In lieu of an essay, some notes (with spoilers):1. I both intellectually acknowledge the brilliance of this book and viscerally dislike it. 2. I bought it and began reading it in late 2000; I set it aside after about 100 pages and only took it up again—a library copy; I have no idea where mine is—two days ago. Back in 2000, when I was all of 18, I remember being immensely moved by some of those first 100 pages; Jimmy’s fantasy of being murdered by Superman, in particular, overwhelmed me. But the...

I read Jimmy Corrigan sitting in a Denny's in Florida in 2000, watching the Bush/Gore election returns. I just finished rereading it again today. It's nowhere near as depressing as it was the first time, but then, how could it be?I remember putting the book down in 2000 when I got to the last page and realized the complexity of the joke that has been pulled on him, the author, and us. He will never be happy. It will never end, and never change. Superman is not going to save him.This time it was

This is my third foray into the world of graphic novels. This book compels me to continue into this genre. Chris Ware tells a heart-rending story of loneliness, but what truly captured my admiration was the artwork. He does a sort of stylistic 180 from the narrative. While the story is intimate and emotional his images sort of stand back. He employs repeated frames of seemingly insignificant details, such as a bird moving along a tree branch. He emphasizes the alienation of the characters by foc...

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

I have read this 3-4 times but never felt ready to review it in the manner it deserves.. and am still not quite ready. This is a great work, maybe the very work that catapulted Ware into the upper reaches of the comics hierarchy. Ware, one of the 4-5 most influential and greatest comics writers in the world, started this graphic novel with the intention to do a summer of strips in 1995 for an alternative mag here in Chicago, New City, where is was buried where comics are usually buried, in the w...

I guess I understand why people MIGHT consider this a masterpiece. I, myself not a wholehearted admirer of the graphic novel, am usually very surprised by the narrative techniques and posh styles used in famous graphic novels like "Watchmen", "Maus" &, most recently, "Ghost World". This one is said to "elevate the medium" to another level and it kinda sorta does: like witnessing Jim Carrey going from funnyman to dramatic actor! The story is so droll, boring, sad... did I really need this type of...

A multi award winning gem by Chris Ware as he tells two stories across, in-between and around one another. The main story looks at awkward, middle aged social recluse, mummy's boy Jimmy Corrigan as he travels across America to see a father he has never met or seen before. The supporting tale recounts his grandfather, also called Jimmy Corrigan growing up under the abusive patronage of a single father in late nineteenth century Chicago. A truly amazing and maybe semi-biographical book that pulls

This is a five star graphic novel , so I am giving it five stars. However, I hated it. Well, no, I didn’t hate it, I hated reading it. So I am abandoning it with relief.The great thing about this book is the brilliant graphic concepts which dazzle and delight on every other page. They are really stunning. The unreadable thing about this book is its subject matter, which is the life of a miserable loner with a bullying father examined in very great painful detail. Rarely has a book been so origin...

Imagine life eclipsed by imagination. The bloodiest, the most beautiful, the most vulnerable imaginings, and the disintegration of wishes as we make them. This is how life unfolds in the mind of Jimmy Corrigan, the desolate main character in Chris Ware’s graphic novel. Jimmy speaks full sentences—only when he imagines. In his mind he has courage, kills people, commits suicide, has sex, and is “the smartest kid on earth.” In his actual life, Jimmy is a spineless, aging man, with no friends and no...

I know this is the graphic novel to end all graphic novels but I have to say I wasn't terribly blown away. It was well laid out and pretty to look at but was almost cliched in its portrayal of a loner. Meh.

This is essentially a graphic novel version of Confederacy of Dunces. The main character is a bland two-dimensional simpleton who has a depressing life. There is nothing entertaining about this story, nor informative. It is pointless. I cannot empathise with the character at all.So essentially, if you thought Dunces was a masterpiece, you'll love this. For everyone else, steer well clear.

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've read that have...

Chris Ware is one of the most unusual writers in the comic industry so far, who experiments with forms and panels in order to convey his personal emotions and feelings (well, at least it seems on the first glance). His works do follow a comic standard, ignoring or deconstructing its patterns, thus some researchers called this genre of strategy as a “meta-comic”. However, it is significant that Ware is always open and honest with the reader, using the huge potential of subjective narration for ex...

If this were made into a 7 hour movie I would fully watch it. A lot of reviews have called it the greatest graphic novel ever and compared it to real life Great Literature™️ like Ulysses and Dostoevsky books and I really truly get it. It’s so dense and layered and so so innovative in the way it presents a four-generation-spanning story about fathers and sons and trying to break cycles of abuse. It’s maybe one of the most consistently bleak books I’ve ever read, and it broke my heart many many ti...

I'm surprised that GoodReads doesn't allow a sixth star for this book alone. I can not say enough great things about Jimmy Corrigan. Honestly, it changed my life, and I can't imagine anyone not being in awe of its mathematics, literally and figuratively. This book is like the Catcher in the Rye for graphic novels. It raised the bar and it will not be matched for a very long time. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Breathtaking and deep. Brilliant.

I won't lie to you. I spent days not liking this book.Jimmy Corrigan is described by the author as "a lonely, emotionally-impaired human castaway."You got that right! He's also possibly the dullest man on Earth and Chris Ware does not skimp on the tedium. Panel after cartoon panel of people sitting in diners, doctors' offices, and hospital waiting rooms.This is WAY too much like MY life.Then we meet Jimmy's grandfather, a sad and lonely child, and his great-grandfather, who helped build the Whit...

THIS BOOK IS MAGIC.

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 thankfu...

The art gets six stars, but the content deserves less than zero stars. Hence, a generous 3. Chris Ware is the Johann Sebastian Bach of drawing graphic novels pages, but when it comes to the stories he chooses to tell - the HORROR, the HORROR! Someone else should have written the script for him, and let the author do only the drawings. This semi-autobiographical story about a character who is the caricature of insecurity is not endearing, not warm-hearted, not empathetic, not interesting, not ins...

There is a point in Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, about a third of the way through, when the author provides a summary of the story so far. Until then, I was disoriented, a bit unclear what was real and what was dream/fantasy. Sometimes, that kind of ambiguity can feel like a puzzle - I'm drawn in by the desire to figure it all out. But not so here, I was bored and frustrated. I didn't trust the author enough yet to feel confident there was a puzzle to solve. Maybe it would just mud...