"The Imitation Game": a graphic biography

The Imitation Game, the upcoming film starring Benedict Cumberbatch, with early Academy Award chatter, promises to make its subject, mathematician and computing visionary Alan Turing, if not a household name, then a deservedly more well known and major figure in the origins and development of modern computing. His role in the creation of electronic code breaking devices that neutralized the German Enigma machines which played a critical role in the Allies victory will help shed an heroic and even more complex light on this fascinating and still somewhat obscure figure. Andrew Hodges' scientific biography Alan Turing: The Enigma remains the gold standard, a deep and comprehensive read.

Recently, however, Jim Ottaviani and Leland Purvis have published online at Tor.com a fascinating graphic biography , also called The Imitation Game, that provides a wonderful overview of Turing's life, visually engaging and technically expansive in exposing some of the math, science and ideas that makes the scientist's story so engrossing. Not available in print just yet but you can read it online here http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/06/the-imitation-game-jim-ottaviani-leland-purvis

Another generous and worthy telling of a major figure and contributor to the contemporary world whose personal life and orientation - and whose self awareness, well ahead of his time -- unfortunately led to his destruction.

 -Anthony Napoli

Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn