Stephen's review
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
by Chris Ware
Stephen's review
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
Stephen's review
rating:
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 to say nothing of the strength of the story itself. This book is a tale of a stunted, nearly-silent, quite depressed man in search of some context for his life. That context comes in the form of his long-lost father suddenly trying to reconnect with him, but it also involves the story of his grandfather in World's Fair-era Chicago and dream sequences about alienated robots.
The overall impression of the book can leave one breathless. What started as minute chicken-scratched figures have be...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 to say nothing of the strength of the story itself. This book is a tale of a stunted, nearly-silent, quite depressed man in search of some context for his life. That context comes in the form of his long-lost father suddenly trying to reconnect with him, but it also involves the story of his grandfather in World's Fair-era Chicago and dream sequences about alienated robots.
The overall impression of the book can leave one breathless. What started as minute chicken-scratched figures have be...more
