A fascinating look into history. A surreal quality to the art, like Tenniel’s Alice illustrations by way of Marvin Peake.

If your summary promises to tell the story of this big heist, what attracts most of us to read this comic/graphic novel is the promise of said heist. In that sense, I personally find it a big mistake to provide only such a small sample of pages that have nothing to do with the premise.

The art is fantastic, with this grotesque quality that I find it really fits what little of the story we were given, but the pages just go so fast, I could barely start getting into the reasons why Maria decided to became a con artist before it ended.

It has potential but the sample is too small to properly judge.

★☆☆☆☆ Disjointed and Disappointing

"The Woman With Fifty Faces" by Jonathan Lackman promises complexity and intrigue but delivers confusion and pretension instead. What should have been a layered exploration of identity ends up as a muddled mess of pseudo-intellectual meandering. The narrative lacks cohesion, the characters are shallow despite their supposed multiplicity, and the prose often feels more like it's trying to impress than to express. Lackman's overindulgence in metaphor and fragmented storytelling sacrifices emotional depth and clarity. By the end, I felt like I had read fifty disconnected ideas rather than a single compelling story. Hugely underwhelming. There are few mistakes as well. I the intro the Author's name was Jon Lankman and not Jon Lackman. In addition this is only sampled 99 pages and not a complete 232 pages comic book as mentioned on NetGalley or other websites. Sketchy art was good but expressions were so bad.

This wasn't for me. I was excited about the premise of the story, but the end result just didn't work for me. I didn't realize this was only a sample, so while reading I was sometimes confused due to the disjointed feeling in the telling (this may be due to the selected sample pages and not the actual story line). The art also wasn't enjoyable to me.

This is an intriguing concept—exploring identity through fifty shifting personas. The writing is imaginative, with moments of brilliance that delve deep into human nature. However, the sheer number of perspectives can feel overwhelming, and some characters lack depth. While the ambition is admirable, the execution stumbles in places. Still, a thought-provoking read for fans of experimental fiction.

As the subtitle describes, the greatest art heist (and celebrity disappearance) of 20th century Europe was actually the work of a Polish con artist couple. I devoured this historic mystery in graphic form, and will continue returning to look over the art and details again and again. With each perusal more of this amazing story comes to light - different perspectives from various artists' work crystalize and become recognizable, and with focus chaotic timelines of war and economics align and illuminate. The art of Zachary J Pinson, research of author Jon Lackman, and genius of Mr and Mrs Max and Maria Abramowicz are all outstanding.

I thank Fantagraphics Books and NetGalley for the preview galley on Kindle, and will definitely get myself a proper version of the complete book soonest. Publisher release is scheduled for July 22, 2025.

I was able to check out the first 100 pages of this from NetGalley. It’s a really beautifully rendered, pencil-scratchy impressionistic slow glimpse into history. The art is wholly original, breathtakingly evocative and an emotional slow journey. You really feel the sadness, desperation, and inspiration of the genesis of an actress. I did not want this preview to end and was especially fascinated with the way it rendered Jean Cocteau. Something about the way this is drawn allows you to see the characters’ internal struggles and their dreams toward idealized transformations. I want to read the rest!

This is a really fascinating story that I had never heard of before. The artwork is interesting and the interpretation is compelling.

3.5 stars

She arrived in Paris with no fame to her name, yet left behind a myth that outlived her. The Woman with Fifty Faces traces the strange, haunting story of Maria Lani—a woman who convinced the greatest artists of her time to paint her, only to vanish from history almost as suddenly as she appeared. In this graphic biography, fact and illusion dance in shadow, brought vividly to life through stark, unsettling illustrations and a narrative that resists certainty.

This graphic novel stands out for its distinctive artistic style. Rendered entirely in intricate black and white pen and ink, with dense cross-hatching and expressive lines, the visuals are nothing short of hypnotic. Pinson’s art channels expressionist moods—equal parts brutal and tender. The monochrome palette adds a gritty, atmospheric depth, while faces are often distorted or exaggerated to convey raw, unsettling emotion.

The narrative unfolds like a hall of mirrors. The book artfully establishes that Maria Lani’s entire persona was a meticulously crafted illusion. We see her orchestrating "hype," drawing crowds, and using the façade of luxury to establish her credibility. The story cleverly juxtaposes her public grandeur with her private reality.

At its heart, The Woman With Fifty Faces is a profound exploration of identity as a performance. The historical backdrop adds poignancy and weight. The book doesn't shy away from the darker undercurrents of the era – the "vulgar glamour and decadence of 1920s Paris," but also the looming shadows of "Poland’s antisemitic pogroms" and the "Nazi occupation of France." This tumultuous backdrop adds a layer of urgency and danger to Maria's story, suggesting that her reinvention might have been born out of necessity as much as ambition. 

The story is left midair , much like Lani herself—part illusion, part history. In its final frame, the book turns to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, as if to say: this was never just biography, but myth. Maria Lani becomes one of Ovid’s shapeshifters—her identity slipping between truth and performance, illusion and reinvention.

