliantly original work of art that not only possesses a fine narrative, but also acts as an essay on the limitless potential of the comic book.

The book’s story is fairly straightforward — on the surface. Asterios Polyp is a successful, recently divorced architect and professor with an unflagging dedication to his own intellect. After his upscale apartment burns to the ground on his 50th birthday, Asterios uses the money in his pocket to buy a bus ticket to as far away as possible. When he arrives he takes a job as a mechanic — the first job he can find — and acquires room and board with his new employer’s blue-collar family. While acclimatizing to his new life, Asterios often recalls his old one, specifically the times spent with his ex-wife Hana.

Underneath this simple story, Mazzucchelli — who’s probably best known for his work in the ’80s with Frank Miller on Daredevil and Batman: Year One — flexes his storytelling muscles in inspired and sophisticated ways. Narrated by Asterios’s twin brother who died in the womb, the way the book presents itself is complex. Hopping between the present, flashbacks to the past, speculative glimpses and metaphysical sojourns into the mind — sometimes on the same page — Asterios Polyp is sprawling in scope, but its purpose is never obfuscated.

Mazzucchelli’s art largely deserves the credit for maintaining coherency. Each character is given a distinctive look that is sometimes wildly divergent from the people surrounding them. Asterios himself is oblique, angular and the most abstracted character in the book, mirroring his own intellectual detachment. Hana is much softer, all flowing lines and delicate features.

When the two argue in flashbacks, Asterios, the architect, becomes a collection of 3-D geometric shapes, while Hana, the sculptor, transforms into sketchy pen strokes and cross shading. When Asterios is lost in his own thoughts, Mazzucchelli abandons traditional comic panels for wide-open landscapes that merge with one another across the pages. When it’s the present, the art compresses to fit tightly with the passage of time.

Perhaps even more praiseworthy than Mazzucchelli’s art is his use of colour. In addition to each character having a distinctive look, they also have their own colour palette. At first this is hardly noticeable, but as the book progresses, the way characters are coloured becomes increasingly important. In most comics, colour is used esthetically; here it’s as important as the book’s plot.

Ultimately, no discussion of Asterios Polyp will do it justice — the book is simply too magnificent. To properly convey its greatness the book can only be put into somebody’s hands. It’s too early to say anything definitively, but Asterios Polyp has all the makings of one of comic’s all-time classics.