Graphic Novel Review: ‘Muybridge’ by Guy Delisle from Drawn+Quarterly

Muybridge by Guy Delisle, published by Drawn and Quarterly, is a graphic biography of Eadweard Muybridge, the Father of the Motion Picture. Even if someone is not familiar with the name, likely they have seen his work. Muybridge was already accomplished in natural and man-made landscapes when he tackled the problem of capturing movement in an era of long exposures. These achievements are story-worthy alone, but Muybridge’s story proves to be much more human than anyone might expect.

Muybridge Departs and Returns to England

Delisle begins the Muybridge story in 1850 as young Muybridge departs England, telling his mother, “I am going to make a name for myself. If I fail, you will never hear of me again.” He sets off for the Land of Opportunity, working in New York as a book dealer for five years before deciding to set out to California. There he learns of the daguerreotype, a scientific marvel that could freeze an image onto a metal plate. He did not leap into the new art at all; he instead decided to return to New York, had a debilitating stage coach crash, and recuperated in England for six years.

Making a Name for Himself

Only after Muybridge saw that his patent for a hand-crank washing machine was nothing new did he decide to return to California and dabble in photography. He did not have patience for people, so portraiture did not suit him. Instead, his problem-solving mind was suited to developing new directions for photography by traveling quickly in his “Helios’ Flying Studio” to take pictures of earthquake damage and hiking miles for stereoscopic photos of Yosemite. Finally, Muybridge had made a name for himself, but his story had only beginning.

Being a successful photographer might be enough work for one life, not to mention the personal tragedy and murder that besought him, but as Delisle shows, Muybridge was not finished until he had solved his last problem. Challenged by Leland Stanford, Muybridge was determined to photograph a galloping horse. The mission took years and cost the equivalent of over one million dollars, but it set Muybridge onto the path of studying anatomical motion that would make a name for him forever in history. As Delisle notes, the resulting book has never been out of print, though without Muybridge, we may not know the whole story of his complicated life.

A Torch to Fireworks

Throughout Muybridge, Delisle takes moments to explain the historical context, even presenting reproductions of the original photographs. By “original,” these are truly the first photographs, such as Niepce’s 1827 View from the Window at Le Gras and Daguerre’s 1838 Boulevard du Temple, which includes the first portrait, accidentally, of a man standing still enough while getting his boots shined that he did not become a blur like the others in the photo. He details chemistry and the early stages of the motion picture industry, which required such a leap in technology to do what Muybridge was doing that one might compare a torch to fireworks. Even innovations a century later like the Wachowski’s bullet time in The Matrix would be rediscoveries of Muybridge’s multi-camera cleverness.