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Dec 17, 2009

Kyle rated it:

I love me some graphic novels but I don't pretend that the vast majority of them rise to the level of serious literature. Most of the time I look for the large number of books out there that are "clever" (as in, better than 90% of TV) as a mindless respite between novels. And in the case of ones such as Louis Riel, Berlin, or Maus, I get a little bit of education without trudging through a 600 page history book.

Jimmy Corrigan, though, is one of the five or six graphic n More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Jay rated it:

I'm surprised that GoodReads doesn't allow a sixth star for this book alone. I can not say enough great things about Jimmy Corrigan. Honestly, it changed my life, and I can't imagine anyone not being in awe of its mathematics, literally and figuratively. This book is like the Catcher in the Rye for graphic novels. It raised the bar and it will not be matched for a very long time. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Breathtaking and deep. Brilliant. More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Jun 23, 2008

Anne rated it:

A friend, a physicist actually, recommended this to me after I rolled my eyes at superhero comic books. It's really great, heavy stuff. In just episode 1, Jimmy gets to meet his hero at a convention, who macks on his mom, stays the night, ignores Jimmy, and then leaves Jimmy to pass on his regrets/greetings to the mom.
The big plot, though, is twofold. One, how Jimmy gets re-discovered by his father, who had earlier walked. It turns out the father had re-married, and the story of that fami More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Nov 06, 2008

Mark rated it:

Incredibly sad. The impressive thing is most of the melancholy doesn't stem from overwrought, dramatic events but rather the eerily believable facets of Jimmy's life. The drab apartment buildings with neglected trees and empty parking lots, complete with a McDonald's arch in the distance. Jimmy eating a can of Campbell's soup by himself after stammering his way through a conversation with his overbearing mother. The shitty Thanksgiving decorations at the retirement home he visits.

More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Laura rated it:

Some of my favorite books are graphic novels, and this one is second maybe only to Blankets. It's a sad, shockingly complex graphic novel that toys with your expectations of the comic medium. Jimmy's a lonely middle-aged man who's in an unhealthily co-dependent relationship with his also-lonely mother. He doesn't know who his father is--until the day he sees a man dressed as Superman commit suicide outside his office window. On that same day, he receives a letter and a plane ticket from a st More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 30, 2007

Nick rated it:

Well, the technical quality of the art is certainly good, and it's formally inventive and all that, and it most definitely does an effective job at maintaining and conveying a consistent mood- if you were feeling charitable, you could even say that there's something kind of magnificent about it's overwhelming, unrelieved bleakness- but when I was finished I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the point of the whole thing had been. On quality I'd say it deserved three stars, if it wasn't More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Dec 01, 2008

Patrick rated it:

I know this is the graphic novel to end all graphic novels but I have to say I wasn't terribly blown away. It was well laid out and pretty to look at but was almost cliched in its portrayal of a loner. Meh.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2012

Steven rated it:

"Since he always did what he was told he deserved better treatment in general."

(Oh, graphic novel form, where all the best storytellers appear to live...)

Sorry, you weren't supposed to hear me like that, but sometimes when I think in the written format I find that I'm actually thinking aloud. But back to Jimmy. Is it enough for me to say that it's silly how good this book is? That on top of it all, it is just so pretty and so smooth? Or that I'll never feel the same More...

2 comments like

Feb 01, 2012

Keith rated it:

1. Now I have read it, so you can stop asking me if I have.

2. Almost didn't change the opinion I had of it before I read it. Deepened it, perhaps, not changed it.

3. Like a Paul Giamatti movie, multiplied by another Paul Giamatti movie.

4. Sad. Sadder than sad. Maybe not as sad as I worried it would be. Maybe it would have been sadder had I been sadder when I read it. Still, though.

5. Does a lot of clever things, a little ostentatiously. Very much a More...

0 comments like

Oct 29, 2011

Katie rated it:

I thought this book was going to be a real winner. The reviews on the inside cover included praise from Dave Eggers and David Sedaris among others. The story takes place at a number of different time periods, so it gets a little confusing as to who is who, because you have to rely visually on knowing what a young Jimmy Corrigan looks like versus what his grandfather looked like as a boy, etc. What I love about graphic novels is that so often this happens completely effortlessly. Your eyes ta More...

0 comments like

Aug 19, 2011

Matt rated it:

i wanted to like jimmy corrigan very much because author chris ware has done something which i greatly admire -- which is to produce something quite innovative, it's a creatively unique approach to the graphic novel medium. and on that level it's very successful! he has a distinctive style and the layout of pages is interesting without being confusing. it really looks like a graphic designer or architect's take on the graphic novel deal. unfortunately i just found chris ware's semi-autobiographi More...

