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Underground > Comic Books >

Jimmy Corrigan

16:04 / 07.06.06

Not sure if anyone has posted a topic on this book but I just wanted to post about it purely as an ode to its greatness. After months and months of sporadic attempts to read this through, I finally managed to break through the minimalist tone of the first 20 or so pages and haven't looked back since.

Its hard not to marvel at the nventive and sometimes sparse use of drawing and iconic images, all of which fit in seemlessly with the nature of Jimmy's character and the tragic nature of his life in comparison to those around him. I also love how Ware uses random illustrations to allude to a deeply-affecting event or development in Jimmy's past, building up a collage of memories in much the same way character formation occurs in a film setting. I guess I just wasn't prepared for something quite as moving...

What does everyone else think?

16:34 / 07.06.06

I picked up chapters as it came out in the Acme Novelty Library. Then a few years later I picked up the soft cover and loved it. Amazing, inspiring artwork. The play with Time and timing is profound.

Mr. Ware created a mural on a store front out in San Francisco which breaks down comics and stories on just about every level. THis same illustration appears on the back cover of his Quimby Mouse book. I mention it because it's sucha complete illustration of the thought and attention he pays every aspect of his work.
The actual "drawings" are deceptively simple but the craft behind each line is emence.

I think I'll go reread it over the weekend.

18:26 / 07.06.06

As a technicion Ware is amazing, his comics are like idea mechanisms or something,

18:29 / 07.06.06

It's fantastic stuff; quite depressing and lovely at the same time. It's a true feat of design work; it sort of leaves me dumbfounded and astounded that 1 man created & completed the whole thing. I would say it's a must-have for any fan of comics. It isn't something I feel compelled to re-read often, though; maybe because it's so dark/dense/sad.

admiral sausage

18:45 / 07.06.06

I bloody love Chris Ware, does anyone have the sketch book ? It’s fun, full of self-doubt, self-loathing and pretty drawings.
My favourite strips of his are the more diagrammatic ones, like the ones at the back of the most recent Rusty Brown book.
Has anyone else seen the big red collected hard back of his stuff ? there’s a paper band stuck over the front and back cover, if you take it off its got a little strip on the back, there’s also one on the very edge of the covers.

His work on the Mc Sweeny’s book is mind-boggling, how can anyone have that much patience?, I find his attention to detail is kind of scary.

He also did some work in an American illustrators annual, if you take the hard back cover off (which he drew) there’s a museum

admiral sausage

18:49 / 07.06.06

oops sorry.

20:36 / 07.06.06

Hah!
on the back side of that paper strip? I should have guessed!

Really dug the Rusty Brown book that recently came out. I wonder when part 2 sees print.

07:05 / 08.06.06

So seeing as Jimmy Corrigan has been my first exposure to Chris Ware's work, what does everyone recommend I move onto next?

10:05 / 08.06.06

I'm not sure 'enjoy' is necessarily the right word to use when it comes to Jimmy Corrigan. It is more something that is appreciated. It says lots of ugly painful things meticulously and beautifully.

A horribly heart-rending story told in beautiful pictures, I guess.

I've seen it described as being the Ulysses of the comics medium, which strikes me as both absurdly reductionist and quite misleading. But I can also see what such commentators are trying to say. It is something that is fantastically well-crafted, but not readily accessible/fun.

What didpeople think of the historical narrative in comparison to the modern narrative? And what about the reality that lurks just outside the narrative, the story of Ware's own absent Dad, met briefly for an awkward dinner years too late and now dead and even more unreachable...?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:20 / 08.06.06

It's been a while since I read it, and this thread's making me want to read it again- but I don't think I can go through all that again. Utterly heartbreaking, as sleaze says. I know I pretty much cry at anything these days, but Jimmy Corrigan really kicked me in the emotional balls. It's definitely among the best comics I've ever read, but I doubt it'll be a regular re-reader.

12:45 / 08.06.06

I really love all of Ware's stuff- he really has a masterful grasp of the cartoon language, managing to convay the poignancy of a scene with the bare minimum of gestures.

The combination of this economy with the sheer density and depth of his narratives never fails to draw me in and force me to read and re-read until every trace of intellectual nourishment has been digested. I love that these books are not easily consumed; simply picked up, read in an afternoon and thrown away. For me, these are works that deserve to be constantly revisited.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

19:35 / 08.06.06

I really liked the World's Fair chapter. The rest left me cold. I felt I wasn't told enough about these characters to warrant me caring at all what happened to them. There were some nice moments, such as the recap to chapter one "I am a lonely and introverted person!" and when Jimmy is trying to imagine what his Dad will look like, but otherwise, meh.

