The greatest comic of all-time. An absolute success on every level. The only other book that's ever affected me like this was "Lolita" by Nabokov, nothing else. ( )

I picked up a new paperback edition that I believe is quite new. I like it a lot. It's all about what mean, lonely, emotional cripples people can be and how they can turn out children who are just like themselves.

Idiots who think comics are a genre rather than a medium should read stuff like this.

P.S. After finishing this, you should really read the author's afterword. It's very interesting and has a lot to do with the content of the book. ( )

On the surface, Jimmy Corrigan can easily be dismissed as a simple story. Then the details and the sheer cleverness of it all begins to emerge. Jimmy Corrigan does his best to be someone we don't want to care about - clumsy, unable to stick-up for himself and on crutches due to a minor spill, he's heard from his father at 36 and is flying out to meet him for no other reason than to have a stranger not hate him. He is hoping to hide this from his overbearing mother who calls him constantly, he allows a fellow passenger to berate his roll choice finds himself alone and waiting in a strange airport for a man that cannot be bothered to show up on time.

This does not bode well.

And yet, you find that there's much in this story. Chris Ware has a generational aspect to the story as it flips back to Jimmy's grandfather's story of growing up with the construction of the World's Fair where he has an absent mother and an overbearing father in another story that is detailed in the book.

Ware does a fine job of detailing the human side of this without turning it into a Hallmark card. The drawings are lush and the layouts are done to match the stories - some are open and breezy while others are crammed and frantic. Some frames offer direction while others can be read in several different ways and still make sense, leaving their order ultimately up to the reader.

Very readable and ultimately a showcase for Ware's talent. ( )

Powerfully moving. Startlingly bizarre. Freakishly funny. And elegantly illustrated. I put off reading this book for far too long; I'm very very glad I finally picked it up. ( )

Never liked comic books and haven't read Sunday comics in years. Discovered this in the NYTimes magazine section and throught I'd see what the fuss was about. Was blown away by the depth of emotion, Ware's ability to tell a compelling story using a medium I had previously been turned off by. Add the Chicago Fair connection and it's one of my all-time-favorite books. ( )