Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth

I've never done this before. Buy a book. Can't stand it. Return it a few days later. Buy it back a few hours later. Fall in love with it. Such is my journey with Chris Ware's graphic book, "Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth". Let me tell you first why I returned it, and what redeemed it.I came across this book after a brief EW mention of it, rating it very high. Intrigued, I purchased a copy, and attempted to delve into its layers. Instead of intrigue, I found frustration, mainly because I simply didn't know how to look at the book. I didn't know where my eyes were supposed to go, so many of the early pages were difficult to read. Plus, the characters constant and sudden lapses into their daydreams made for early confusion. So, I returned it, happy of my decision. And then, I attended a live version of "This American Life" that prominently featured the work of Ware. His artwork captivated me, enough to rebuy the book and try again. What I found was an entralling, captivating tale, multi-layered, and worth all the work to learn the language of his drawings.It's the story of Jimmy Corrigan, an everyman without much of a life at all, who is contacted by his long lost father for a Thanksgiving reunion. Jimmy agrees to attend, which leads him on a retrospective journey of his life and his family. The story is both moving and rich, full of layers upon layers. Once you learn Ware's language, and what he tries to communicate, the story begins to shine like a lighthouse beacon through the pages. I was surprised to find myself crying at certain parts of the book; my brain was telling me this is simply a comic story, but my heart was breaking along with the characters. That alone is impressive.Ware's drawings are incredible. He communicates so much through each drawing, you need to "read" this slowly, and internalize the story. Whereas you tend to want to skip the less important drawings, quite often they will give you the most information. This book is not one to read quickly, but enjoy, like a fine, fine wine.I look forward to more work from Chris Ware. His artist's eye is impressive, but his storytelling is even more so.

If ever there was a title in the comics medium that could attract the attention of the literary world, "Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth" would be it. Indeed, this meticulously crafted tale of estranged fathers and sons spanning three generations has already won much acclaim from reviewers and readers alike who, until now, would typically have never even considered picking up a work of graphic literature. Originally running in serial form in the Chicago's weekly publication New City, "Jimmy Corrigan" took Ware seven years to create, though just by reading it you would never be able to tell. The artwork maintains a consistency throughout that suggests a vigorous discipline on Ware's part to create a cohesive and uniform story. Although it's true that Ware started the work as a free-form narrative experiment-never fully aware of where the story was headed from one "episode" to the next-eventually, as the tale began to take shape, he was able to rein in all the loose themes and motifs and successfully weave them together into a unified whole.The story opens depicting the title character, Jimmy Corrigan, as a young child living with his mother and already showing signs of an unhealthily introverted personality. His father is noticeably absent from the picture. A one-night-stand his mother brings home becomes a pivotal figure in the development of Corrigan's inner psyche. Moving forward to the present, Corrigan-now a middle-aged man living out a miserable existence still indelibly attached to his mother-is abruptly contacted one day by a man claiming to be his long-lost father. Soon he finds himself on a plane bound for an awkward reunion with his progenitor, and what subsequently follows is a series of events that can only be described as Chekhovian in terms of emotional depth and scope. Interwoven with this line of action is the tale of another member of the Corrigan clan, raised in an earlier era, with his own set of woeful circumstances also pertaining to his relationship with his father. Parallels both broad and intricate are drawn between the two storylines as Ware delicately shifts between past and the present, between the real and the imagined, between the melancholy and, well, the downright tragic. Shades of autobiography can be detected in the story's theme: Ware himself had never met his father until well into his adulthood, and when he did the results were less than joyous. Although the meeting did not occur until work on "Jimmy Corrigan" was well underway, the absence of a paternal figure throughout most of Ware's own life seems to inform the story in a deeply personal way.One cannot discuss "Jimmy Corrigan" without mentioning its exquisite visual artistry. The book is simply stunning to look at. The story is primarily told through illustration-dialogue is sparse and largely informed by the image rather than vice versa-and is a masterful example of storytelling by way of composition and juxtaposition. Its muted col

When people see you reading Jimmy Corrigan, you will get quite the gamut of reactions. Some people snicker to themselves and mumble something about a long comic book and wonder where "Flash-man" is. Others will take an interest, read the first ten pages, and put it down in emotional and intellectual frustration. Then you have a few people who will widen their eyes and say solemnly "are you serious...?"This work realizes the dream of Scott McCloud's literary graphic novel in a way that has no precedent that I have found. It is both accessible and intellectual. Its the story of an emotionally destitute and pitiful character named Jimmy Corrigan (actually a couple of them, if you want to get technical) and his search for a meaningful relationship with his/thier father(s). To tell any more than that (even that is too much) will destroy the story for you. Its a story that unwinds over the course of its reading, yet is present from the very first page.Things to think about as your read: The lack of female faces actually shown in any given frame, the significance of misshapen and flawed objects, changes in text, the irony of the title, and the pervasive exploration of the father-son relationship as is stands in the late 20th-early 21st century. Notice, also, how these presentations could not have been made as effective in traditional all-text presentation.Even more interesting is the presentation of the character(s) of Jimmy Corrigan. In Scott McCloud's first book, he talks about the popularity of cartooning, and how we relate to cartoon characters because their features are so simple. To put it another way, the more details a character has, the less it is us and the more it is someone else. All the Jimmy Corrigan characters, but especially the main one, are drawn super-simply. If they resemble anything, they seem infantile (and an ugly infant at that). One type 2 person (the book-putting-down type) told me that they had to take a break because they were "starting to feel like Jimmy Corrigan". Hmmmm.............If you are familiar with the graphic novel, this is the one. It could be studied. However, even if you don't like "comics", I would suggest trying this as an introduction, although I would hardly call it comic. Jimmy Corrigan represents the insecure child in all of us that reaches out for help in any form it can find and recoils when the help is hard and cold. If you ever wanted to put your head in you hands and cry because you thought no one liked you, Jimmy Corrigan is floating around in your psyche. Make sure he knows he's not alone.

Don't believe what Chris Ware might say about himself -- he is a gifted writer. This is to say nothing about his stunning talents as an artist and storyteller. This seven-years-in-the-making compilation of Jimmy Corrigan's story is both depressing and profound. It shouldn't be missed. Chris Ware transports the reader not only to another era, but into the middle of a man's web of pain, solitude and confusion. But he does so in such a delicate, meticulous manner; it's the perfect use of the comic book medium. Beautiful, poignant, sublime. I am a more complete person having read these comics.

Having been entranced by Ware's "The Acme Novelty Catalog" (a meticulously produced comic book containing the Jimmy Corrigan novel and extras, plus other pieces and marginalia that rivals even that of Dave Eggers) for a long time, and having followed a great deal of this book's story in Chicago's NewCity paper, I was no less impressed and moved by encountering the entire story here in one collection. While the abject loneliness of Jimmy Corrigan is more deeply rendered through the extra vignettes in Acme Novelty Co., this book brilliantly captures the evolution of a strain of melancholy across generations (from the dispossesed Irish immigrant/veteran to the abused orphan to the ignored/smothered Jimmy), beautifully counterpointed by the promise of real family assembled from the fragments of others (Jimmy's father and sister). The epilogue (which, frankly, would resonate even more if some of the aforementioned vignettes had been included in this book) lends Jimmy's story a saving grace the likes of which I've not read in a novel -- text or graphical -- in ages. Chris Ware is an artist in more ways than one, and this book lends great hope to the maturation of the comic as serious literature.