I closed the book not with answers, but with a quiet disquiet. It doesn’t offer resolution—only the lingering weight of reflection. Yet it leaves an indelible impression, its stark visuals and fragmented narrative style continuing to echo long after the final page.

I didn't realize this was a sample instead of an ARC, si I can't properly review incomplete material.

An aspiring film actress, Maria Lani pretended to be a star and managed to persuade over 50 artists to draw her, including Cocteau, Matisse and Chagall. She is a person I hadn't really heard of before, and yet she has been immortalized in seminal paintings and sculptures through her "ruse."

Maria Lani was a Polish Jew living in a time where pogroms and antisemitism in general were rife, and the art in the novel encapsulated the dreary atmosphere, but cinematically too, in black-and-white— presenting Maria's charm and beauty back then. The style is also characterized by caricatures which I think fit the tone and register of the biography.

It's hard to judge a 100-page sampler fully but I would give it 3.75 to 4 stars out of 5 based on what I've read and seen. Definitely an important biography that I feel more people should be more exposed to.

Thank you Fantagraphics and NetGalley for the partial eARC, all opinions are my own.

This lovely graphic, beautifully done. I never seen this type of art in a graphic book, it’s very pretty. The story is very interesting and you just wanna read more, and know what is the actual story of Maria.

I was intrigued by the description of this graphic novel but it didn't hit for me. It could be because I only was able to see the first 100 pages or so but it felt vague in parts and the few words per box for a full sentence that went through was uncomfortable for me to read. I also felt, again maybe because it's a partial manuscript, that we learned more about her partner than herself. I also felt like the ugliness of the art worked for certain parts of the story but for the whole thing to be that way was odd to me.

This seems to be only a third of the book, but I was really enjoying it! The illustrations are creepy and unsettling in a very on point kinda way. Will for sure be reading the rest when it comes out and will go on a wiki dive once I hit submit

This was an interesting story about someone who lives an entirely different life than what people thought. The black and white illustrations felt exaggerated and dark, and the story itself was full of tension. This is a particularly interesting point in time, between the world wars, and I found myself wondering how things would play out if anyone tried something similar now.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this advanced readers copy

Bleak & dark in a distinctly Slavic way. As someone with a Polish family, I appreciate highlighting an interesting piece of Polish history.
The scenery panels are darkly beautiful. The drawings of people are unsettling charicatures. Particularly the men’s faces. Stylized. Meta at points. It was the parropriate length for the tone, I think. It made it readable.

It feels like the kind of graphic novel one might be assigned to read in college course. Good for more traditional academics and or/history/art people. There is an....hm...a vagueness? about it that I associate with academia. It has no clear endpoint, the emotional journey was unsettling and uncomfortable, and the ugliness of peoples' illustrated faces is only interesting so many times (everything in a review is personal, but this point particularly).

I think it did a thing better than a lot of bleak (perhaps a bit dull) scholar-praised graphic novels and short stories do: it ended quickly. This is a get in, convey your strange, bleak, ambiguous illustrated biography, and get out before you remind us too deeply why we didn't all stay in academia.

On April 7, 1928, Maria Lani blew into Paris claiming to be a famous German actress and proceeded to seduce the cultural elite with her undeniable charisma and strangely enticing enigmatic aura. She persuaded fifty artists —Pierre Bonnard, Marc Chagall, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Georges-Henri Rouault, Fernand Léger and Suzanne Valadon among them— to immortalize her in paintings and sculptures, which would appear as an important plot device in a forthcoming film.

I admit I've never heard of Lani, but her story is fascinating. I found the art a mix or beautiful and disturbing. So many were like scenes from a nightmare, and I suppose that is exactly what they are.

I'm looking forward to reading the actual book after this sample from Netgalley.
Recommended. Expected publishing date July 22, 2025

Thanks to @netgalley and   Fantagraphics Books | Fantagraphics for the opportunity to read this eArc in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

Thanks Netgalley and publisher for granting my wish to read this interesting graphic novel!

It’s actually intriguing that there was such a real person like Maria Lani who got her portrait painted by 59 artists. Like she went through a rough childhood with her father dying in a workplace accident and her mother dying of an illness when Maria was in her 20s. I like the fact this novel makes you want to read more as it’s pretty atmospheric with how the late 1800s to the mid 1910s would’ve looked like. I really wish I could read more than just 100 pages of this story as I said, it’s really interesting!

The Past is a Grotesque Animal is an extremely interesting work thanks to the story it presents and a disturbing illustration, unfortunately I can't make an opinion with an incomplete material.
Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for this advanced reader's copy.

Thank you to NetGalley for my Advanced Reader's Selection from this book. It's always difficult to review a book that you weren't given the whole copy of but I said I would leave an honest review for the chance to read it.

This book is dark and the art is grotesque. The subtitle is "Maria Lani & The Greatest Art Heist That Never Was". After reading this, I know more about who Maria Lani was but nothing about the art heist that never was. I'm sure their is an audience for this book but I am not it.