07:13 / 09.06.06

So should I go for this Rusty Brown book, or is there some other seminal work of his I should check out?

07:34 / 09.06.06

I think Corrigan IS his seminal work. There is Quimby the Mouse and the McSweeny's anthology that Ware editied, and a book about the automatons Ware has built, but not much outside of that has been collected...

08:48 / 09.06.06

personally i would go for quimby mouse although its a bit...strange. quimby i think edges into the more diagramatic side of Ware's art but has some beautifully illustrated sequences and really shows off the strength of Ware's visual storytelling.

i'm beginning to sound a bit like an adbot at this point aren't I?

For me, the latest Rusty Brown seemed quite expensive for a book which delivered a comparitively low level of content. Not that its not good, just a bit more slow moving, delivering only a small portion of the story in a (albeit gorgeous) fancy binding.

Johnny fighters

09:38 / 09.06.06

I went to see Chris Ware being interviewed by Alex Garland at the ICA a few years ago and he was every bit as insecure and self-deprecating as you'd expect. At one point he showed slides of the World Fair in Chicago "just to show how I cheated on that section". Garland looked at him like a kindly older brother and said "That's OK Chris, that's called research. You're allowed to do that". The man's level of detail is incredible though. He must never leave the house.

09:54 / 09.06.06

I was at that ICA interview too - it was great fun to see Alex Garland and Zadie Smith virtually ignored in the bar as people queued to chat to Ware...

But yeah - I don't think Rusty Brown has made it to the UK - it was serialized in a New York Magazine type thing wasn't it? I think I have seen a page of it done as a slide from another Ware talk at the ICA... Has it now been collected by Pantheon in the US?

Johnny fighters

10:07 / 09.06.06

I think it's out in hardback, isn't it? Fairly sure I saw it at Comic Showcase.

10:11 / 09.06.06

in the uk the first part of the Rusty Brown narrative is out in Acme Novelty Library #16(hardback) and the next part is due out soon in #17

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

11:31 / 09.06.06

Rusty has popped up all over the place before the recent hardback issue (16?), he was in the big ACME hardcover throughout, they might have been ones that were originally published elsewhere.

Likewise, the 'Building Stories' from the New York Times are different (though featuring the same characters) to the ones in the back of the Rusty hardcover.

11:40 / 09.06.06

this may well be why I am being so confused - I just want it all together in one place so I can read it...

As an aside, a friend of mine told me how Ware apologised to her over the agonizingly slow pace of corrigan when it was serialized at a page a week in the Chicago Reader...

Janean Patience

17:10 / 09.06.06

The first Chris Ware I read was the Columbian Exposition issue of Jimmy Corrigan, and I was blown away. The art's obviously the work of a master, saying so much with so few lines and such rigid stylistic control, the slow story of a few confused and agonising months in a child's life, ending in abandonment, couldn't be bettered.

I bought the rest, still in the little Acme books, and enjoyed it. But now, a few years on, I have trouble remembering any of it fondly and when I tried to reread it I got nowhere, maybe half-an-issue in before I picked up something that engaged me more.

JC was an achievement without doubt, but I have to question how readable it is. The tendency in comics is to praise something as a classic if it's well done, but this might be better judged as you would a prose writer's first novel: brilliant style, good characterisation, not entirely successful. I wasn't too impressed by the first chapter of Rusty Brown, either. More stylistic innovation, so far not a great deal to say.

Ware's shorter stuff, like Big Tex in the giant Acme (can't remember the number) or the piece for McSweeney's, has affected me far more than the whole of Jimmy C apart from the Columbian chapter. Treat that as a short story, and it's a masterpiece.

20:13 / 09.06.06

I've seen it described as being the Ulysses of the comics medium, which strikes me as both absurdly reductionist and quite misleading.

I see what you mean. Ulysses was an elevation of the most average man, making the everyday and normal, transcendant in it's everyday beauty. Wherease JC seemed to be a celebration of mediocrity. Though I don't disparage Ware's visual craft, nor even his storytelling, it is this wallowing in the mediocre, (in the form of Corrigan himself) that bores me to tears. It doesn't eleveate his life so much as it seems to exemplify it's banality.

This is a tendancy seen in film and non-comic books as well, and I've never been able to get into it.

Janean Patience

07:44 / 10.06.06

JC does wallow in mediocrity. That's part of what makes it so difficult to read. It's the opposite of the accepted mainstream of comics, about exciting superpeople doing thrilling superthings, which was probably the intention.

I think the problem is that the mediocrity seems contrived. Compared with the heroically mundane stories of Harvey Pekar, who can make a rereadable 8-pager out of driving to the airport, Corrigan's flaws become obvious. He's designed to have a pointless, meaningless life and this places artificial limits on the character. They aren't there in the story of his grandfather, but Ware wants JC to exemplify our mundane suffering like a very very dull Christ. He's condemned no matter what, which makes him irritating and tedious to read.

