Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
by Chris Ware
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Read in January, 2008
recommended to Daniel by:
Monte Meltzerrecommends it for: those who aren't contemplating suicide.
I have read other graphic novels, but none with the quiet and lonely sadness that this book conveyed. I have read comic books where I skim the text and stare deeply at the pictures. I have also read comic books where I devour the text and almost skip over the pictures. Neither of these types were able to convince me that graphic novels are something more than the sum of the aforementioned parts. But this book was able to. It is a masterpiece for this reason. As it says on the cover (in a stateme...more
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Several people have told me that Jimmy Corrigan is the Ulysses of graphic novels, but that is only so much false advertisement, probably designed by Mr. C. Ware himself to frighten potential readers. Drawing comparisons to literature is likely an empty exercise, but since we've started this game, I would venture that Chris Ware's current opus (not to be confused with his next opus, which may be Rusty Brown or perhaps the Building Stories) bares the most resemblance to a book...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
everyone except my way-too-sensitive mom
an artistic and literary masterpiece. every time i turned a page i had to groan or sigh with sympathy. when the main character orders a coke, it's horribly depressing. chris ware may be a rich, private school/art school, in-crowd bastard, but i don't even care. he can use utter fiction to purposefully pull on my heart strings anytime.
this is the tale of a disillusioned, horrendously awkward, baby-faced thirty-something (jimmy) who reunites with his long lost father, whom is even more dep...more
this is the tale of a disillusioned, horrendously awkward, baby-faced thirty-something (jimmy) who reunites with his long lost father, whom is even more dep...more
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Read in February, 2008
Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (Pantheon, 2003)
I don't think it would be overreaching to say that, even if it is not, Charis Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth has been touted as the single book that ignited the renaissance of popularity (and social acceptability) in graphic novels in America; it was almost certainly the first to be widely discussed in entertainment magazines and on National Public Radio. It took me a while to get round to it, and I'm tha...more
I don't think it would be overreaching to say that, even if it is not, Charis Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth has been touted as the single book that ignited the renaissance of popularity (and social acceptability) in graphic novels in America; it was almost certainly the first to be widely discussed in entertainment magazines and on National Public Radio. It took me a while to get round to it, and I'm tha...more
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Read in June, 2008
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 family i...more
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 family i...more
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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 ...more
Jimmy's life finally takes a turn when he receives a letter from ...more
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Read in December, 2006
recommended to deacon by:
ellisrecommends it for: you
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
American history buffs
So many panels! So much mid-west history! It's a beautiful book. I love comics in part because you get to choose which images or instances in the plot you want to linger over and which ones you want to quickly incorporate into the narrative. In film the artists do it for you since they determine how long to spend on a specific shot, but in comics you get to do it yourself. More participatory, I guess you would say. Chris Ware is a master at creating images to linger over in the midst of h...more
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recommends it for:
lovers of graphic novels
Easily the best graphic novel I've read, if you are into Chris Ware's stuff (and I would even recommend this book as a starter) I highly highly recommend getting the hardcover version with the dust-cover. The cover folds out to form a gigantic two sided poster that is practically its own novel, Ware excells at minutia and the dust-cover is no exception, I think I spent at least an hour reading it.
The book itself absolutely demolishes convential form on many levels, from the way you hold t...more
The book itself absolutely demolishes convential form on many levels, from the way you hold t...more
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Chris Ware's work, at first blush, looks like a designer's detail work more than the sweeping panels of a great comix mind. In fact, his books are peppered with narrative devices that look more like diagrams than comic panels.
But the beauty of Ware's "Jimmy Corrigan" is that the story is sometimes best expressed through these diagrams. Ware has the skill to render simple figures on a walk as well as complex family trees and histories, each within a two-page spread.
And that's ...more
But the beauty of Ware's "Jimmy Corrigan" is that the story is sometimes best expressed through these diagrams. Ware has the skill to render simple figures on a walk as well as complex family trees and histories, each within a two-page spread.