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Jun 26, 2011

Williwaw rated it:

This is possibly the saddest book that I have ever read. Sure, it is a "comic book," but don't let the format fool you into thinking that this is light reading. This is serious, disturbing stuff. It's not totally lacking in humor, but the prevailing themes are loss, rejection, death, crippling emotional and physical wounds, alienation, and dysfunctional family dynamics.

Chris Ware is a genius of panelology (albet, extremely rectilinear panelology) and color. He's also goo More...

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Jun 15, 2011

Beaverton City Library Teens rated it:

Jimmy Corrigan is a lonely guy: a jittery, unattractive middle-aged man trapped in a dead-end job. The days bleed into each other, his only escape being a fantasy realm where he dons tights and becomes the smartest kid on Earth. A grim history of parental abandonment, stretching all the way back to the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and down the Corrigan family tree, has culminated in Jimmy's insignificant existence. Jimmy's life finally takes a turn when he receives a letter from his estranged fa More...

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Jan 03, 2011

Joe rated it:

Chris Ware - Writer & Artist

A gorgeously rendered, achingly sad novel in comic form, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth is a masterpiece of graphic novel fiction. The story follows the titular protagonist, an emotionally-stunted, 36-year-old man more comfortable in his fantasy life as "The Smartest Kid on Earth" than in the pathetic reality of his lonely existence. One day Jimmy receives a letter from the father he never knew, casually requesting a visit from his More...

0 comments like

Jun 25, 2010

Nicki rated it:

Jimmy Corrigan is a self-conscious, mother-pleasing, middle-aged man who is still encased in the unshed angst of a teenager. After getting an invitation to visit his father, whom he’s never met, he sets off on what becomes quite a little adventure compared to his uneventful life. That’s Jimmy Corrigan, the character, in a nutshell. But Jimmy Corrigan, the book, is so much more.

Every time Miguel would look to see what page I was on, he’d declare, “You’re reading it too fast!” In More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 02, 2010

bup rated it:

God help me, but I'm addicted to lists. So when I saw a goodreads friend had a shelf of 'Guardian 1000' top novels, I had to know what it was. So far I've been able to resist the temptation to make my own shelf at goodreads to keep track of it, but I did download the list from the Guardian website and import it into a spreadsheet. The list doesn't quite ping my O/C tracking instinct enough, though, because among the books I noticed a misspelled author's name, an entry for the 'book' "The C More...

0 comments like

Feb 17, 2010

Nicole rated it:

I could not put it down once I started. I was immediately drawn in to Jimmy's character and eager to uncover his background. He's a middle-aged homely man, with a low self-esteem who is constantly overlooked by all of those around him, except for his overbearing mother. His life is interrupted by an attempt at reconciliation by his estranged father. Jimmy decides to meet his father, and things that are uncovered seem basic, but Chris Ware, the author, is a genius at subtle allusions so the reade More...

0 comments like

Feb 07, 2010

Mark rated it:

I'm going through a graphic novel phase right now and this one is part of that newly-established canon. Unlike some of the others on that list (Maus, Blankets) I had a really hard time getting into the character. His story is simply miserable in every way. He's a lonely middle-aged loser getting back in touch with a father who more or less abandoned him. Ware intercuts with stories of older generations of Corrigans, who led lives that were equally miserable.

Much has been said ab More...

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Nov 10, 2009

Emily rated it:

One of the books I lugged to St. Louis with me was a paperback version of Chris Ware's award-winning Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid in the World, a surprisingly introspective graphic novel that originally appeared as a serial "cartoon" in a Chicago magazine.

It is the story of a withdrawn middle-aged man, blown sideways through life, who one day gets a letter from his long-lost biological father, casually asking him to come for a visit. The story of Jimmy's visit to his fath More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 29, 2009

M. rated it:

I don't have much to add about Chris Ware's brilliant graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan: The smartest kid on Earth, that hasn't already been said. Yes, it is incredibly sad. The characters move like ghosts through the alienated landscape they inhabit, and their loneliness is palpable. When the title character, a doughy, middle-aged loner, stammers that he just wants people to like him, it hits home in ways that are almost disturbing.
Some may be put off at first by the book's dense symbolism a More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Aug 06, 2010

Cindy rated it:

This is a beautiful graphic novel - almost 400 pages telling the story of the Corrigan family, which includes various men named Jimmy Corrigan. The art is beautiful, and the pacing is slow, and it all just adds to the enormously enveloping feeling of loneliness - I think especially the loneliness of a child - which comes through from the story.