Or that's my take on it.

Nelson Evergreen

07:44 / 10.06.06

It's easy to appreciate how the sheer level of misery documented in the book can be too much for some. It depends on how readily you can empathise with Jimmy and James; I found myself deperately rooting for both of them, despite the ominous mood that permeates their stories. Please, please, please let something go right for these poor bastards etc.

Much as Corrigan's content and form can be judged separately, IMO the whole is anything but a wallow in mediocrity. Ware does harsh beauty like no other. A sad, sad life rendered divinely. Depressing and inspiring. Quite a trick.

That said, a full re-reading *would* seem masochistic. It gets pulled off the shelf for regular re-viewings though, and that'll do nicely.

10:07 / 10.06.06

I think its a possible mistake to try and draw a comparison between the accepted mainstream superhero comics and something like JC. Although the subject matter of the book definately draws on superhero comics as a contrast to the crushing mediocrity of jimmy's life (the opening chapter shows superman's suicide, the death of childhood dreams, replaced by the afoprementioned crushing mediocrity of day to day life.), The form of the actual writing and illustration differs massively, not just in the style or types of panels, visual language etc. used but in the actual intention of the work.

I don't think Ware intends to deliver a highly structured narrative as in superhero comics, where i think the story, plot points and wider continuity issues govern the way the art is produced. Ware is instead engaging in an experimental form of communicating narrative, playing with the narrative devices themselves and letting the plot follow on from that.

This issue is perhaps what makes JC difficult to read; it is a highly dense work that does not deliver a satisfying story that follows the familiar structure that we are used to; it meanders and at points seems to be going nowhere;
but the plot itself only serves as a pretence to allow Ware to explore innovative ways of communicating a comics narrative.
I think to fully enjoy JC one has to put aside the idea that the work has a "point" and just relish the beauty of Ware's craft.

Janean Patience

13:15 / 10.06.06

I didn't intend to compare JC to superhero comics in such depth, just in terms of a reading experience for those most likely to come across it. The Superman stuff's kind of a red herring, an announcement that the hero's dead to set the stage for the narrative. That's if it happens in the first chapter, which is how I remember it.

Ware is, at present, all about exploring new structures in comics which are more driven by innovations and challenges in visual art rather than on the writing side. JC has a very successful punchline in that sense (SPOILERS) when we realise his adopted sister is a blood relation.

I bought the first issue of Rusty Brown, though, the recent hardback, and I can't remember anything except the structure. It could be that he's at an experimental stage and that the territory he's mapping will create great stories in the future, but as the first part of a purported novel it's not compelling me to read on.

22:11 / 10.06.06

i think the problem with that first RustyB installment was that it will probably end up being about 1% of the narrative and at 12 quid a pop that's goingf to cost me alot of money. i'm not sure if these winding, slow paced narratives, where a big deal is made of the intricate details of the mundane happenings of Ware's created universe, are suited to a semi regualr release rate. There's just not enough content per book to keep me hooked. hyaving said that the high quality binding and design of ANL#16 really appealed to my nicely bound book fetish. sigh. if only i were rich.

i geuss i agree with sleazenation upthread- i wish it were all under one cover and available in the shops now, not collected in dribs and drabs over a century.

20:43 / 11.06.06

Out of interest, has anyone here read Raymond Briggs' Unlucky Wally books? They struck me as thematically similar, although Wally is quite content in his life despite all its many failings...

Janean Patience

21:30 / 11.06.06

No, but now you mention Briggs I guess Jimmy is kind of like Gentleman Jim, a life that aims low and doesn't achieve it. The difference is in temperament. Jim's dissatisfactions come when he's older, a feeling of life's potential unfulfilled. Jimmy C's life never got started.

I loved that Gentleman Jim book when I was a kid. So when I saw a sequel in the library, I wasted no time. Where The Wind Blows, it was called. Turns out even Jimmy Corrigan gets a happier ending.

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

09:44 / 12.06.06

Can anyone here confirm if I am remembering correctly that the current Rusty story is scheduled to be 3 parts?

08:57 / 13.06.06

I got rid of my copy of Jimmy Corrigan after one read. I figured I was never likely to read it again. I found it too depressing, and too negative. Drawn out at length over a book, it seemed a bit indulgent to me. Beautifully crafted but "wallowing" I think is the right word. Perhaps not so much wallowing, but drowning.

09:03 / 13.06.06

ANL#16 claims to collect the first half of the preface to the RB saga. so the preface is in 2 parts, god knows how many the main body will be.