Andre the Giant

April 7, 2014
Cartoonist Brown (The Survivalist) uses professional wrestling’s complex narrative devices in this biography, which pulls back the curtain on Andre the Giant (Andre Rousimoff), one of the industry’s most well-known figures. Brown tells Andre’s life story using both narrative and recollections by Andre’s contemporaries, blurring the line between what’s real and what’s just part of the show, mirroring the tradition of professional wrestling. Although he enjoyed worldwide fame, Andre’s life was hardly glamorous: he was on the road for long stretches, boozing and fighting at local dives; he suffered an array of health issues due to his immense size (he was 7’4” and weighed over 500 pounds); and he frequently felt isolated due to his enormity. Brown’s simple, blocky art keeps the story front and center, and the down-to-earth tone allows him to avoid demonizing or lionizing his subject. An engaging biography of a literally larger-than-life character.

Starred review from April 1, 2014
A labor-of-love tribute, exquisitely rendered, to the larger-than-life wrestling giant. Artist Brown combines his passion for pro wrestling with the clarity of his drawings in a biography that never sentimentalizes its subject nor reduces his life to a rote series of facts. Despite his meticulous research, he admits that in the fantasyland of professional wrestling, it can be tough to separate tall tales from the truth, and he recognizes that for the sake of the narrative, he must rely on his creative imagination. Though he has a source for his anecdote about a boyhood encounter between Andre Roussimoff (1946-1993) and literary visionary Samuel Beckett, who offered the youngster a cigarette but warned that they "stunt your growth," readers might likely conclude that whether or not it happened, it should have. Much of the rest is easier to document--his interview with David Letterman, his phenomenal wrestling career, his relationship with Hulk Hogan, his acting in The Princess Bride (both Billy Crystal and Mandy Patinkin make cameo appearances here), and his prodigious appetites for food, drink and sex. For all of Andre's international success and acclaim, as Hogan says, "I heard people say horrible things and make fun of him. He lived in a cruel world....He was a gracious person with a kind heart." He was also someone whose freakish size (almost 7 1/2 feet tall and 600 pounds) had him living under a death sentence, causing premature aging and countless medical problems, making it impossible to find beds that fit him and difficult to squeeze into bathrooms. Both the narrative and the drawing resist the clutter of unnecessary detail, rendering the life and legend of a complex man with creative precision. An achievement that merits a wider readership than just wrestling fans, deserving recognition for the quality of its graphic art.

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May 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-Students may never have heard of Andre Roussimoff, a man born in France in the late 1950s, who would go on to become one of the first stars in the early modern era of professional wrestling. Born with a rare syndrome known as acromegaly, he produced too much growth hormone in his body. This rendered him so gigantic that as a child, he was unable to fit on the bus to go to school. Eventually finding his calling on the stage, Roussimoff eventually became a chronic drinker and smoker as he became more and more successful. He took frequent trips to Japan where he was regarded as an international celebrity. But his life was not devoid of conflict and strife. He was in constant pain as a result of his condition. He also had a daughter he barely ever saw. This in-depth and well-researched look into the life of the memorable actor from The Princess Bride is interesting and complex. Drawing from number of different sources, Brown has constructed as complete a portrait of Andre the Giant as he possibly could. While some of the language and situations in this graphic novel biography are definitely for older audiences, high school wrestling fans can nonetheless enjoy this intimate look into the life of an industry legend.-Ryan P. Donovan, New York Public Library

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2014
Larger-than-average Andr' the Giant had a larger-than-life personality to match, and award-winning cartoonist Brown manages to capture the legendary wrestler's career in charming, heartfelt black-and-white panels. After a few snippets of an interview with Andr''s fellow wrestler Hulk Hogan, Brown starts off with a doozy of an anecdote: 12-year-old Andr', too big to fit in the school bus, gets a ride to school in the back of Samuel Beckett's pickup truck in exchange for a bottle of Beaujolais. From there, Brown covers Andr''s storied career in wrestling, his movie roles, his insatiable drinking (reportedly once running up a $40,000 bar tab), and the many health problems he faced owing to his acromegaly. Throughout, Andr' comes across as a good-natured, gentle giant with a playful sense of humor and love for showmanship. He was, of course, no stranger to controversy, but Brown only lightly touches on those moments, choosing instead to keep the tone laudatory. Given Andr' the Giant's long-standing popularity among a wide audience, fans of professional wrestling aren't the only ones who will line up to read this one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)