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Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
by Chris Ware

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34072.Jimmy_Corrigan_The_Smartest_Kid_on_Earth?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1168481764m/34072.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34072.Jimmy_Corrigan_The_Smartest_Kid_on_Earth?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5112.Chris_Ware">Chris Ware</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/11026326?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 4 of 5 stars<br/>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 statement typical of the dry humor of the author): "Winner of the American Book Award and the Guardian Prize 2001 (the consumer will note that these honors are generally only bestowed on those authors who refuse to learn how to draw)"
<br/>
<br/>And draw he did! Chris Ware's book is filled with gorgeous artwork, both geometric and very personal at once, as well as being art deco without being grandiose. The artist is very clean, and manages to go from having profuse detail in one frame to having a relatively featureless frame without either looking too busy. In addition, the artist has a great eye for framing. The comic looks almost like storyboard for film because of how successfully it employs dramatic framing, ominous headroom, cut aways, intercutting, close-ups, and other tropes that, as a film major in university, I was trained to look for in film. Occasional diagrams including information on a person's age, and from which parents they came, etc. were brilliant. The comic book also used a color language to convey memory or daydream, which was an interesting trope. Because the story was so haunting, the stilted "ha ha" lettering that representing laughter was awkward, and though at first I didn't like it, by the end I understood. This wasn't a book where laughing was supposed to be natural. In fact, it took me a while to get used to other aspects of the book. Sometimes, the frame layout wasn't intuitive, and so for about the first half of the book, I had to be conscious of which frame I would choose to read next, which is quite distracting. At that point, I was not enamored with the story. But once my eyes and brain adjusted to seeing such fragmented pages, and being able to quickly move from one frame to the next without much thought, I really enjoyed reading it.
<br/>
<br/>The plot is very sad, and poor Jimmy is frightened at all times, and in all situations. Jimmy's time with the father he never knew is tragic and haunting. Jimmy's grandfather's childhood was the most compelling part of the book, seeing a lonely child deal with his terrible father and the cruelty of other children. And in the final pages, it is beautiful to see how all the strings of the story come together, in an almost cyclical way.
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/119880?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Daniel's review
rating:
bookshelves: art, comics, fiction, you-can-borrow
recommended 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 statement typical of the dry humor of the author): "Winner of the American Book Award and the Guardian Prize 2001 (the consumer will note that these honors are generally only bestowed on those authors who refuse to learn how to draw)"

And draw he did! Chris Ware's book is filled with gorgeous artwork, both geometric and very personal at once, as well as being art deco without being grandiose. The artist is very clean, and manages to go from having profuse detail in one frame to having a re...more 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 statement typical of the dry humor of the author): "Winner of the American Book Award and the Guardian Prize 2001 (the consumer will note that these honors are generally only bestowed on those authors who refuse to learn how to draw)"

And draw he did! Chris Ware's book is filled with gorgeous artwork, both geometric and very personal at once, as well as being art deco without being grandiose. The artist is very clean, and manages to go from having profuse detail in one frame to having a relatively featureless frame without either looking too busy. In addition, the artist has a great eye for framing. The comic looks almost like storyboard for film because of how successfully it employs dramatic framing, ominous headroom, cut aways, intercutting, close-ups, and other tropes that, as a film major in university, I was trained to look for in film. Occasional diagrams including information on a person's age, and from which parents they came, etc. were brilliant. The comic book also used a color language to convey memory or daydream, which was an interesting trope. Because the story was so haunting, the stilted "ha ha" lettering that representing laughter was awkward, and though at first I didn't like it, by the end I understood. This wasn't a book where laughing was supposed to be natural. In fact, it took me a while to get used to other aspects of the book. Sometimes, the frame layout wasn't intuitive, and so for about the first half of the book, I had to be conscious of which frame I would choose to read next, which is quite distracting. At that point, I was not enamored with the story. But once my eyes and brain adjusted to seeing such fragmented pages, and being able to quickly move from one frame to the next without much thought, I really enjoyed reading it.

The plot is very sad, and poor Jimmy is frightened at all times, and in all situations. Jimmy's time with the father he never knew is tragic and haunting. Jimmy's grandfather's childhood was the most compelling part of the book, seeing a lonely child deal with his terrible father and the cruelty of other children. And in the final pages, it is beautiful to see how all the strings of the story come together, in an almost cyclical way....less

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