And that's ...more
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Read in January, 2005
recommends it for:
misanthropic formalists
Good eyesight and patience are prerequisites for this labyrinth of a picture-book.
Ware furnishes a vivid portrait of a society that has valorized averageness on the fire-ravaged ground that once enshrined aesthetic splendor. Over and above the psychological isolation of the hero, it is this sense of cultural decline that makes the book so depressing and so compelling.
The titular protagonist is not, as so many have claimed, an "everyman." Rather, he is the lone misfit in a cul...more
Ware furnishes a vivid portrait of a society that has valorized averageness on the fire-ravaged ground that once enshrined aesthetic splendor. Over and above the psychological isolation of the hero, it is this sense of cultural decline that makes the book so depressing and so compelling.
The titular protagonist is not, as so many have claimed, an "everyman." Rather, he is the lone misfit in a cul...more
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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 novels I'...more
Jimmy Corrigan, though, is one of the five or six graphic novels I'...more
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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 fr...more
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What this book lacks in, well, coherence isn't quite the right word...what this books lacks in some unspoken quality that holds a narrative together, it makes up for in originality. Chris Ware seems to know it was too ambitious of an undertaking -- he provides an apology on the back cover!
My warped memory had confused Jimmy Corrigan with one of the Acme Novelties that had simultaneous plot lines running concurrently on the same page. I'm glad that didn't happen in this book because it was de...more
My warped memory had confused Jimmy Corrigan with one of the Acme Novelties that had simultaneous plot lines running concurrently on the same page. I'm glad that didn't happen in this book because it was de...more
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Read in May, 2008
For starters, this is not exactly light reading. Although in comic-form, it's an awful lot to wrap your head around. Each panel is incredibly detailed, and it's often a challenge to know in which order the panels are laid out. This, is often when people decide whether or not to continue reading it. But you will be rewarded. The colors can be described as muted, but again, it's all in the details. It's a story about a guy named Jimmy Corrigan, a guy in his 30s who is uncomfortable in his ow...more
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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
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Read in June, 2008
recommends it for:
Chris Ware buffs
I finally finished this beast. I love Chris Ware, but compared to his newer work I would not say that I was blown away by this book. Although there are many qualities of this graphic novel that I greatly admire, I'm not really into the ultra depressiveness of this story. I think if I would've read it in its original context as a "improvisatory exercise" in a weekly comic strip I would've enjoyed it more than as a collected graphic novel. Overall I would say that Chris Ware continues...more
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Just picked it up from the liberry today. Bastards didn't tell me The Road was in, as I had it on hold. Got home and there was a message on the machine. Pfft.
Anyways, I've never been a comic book reader, so a graphic novel is a bit of a stretch for me. However, considering all the 5-stars my friends have provided, I'm going for it. Seems like I'm reading storyboards. (I guess that's normal?)
Sorry, I returned this book to the li...more
Anyways, I've never been a comic book reader, so a graphic novel is a bit of a stretch for me. However, considering all the 5-stars my friends have provided, I'm going for it. Seems like I'm reading storyboards. (I guess that's normal?)
Sorry, I returned this book to the li...more
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Read in May, 2008
AMAZING. some of my fave writers--zadie smith, dave eggers, david sedaris--hail this book as a work of genius. chris ware is a genius. i am in love with him. i fortunately got to go to an event with him and art spiegelman. ware is humble despite his obvious wit and brilliance. his drawings r so meticulously, painstakingly thought-out and drawn, u don't wanna miss anything. this book is on the heavy side but it's all worth it. just try not to speed through it like a regular comic 'cause that'd be...more
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone new to graphic novels, Chicagoans
If you've never read a graphic novel, I recommend this one to start with. I'm not a huge fan of the genre myself because I tend to get impatient, but this book is very enjoyable. It's the story of Jimmy Corrigan, a hapless loser, and three generations of his family. The parts of the story that feature Jimmy's grandfather take place against the backdrop of the 1893 World's Fair, and the story remains set in Chicago for the next generations as well. Chris Ware's artwork is fantastic.
A note...more
A note...more
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