Review by Choice Review
Ware's Jimmy Corrigan appeared in Chicago's New City and The ACME Novelty Library before a friend decided Ware needed a wider audience. Fashioned into a graphic novel, the story centers around the brief time 36-year old Jimmy spends with his long-absent father, with flashbacks to the miserable childhood his grandfather, James, experienced in the shadow of the 1893 Columbia Exposition in Chicago. Jimmy's torment, self-doubt, and almost total withdrawal, combined with snippets taken from the less-than-jubilant lives of his mother, father, and grandfather, make for a well-told, sad story meant as an indictment of contemporary society. A master of the graphic novel form, Ware employs precise, delicate artwork, imaginative sequencing that weaves through geographical and temporal space, subtle visual and textual cues that meander through consciousness and memory, and a stunning design of varied panel sizes, inserts of cut-out models, and a dust jacket that folds out to a poster containing the lineage of five generations of Corrigans. Unlike US comic books and Japanese manga, Jimmy Corrigan is not an easy read; it requires about four hours, the amount of time Jimmy spends with his father. This book sets a standard by which the growing number of graphic novels must be compared. All collections supporting the study of animation. J. A. Lent; Temple University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
New graphic novels by the two arguably most important alternative comics creators demonstrate conclusively that comics can achieve higher purposes than those of the superhero and other tired genres. Clowes' protagonists are generally jaded young cynics, and Boring's eponymous hero is appropriately and ironically named. Outwardly passive, ennui-deadened David is a figure to whom extraordinary things happen as he obsessively pursues oddly coifed Wanda, his mysterious ideal woman. In that pursuit, he is shot twice, hides out on an isolated island surrounded by an eccentric family, and gets involved in a murder case before the story approaches a possibly apocalyptic conclusion. David's problems stem from an absent father, a hack comic-book artist whose only legacy is yellowed panels from his stories. Stark, confusing, rather off-putting, Clowes' new book is also intense, poetic, and intriguing, which is precisely what Clowes intends it to be, given his preference for sparse dialogue, ironic first-person narration, and deadpan illustration. Not as accessible and convincing as Clowes' Ghost World (1997), Boring is still an impressive slice of graphic surrealism. Ware's hero is a doughy, middle-aged loser who retreats into fantasies that he is "The Smartest Kid on Earth." The minimal plot involves Jimmy's tragicomic reunion with the father who abandoned him in childhood. In abruptly juxtaposed flashbacks, Ware depicts previous generations of Corrigan males, revealing how their similar histories of rejection and abandonment culminated in Jimmy's hapless state. What makes the slight story remarkable is Ware's command of the comics medium. His crisp, painstaking draftsmanship, which sets cartoonish figures in meticulously detailed architectural settings, is matched by his formal brilliance. Ware effectively uses tiny, repetitive panels to convey Jimmy's limited existence, then suddenly bursts a page open with expansive, breathtaking vistas. His complex, postmodern approach incorporates such antiquated influences as Windsor McCay's pioneering Little Nemo strips and turn-of-the-century advertising, transforming them into something new, evocative, and affecting. His daunting skill transforms a simple tale into a pocket epic and makes Jimmy's melancholy story the stuff of cartoon tragedy. --Gordon Flagg
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
This book collects the "Jimmy Corrigan" stories, published piecemeal over a seven-year period. Readers follow protagonist Jimmy as he learns of the existence of his absent father, watch his attempts to win independence from his domineering mother, and see his relationship with his stepsister grow as they await their father's recovery following a car accident. Ware's subtle, original dialog between words and pictures is arresting, thought-provoking, and ultimately meaningful. Clearly, Ware is one of today's premier cartoonists, whose work, both in style and content, argues that the comics form be considered a vehicle for sophisticated storytelling. Recommended for all public and academic libraries.ÄStephen Weiner, Maynard P.L., MA Art Instruction By Daniel Lombardo, Jones Library, Amherst, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The comics world has amply rewarded Ware for his amazingly innovative workhes won numerous prizes for his Acme Novelty Library, a combination of complex narratives about mice, a trove of visually arcane inventions (diagrammed with Rube Goldberglike precision), and plenty of eye-straining text: a graphic self-effacement that echoes the creepy despair of Wares main creation, Jimmy Corrigan. Jimmys story now finds its full expression in this wonderful book, itself an endlessly fascinating art object that deserves attention way beyond the comics market. The Corrigan tale as such, now easier to piece together than it was in the Acme series, concerns four generations of sad, dough-faced men. The first Corrigan, the son of Irish immigrants to the Midwest, loses his wife early on, and bears no affection for his perpetually frightened son, who dreams of the Chicago Exhibition rising on the land near their ramshackle home. Its also the place where the gruff and nasty old man abandons little Jimmy to his fate. Meanwhile, in present time, the newest Corrigan man, also abandoned by his father to an overprotective mother, is an overweight, sniveling mess, with a receding hairline, and a rich fantasy life. Contacted by his long-lost dad, an airport bar tender, Jimmy takes the unusually bold step of visiting the man he barely knows, only to witness his accidental death. Here, in short, is what this multilayered piece is all about: loss, abandonment, death, passivity. And Wares stunning visual style raises this patriarchal struggle to the level of Chekhov, with the historical naturalism of Dreiser. His use of block colors, his precise lines, the intensity of his wordless images are beautifully echoed by his sudden bursts of lyrical language (in an array of apposite typefaces) and his challenging plot developments. Everything here boggles: the artfully conceived foldout dust-jacket, the cryptically word-burdened endpapers, and, most of all, the story itself: a graphic narrative that deserves a place beside the best novels of the year.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
