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. ( )

Let me state for the record that I adore Chris Ware and his meticulous, precisely rendered artwork. And then there's Jimmy Corrigan. I truly wanted to like this book, but just couldn't.

The artwork is typical Chris Ware, of course. That is always pleasing. The storyline is well thought-out: the awkwardness of the decidedly less than stellar adulthood of the title character. There are awkward moments aplenty, all presented to the reader with subtlety and skill.

If you like the graphic novel of sadness and depression -- with the main character facing constant disappointment and rejection at every page, the disappointments of growing up and viewing it naively through the eyes of a child -- then this is for you. Who knows why this seems to be a current trend in graphic novels. ( )

Disturbing. I can think of no word to describe this book that are more apt than disturbing. It's a book about alienation, death, loneliness, and estrangement. The book is hard to describe adequately -- at least for me. Jimmy's alienation from his father; his discovery that he had siblings he didn't now about till adulthood; his inability to connect with other humans; are all powerfully expressed through a powerful text and starkly beautiful illustrations.

Perhaps some of the themes hit too close to home or perhaps Ware's text is too unrelentingly bleak, but I cannot speak of this book in any meaningful way. He captures awkward moments between father and son brilliantly. He understands the relationship between overprotective mothers and their sons intuitively. The pain of meeting an unrecognized sibling -- all of these themes are treated better than just about anything I've read.

Having finished the book, though, I have a real need to read something else to take my mind off Jimmy Corrigan. ( )

I admit, I wanted some text to go along with the pictures. Page numbers would have been nice also, though I think I see why they were left off. In general, it's worth looking over if you're a comic or graphic novel fan, but even with what I imagine Ware was going for, I feel it grew a bit long, and a bit confused at points as well. ( )

A big, fat, wonderful, and affecting graphic novel. The simple pictures and framing provide a surprisingly good way to convey the simple, biographical action. ( )

The most important graphic novel since Maus. Breathtaking -- heartbreaking -- a thing of beauty.
--Michael

http://spacebeer.blogspot.com/2007/04... ( )

chris ware, for me, ranks higher than frank miller and alan moore. the rare moments of beauty amidst lives of sublime awkwardness and ineptitude pretty much sum it up. i'm simple and antisocial, what can i say? also, in reality he sort of looks like his characters, but cuter. YES I'M A STRAIGHT GIRL. he's cuter than most of his male fans, that's for sure.

Ok, I know this is supposed to be a really good book, but most of it left me cold. I was moved by Jimmy's relationship with his father though. ( )

http://www.i-reports.info/b/B200622.h... ( )

A microcosm; a fully functioning and complete ecosystem of "other". A snowglobe full of failure and false expectations.

"Jimmy Corrigan" is a difficult work to encapsulate in a short, pithy review like this one. It is a graphic novel that demonstrates the power of the medium, transforming what would amount to a short novella about four generations of lonely and isolated men into something much more, in which at least two of the characters (the titular Jimmy and his grandfather) burst into that literary reality in which they have their own living, breathing existence in one's mind.

This is perhaps the most stunning example of the wide palette of literary techniques that can be used by a graphic novelist. Ware uses repetitive frames to build up a character's reality, even in the face of boring or semi-repulsive behaviour (think "The Office" for a popular work that uses similar effect). He often encloses Jimmy in tiny frames, representing the claustrophobic aspects of his life. Then, almost suddenly, enormous visions of architectural beauty fill the page, almost overwhelming the character and, on at least one occasion, showing the emptiness of it all.

If one doubts that illustrated works can have amazing literary effects, all one needs to do is to give "Jimmy Corrigan" a read. It will quickly change your perspectives.

The only thing separating Chris Ware from William Faulkner is the fact that Ware draws his characters with ink and uses little balloons for dialogue to tell his story of one dysfunctional family’s sound and fury.

To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Yoknapatawpha never drew a comic strip; but if he had, the results surely would have been as powerful as what’s on the 380 pages of Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth.

Actually, the term “comic book� cheapens Ware’s magnificent artistry. Calling Jimmy Corrigan a comic strip reduces it to the dime digests of our childhood. This is about as far from Archie and Jughead as you can get. Some people call Ware and other artists like Art Spiegelman (Maus) and Ben Katchor (Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer) “graphic novelists.� That’s fine, but when it comes to something as profound as Jimmy Corrigan, I think I prefer the term “illustrated novel.�

As you hold this volume of “comic strips� in your hand for the first time, you may not realize it, but you’ve got something as deep and genuinely moving as anything you’ll find in the words of John Updike, Raymond Carver or any other contemporary scribe bound by the rigid, old-fashioned black-and-white prison of text. The story here is complex and multi-layered in ways that “traditional� American literature often aspires to (and just as often fails). Once you step inside Jimmy’s pastel world, don’t be surprised if you have a hard time finding your way out again. In fact, this book is the kind that can’t be adequately described (though I’ll try). It must be experienced.

