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Chris Ware is the king of what he does, and this book lives up to any expectation. The usual absurdly-high level of detail in the art and the usual painfully depressing story lines, beautifully presented.
Good god this one was bleak and beautiful. You see a character that looks rather funny and laugh when other characters laugh at him, and then Ware takes you inside that character and you're just completely wrecked.
An amazing story somewhat burdened by moments of discomfort and sheer misery. I'm sure Ware achieves exactly what he aims to, but I'm still wondering if his pervasive disappointment in humanity is worth drinking up in large quantities, no matter how beautifully he packages it.
Every single thing Chris Ware has done is moving and heartbreaking genre-defying and genius.
The third chapter of Ware's ongoing novel Rusty Brown. After two slow introductory chapters, the narrative takes off, with Ware producing an ambitious and virtuosic work that takes on the Golden Age of Science Fiction in addition to Ware's customary explorations of loneliness and awkwardness.The entire first half of the book is given over to a story in the style of 50s sci-fi magazines. A man is alone on Mars with his old dog, a decaying rocketship, and a house that he constantly visits, but nev...
Chris Ware is my favorite comic artist/author. It might be because he writes so often and so well about Chicago, my life-long home, but apart from this i love his grim narratives that emphasize the rare hopeful ray of light by the horror of the surrounding story. It probably goes without saying that his visual style is another huge component of his appeal as an artist, embracing everything from classic comic-strip composition to commercial design to unite the storytelling and purely visual eleme...
As always, Ware delivers in a heart-rending way. I haven’t been following the other episodes of the novelty library, but I’m going to have to go back and check them out. This particular volume centers on a lonely little man who finds himself trapped between his obsession with 1950s pulp SF and a sexy lady at his office who only gives him the time of day when she swings by for a booty call. The heartbreak the poor little man goes through is just horrendous. We also have the dreary story of four a...
Such a polarizing book for me. I loved the first part - really enjoyed the art and design, thought the story was interesting and engaging... I was enchanted. And then came Jimmy Corrigan #2. I really appreciate the brilliant way Ware uses the medium, and his sense of cinematographic narration. But when the first part of the book was over, it was suddenly just more of the exact things that made Jimmy Corrigan such a depressing slog of a read. To me it is the same character dealing with almost ide...
Chris Ware is one of, if not THE, master of the graphic novel genre. He is an incredibly gifted storyteller with a knack for pacing, composition, and intersecting plots. His seemingly simplistic style is revealed to be deeply complex and inimitable. I think of all the clutter that some graphic novelists fill their pages with, and all the tiny sidebar notes and ephemera, but Ware gets so much more across with his careful drawings and sound effects. Take a page where it's covered with two dozen li...
Amazing as always. I absolutely loved the first story in the collection. I'm still shocked by the back cover.. didn't know Chris Ware had it in him. way to tell it like it is.
The Seeing Eye Dogs of Mars is jaw dropping horror as only Chris Ware can deliver. Your heart will sink as you read Youth, and Middle Age. By the time you read SYZYGY you will be numb. I love a good story that is heavily depressing, leaving your heart gaping. It’s such an emotional drain that leaves you empty. 5 stars!
Sometimes I feel I take Chris Ware for granted. Though I can't see myself ever giving a book of his less than 4 stars here, just on the merits of craftsmanship and storytelling evident in everything he does, it's not often I'm completely awed by the totality of a single one of his books. This time out is clearly different.From the start of book 19, it's clear we're in for something a little out of the ordinary of the more recent Acme books. We're launched straight into a space opera involving se...
Ware is one of the best and most singular graphic novelists, but I feel he always tells the same (depressing) story. It's a testament to his story-telling mastery and ability to push the boundaries of the art form that each volume of Acme provides new insight into the same old lives of lonely, awkward men. This volume focuses on the connection between Rusty Brown's love-life and career as a sci-fi author. The meta-fictional elements blend together in a profound and believable way, but as usual,
When Chris Ware's Rusty Brown is finally finished and collected as a one-volume "graphic novel," it's going to be immediately hailed as the zenith of the medium. Though #19 is merely the latest installment, this is simply sequential narrative storytelling taken to its utmost, and it makes Jimmy Corrigan look practically like Peanuts by comparison. Outstanding.
I think Chris Ware is my favourite comic maker of all time. I can't name any comic that is better written, and the drawings are fantastic, too. Such high quality in form OR content is rare, let alone combined. A bit close to home sometimes, and almost painful to read almost the entire time, but that's what makes it so brilliant, too. Rusty Brown is turning out even better than Jimmy Corrigan. More, please.
A meticulous and anxious evocation of social dysfunction! Which *is* what Ware usually does, but I think this offering of his 'Acme Novelty Library' series is especially gratifying due to its structure, through which a 1970s sci-fi story is nested within a contemporaneous tale of Mr. William (Woody) Brown, young reporter in charge of the obituaries and author of the story within the story. This structure transforms the work into an exercise in selective memory and authorial bias, as we the reade...
More from the life of Rusty Brown -- this new Ware edition is just gorgeous. His design is always top notch but this volume in particular is really spectacular. It's also a great fit for the Rusty story (W. K. Brown, a real life experimental/speculative fiction author) since it's very reminiscent of genre book design from the 1950s. The comic itself was what a Ware comic always is - sad, pathetic, heart-rending, meticulous, detailed, and sweeping. It did take me a bit longer than usual get into
Self-sufficient sci-fi layercake. First comes a pulpy outerspace adventure, then it's all about how the young Rusty Brown became interested in science fiction, finished with a sci-fi textual short story by Rusty Brown. Not quite at the level of #18 or #20 but still wholly worth reading. Surprising: occasional tiny, sexually explicit/suggestive images. I can see how some get tired of Ware's loveable losers. The girl in #18, young Rusty in this one, and Jimmy Corrigan are all sort of cut from the
The brilliance of the Acme Novelty Library series continues unabated, with volume 19 introducing a tense science fiction prologue to the main narrative, featuring the repressed but fascinating protagonist Rusty Brown. Chris Ware is a master at exploring the lives of socially and culturally isolated people, and never succumbs to the easy temptations of sentimentality and pity that his subject matter wants so desperately to offer up. And that's all to the good - Ware is a true artist, and his expl...
Just when you think you've left all those ugly, awkward adolescent moments behind you, something like this comes along and BANG! it all comes floating back up like a bloated corpse. The best Rusty Brown episode so far. The corniness of his science fiction is heart-breakingly honest and seems to act as a metaphor for Mr. Ware's struggle to "write a powerful, deeply engaging, richly detailed epic with a series of limericks", as he once described cartooning. And Ware's masterful account of Brown's