The storyline may be confusing at first - what is present day, what is the past, what are dreams - but it’s worth sticking to. And again, the More...

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Dec 17, 2009

Jerome rated it:

Oh yes. Get this book. It's crazy. It's so minutely crafted you can just spend hours and hours looking at Chris Ware's intricate imagination (which he makes fun of) and non-linear narrative style. The story, layered like lasagna, is about Jimmy Corrigan's life, imagined and real. It's a loser's life, mired in paranoia and abyssal self esteem. But he makes a decision to meet his estranged dad, and it takes him on the adventure of a lifetime. A heartbreaking journey.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 14, 2009

Longdivi rated it:

Some people don't like Chris Ware's work because it's too literary, or depressing, or self-deprecating. I might find myself agreeing with them if this book wasn't so impeccable stylistically. The layout, colors, quality of line, lettering--it all works so well, I find it irresistible. And the writing is very good, too. Again, it might be too restrained and somber for some, but the quality is undeniable.

I've read reviewers compare this book to ULYSSES by James Joyce, citing its ob More...

0 comments like

Apr 06, 2007

Chris rated it:

If anyone, anywhere still needs to be convinced that graphic-novels can match traditional novels in artistic achievement, give them this book. Chris Ware's art perfectly balances this slow, complex, tragic tale of human emotion and lonliness. His technical skill and inovative panel layouts stretch sequential art to its limits, and never hit a false note. One of the most touching and memorable novels, graphic or otherwise, that I have ever read.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 09, 2010

Brendan rated it:

I read Jimmy Corrigan several years ago when I was still living in Florida. It's always stuck with me as remarkable and amazing, something I got to tell Chris Ware when I had dinner with him, Art Spegelman, Scott McCloud, and a couple other English department people a few years ago. But after reading Arterios Polyp a couple weeks ago, I decided to take another look at Jimmy Corrigan.

Ware's graphic novel tells the wide ranging story of three generations of Jimmy Corrigans, the first a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 19, 2010

Nicole rated it:

I’m familiar with other stuff from Ware, but had never read this. Since The New Yorker called it “the first formal masterpiece of the medium” (man, is The New Yorker ever pretentious sometimes), and since it’s a good ten years old, I figured I should get around to reading it.

Well, it’s completely amazing, but it made me want to die. Seriously, I think it may be one of the saddest books I’ve ever read. I get more emotional about graphic novels in general, probably because of the addit More...

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Apr 03, 2010

Jason rated it:

When I fist picked this up I was thinking of a Jimmy Neutron type of book about a kid who either is or dreams of being a super-genius, who has some wacky and zany adventures and manages to save the day in some way. This is not that type of book.

This is a book about three generations of absolutely screwed up father-son relationships told in a sometimes simple, sometimes confusing manner. It is a depressing book because in it people are awful in that completely believable way that peop More...

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Feb 16, 2011

Snotchocheez rated it:

Protruding irresistably from the uniform lineup of mundane "W" titles at our local library was this multicolored anomaly, a (gasp) Graphic Novel! (If you knew the slim offerings of our library, you'd know what a novelty this is). In the past three years, I'd tried on two other separate occasions to plow through its riches; perhaps because it's a format of fiction I'd not cottoned to in the past, I never could force myself to give it more than a token few minutes at a time to randomly More...

2 comments like

Oct 29, 2010

Fabian rated it:

I guess I understand why people consider this a masterpiece. I, myself not a wholehearted admirer of the graphic novel, am usually very surprised by the narrative techniques and posh styles used in famous comics like "Watchmen", "Maus" and, most recently, "Ghost World". This one is said to "elevate the medium" to another level and it kinda sorta does: like witnessing Jim Carrey going from funnyman to dramatic acteur! The story is so droll, boring, sad... d More...

0 comments like

Jan 29, 2011

Lukeetc rated it:

Singlehandedly offers enough raw emotional impact and masterful storytelling to shut up anybody *still* not convinced that graphic novels are a valid medium for "grownup stuff". You know those books where you finish them, and instantly want to read them again? 'Jimmy Corrigan' is one of those, not least because, even as you're enjoying it and having your heartstrings tweaked in subtle ways, you get the feeling that Chris Ware is just a bit cleverer than you are, and as such you're miss More...

1 comment like