by JULIET WATERS

Choreographer Twyla Tharp once wrote: "I believe that we all have strands of creative code hard-wired into our imaginations. These strands are as solidly imprinted in us as the genetic code that determines our height and eye colour, except they govern our creative impulses. They determine the forms we work in, the stories we tell, and how to tell them." There's no scientific data to back up Tharp's belief, but I tend to agree with her. No art form confirms this for me more than the graphic novel. It's impossible to read Chris Ware, Lynda Barry, Dan Clowes or Julie Doucet without the strong sense that they were born to do this.

French graphic novelist David B.'s recently translated Epileptic is already being hailed as a masterpiece of the form, up there with seminal works like Art Spiegelman's Maus. While David B.'s painful, poignant illustrated memoir shares the best characteristics of the genre - particularly the bleak terrain made bearable by a childlike sense of absurdity - there's an extra dimension. It's possible one day this book might be looked on as both an autobiography and a medical case study.

Again, I have no scientific proof for this, but from anecdotal evidence I have a theory that a lot of comix geniuses were at least mildly epileptic as kids. Not the kind of classic, eyes rolling back in the head epilepsy. More the kind that produces "auras," mini seizures that can cause especially intense dreams, or spark weird, inexplicable anxieties that cast a surreal tinge over life for a minute here and there. Kind of like acid flashbacks, without the drugs. Most epilepsy disappears after childhood and mild forms are rarely diagnosed, so my theory is that it's an experience that might haunt people at a subconscious level, and explain why comix artists are especially protective of their childhood imagination.

The Epileptic of the title, however, is David B.'s older brother, Jean-Christophe. The novel is the story of the two brothers' lives through childhood and into young adulthood through the late, '60s, '70s and early '80s in France. Jean-Christophe's major seizures started at about age 11. Before that, however, both brothers were plagued by night terrors, illustrated here as typhoons that come for them in the middle of the night. And then the dreams stopped. Jean-Christophe's brain began a path of deterioration as seizures worsened, and his behaviour became increasingly violent, psychotic even, and self-destructive. David B.'s behaviour took the path of obsessive creativity, acting out his anger, confusion and fear in illustrations of massive armies and epic violent clashes.

In search of an ever-elusive cure for the epilepsy, David B.'s family underwent a series of radical lifestyle changes that are a rich source of both tragedy and absurdity. Balking at an operation that would remove part of Jean-Christophe's brain, the family fled to the protection of a Japanese macrobiotic guru. The strict regime of simplicity, stress reduction and low stimulation did seem to eliminate Jean-Christophe's seizures. Unfortunately, the cult/community that they joined didn't survive. The seizures returned and David B.'s parents moved to the country and pursued esoteric, even kooky schools of recourse including magnetic therapists and even Rosicrucians.

On many levels David B.'s is a nightmare childhood, but on others it's a vast treasure of narrative material. From this bizarre upbringing, where hope after hope is dashed, David B. nurtures a sense of existential absurdity that serves him beautifully as a writer and satirist. The minimalist innocence of his illustrations resonate with both fear and wonder as he ruminates on his relationship with his brother. What makes one person fall apart, while another thrives?Chance? Will? Talent? DNA? Maybe we'll have the answer someday. Maybe we never will. In the meantime, hopefully, artists like David B. will continue to brilliantly question.

Epileptic by David B., Pantheon, hc, 361pp, $35