By Zack Quaintance — I came into Brain Drain by Pierre-Henry Gomont entirely unfamiliar with the French cartoonist’s work as well as the utterly bizarre true story that this book is based upon — and by page 9 I was entirely hooked me. What worked best (and very quickly) for me with this book was the inherent cleverness of the setup and the true story concept, based as it is on Thomas Stoltz Harvey stealing and keeping Albert Einstein’s brain during his autopsy. In the earliest pages of Brain Drain, Einstein has died, leaving the entire country to wonder how. Stoltz is charged with performing an autopsy — under much scrutiny.

“The whole world is watching!” our hero is told. “Cut him open. Report. Stitch him up.”

He does not do this. He does, in fact, steal Einstein’s brain.

And from there we’re off, pushed forward not just by a compelling series of errors in judgement by our hero, but also by an overarching sense of dark humor that blossoms as the story develops. None of this works if the book doesn’t maintain its wit and fine execution throughout, though. Which it most certainly does, predicated as it is by the twist implied in the book’s concept and title — the protagonist ultimately stealing the brain (you can and should go down a rabbit hole reading about the truth of this). And the book is filled with subsequent twists — both emotional and practical — all of which feel both surprising as well as totally in line with Brain Drain’s excellent source material and dark humor lens.

As I was reading Brain Drain, I found myself expertly guided through these pages by the artist, my eyes hurrying across hilarious panels packed with pithy dialogue, while alternately resting far longer on the occasional splash page (the professor laid out in a cathedral meant to represent the quiet imposing life pivot our hero feels upon examining him, for example). I bring up that cathedral page because it also speaks to another of this book’s strengths — Gomont makes an almost fearless use of imagery as metaphor, sprinkling it amply in between straight-forward panels that move his plot forward.

When our hero has a sudden idea (the idea to heist the brain) rush upon him, we get a shot of steaming locomotive approaching the front of the frame, meant to represent the force with which this notion has entered his own head. This metaphor reoccurs throughout, becoming increasingly complex and depicting the track on which his life is on, the shadowy switchman who ultimately controls where it goes, and so on. It’s the type of experimental visual cleverness that often lies dormant in comics, just hinting at the upper-possibilities of the medium. While such risks don’t always serve the plot to absolute perfection in Brain Drain, Gomont’s batting average is very very high, and even the bits that feel a little off are ultimately choices that the reader can both understand and appreciated.

The book is set in Red Scare 1950s America, at Princeton to start, but the setting does feel a little beside the point, sort of just a necessity required to stick to the actual events. This leads to some American cultural cliches and assumptions (the book describes the Midwest flatness as lending itself to metaphysical musings, which, questionable). There are also jocks and donut-loving FBI agents who are hyper-vigilant for communists, but really this story could be happening anywhere a hubristic bumbler goes up against the scary mechanisms of a certain type of society. What really drives the story, though, is the clever sincerity with which the Einstein brain heist is explored. This book posits the hero as hungry for fame (and romantic affairs), as a bit bumbling, and, overall, desperate to make some kind of mark on the world, to be less than anonymous, to be a fraction as great as the body with which he is tasked to dissect. There’s a real tension here, between ordinary and extraordinary, between those who achieve and those who lust powerlessly for achievements. Stoltz in this book is a leech, but he’s a leech that the story wants us to understand, if not feel bad for. And while the actual actions of the hero are difficult for most folks to wrap their heads around, that longing for notoriety outside one’s own quiet life does feel quite universal, making it perhaps the single greatest strength of the book, aside from the dark sense of humor.

The other strength of the book I’d like to mention is the cartooning. Gomont’s work here is dense and compressed, reliant on his intelligence as a storyteller more than anything. But that doesn’t mean he’s a slouch on the visuals. There are interesting uses of color splashed across the pages of Brain Drain, be it in the aforementioned uses of metaphor or simply some of the quieter and more consequential scenes. Gomont also does a tremendous job detailing new settings with intricate and interesting establishing shots.

There’s all of that in here, and there are also elements of a buddy comedy, with Stoltz and Einstein’s brainless corpse on the lamb throughout Brain Drain Part 2. At times as well, the book tips into a semi-biographical exploration of Einstein’s life and legacy, looking at his fame, his idiosyncratic habits, and even his role in developing the atomic bomb. On top of that, the latter half of the book has what seems to me like some real, substantial theories about the nature of the human brain (I say seems, because my own grasp on brain science is minimal). In Part 2, things get away from what’s known about the true story, but that’s just fine. We get an antagonist out of it, and we also get some interesting ideas, mentions variously of sciences related to unified field theory as well as psilocybin (both of which are interest areas of mine). I won’t go into the conclusion of this story in detail, but will note that I found it satisfying.

Most importantly, however, the book is compulsively readable from start to finish (in both Brain Drain Part 1 as well as Brain Drain Part 2), which is why it gets my hearty recommendation.

Brain Drain Pierre-Henry Gomont Cover.jpg

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: Brain Drain, Part 1 and Part 2

Brain Drain
Creator: Pierre-Henry Gomont
Publisher: Europe Comics
Certain details surrounding the death of Albert Einstein are so outlandish as to sound like urban legend: namely, the theft of his brain by Thomas Stoltz Harvey, the pathologist who performed the eminent physicist’s autopsy. From these historical events, Pierre-Henry Gomont concocts a picaresque road trip of a tale by turns farcical and moving, whimsical and melancholy, sweeping up in its narrative whirlwind the FBI, a sanatorium, neurobiology, hallucinogens, hospital bureaucracy, and romance. In his dissection of friendship and the forging of scientific reputation, the nimble cartoonist serves up a slice of lovingly rendered Americana for the ages.
Price: $8.99 each, or $17.98 total
Release Date: Brain Drain, Part 2 is out January 26, 2021
Buy It Digitally: Brain Drain, Part 1 and Brain Drain, Part 2

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.