So, let’s start with the experience…The hardcover edition of Jimmy Corrigan has the strangest and cleverest dust jacket I’ve ever seen—it looks like the aftermath of a horrible paper-folding accident at the bindery. Unfold it and you’ll discover a collage of seemingly-random panels showing what looks like a family tree of sorts, a doctor’s report of a patient (“36-year-old male who has arrived with acute muscular sprain to right foot following a fall�) and instructions for making paper dolls. You can read the microscopic text now if you like (“With the many recent technological breakthroughs in pictorial linguistics [as exemplified by airline safety cards, battery diagrams and feminine protection directions], such heretofore-dormant skills of Comic Strip Apprehension [or CSA] are being reawakened in the adult mind,� etc.), but you’ll really appreciate it when you return after finishing what’s inside. (By the way, Ware’s tiny-print writing is as smart and funny as anything you’d find in Dave Eggers’ copyright page disclaimers).

Look on the front cover, lower right corner, and you’ll find these words: “A bold experiment in reader tolerance, disguised as a gaily-colored illustrated romance in which TINY PICTURES seem to COME ALIVE, DANCE, SING and WEEP.� Dancing, singing and weeping—yep, that’s what I was doing by the end of my Jimmy Corrigan experience. Well okay, I’m not exactly what you’d call a “weeping man,� but if I was, then I’d be a sobbing wreck by the end of the book. In these 380 pages, you’ll find pain, desire, hope, humiliation and the sweet surprise of forgiveness and reconciliation. Ware’s satiric tone on the dustjacket and inside covers is a bit misleading—there’s nothing riotously funny about the pathetic, boring life of Jimmy Corrigan. Sure, there are moments of great humor, but overall this is the serious stuff of the most intense Oprah show you can imagine.

Ware knowingly juxtaposes the soul-scraping agony of Jimmy’s family history with the “gaily-colored illustrations� and while it took me some time to adjust to the fact that this is not a “Sunday funnies� yuk-it-up, I was soon immersed in Jimmy’s world.

And here’s what you’ll find in Jimmy’s world…

The book tells the tale of three generations of Corrigans—all of them named James: James Reed Corrigan (b. 1883), who is beaten and neglected by his father, a crippled, bitter Civil War veteran; James William Corrigan (b. 1921), a Marine vet, bartender and deadbeat dad; and our “hero,� Jimmy (b. 1941), a virginal Chicago office worker who is terrified of women. Jimmy is a therapist’s dream come true: he’s painfully shy, tongue-tied, full of neuroses and has a set of “mother issues� that would make Norman Bates look like a patsy. Jimmy lives by himself, talks to his mother every day on the phone whether he wants to or not (he usually doesn’t), eats Cap’n Crunch for breakfast and either picks his nose or bites his nails (it’s hard to tell from Ware’s depiction). He rarely speaks in complete sentences; most of his word balloons are filled with just the nervous “Ha ha� or “Uh.�

One day, he gets a letter in the mail which begins “Dear Son, I think it’s about time we fellas get to know each other, what do you say?� Jimmy’s life turns into a Tilt-o-Whirl. He hasn’t seen his father since he was 6, and his vague memories get the man confused with, alternately, Superman or a serial killer. Eventually, the two men do meet and the story turns into an excruciating inward journey toward healing wounds. As they work through their issues, Ware delves back into the Corrigan family history and we witness 9-year-old James I’s rough childhood which has a glorious and heartbreaking climax at the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition.

[Note: Jimmy Corrigan is not for young eyes—profanity, sex and lots of toilet-sitting all have a place in the narrative.]

The tale unfolds like a surreal Walter Mitty, only this time Jimmy’s daydreams are filled with lurid images of cruelty and humiliation. In one sequence, he imagines he has a son, a gigantic Superman shows up and plucks their house out of the neighborhood, his son is killed, he realizes he’s on a theater stage and then there’s some business about a horse he must kill. Symbolism abounds as Ware gives subtle weight to the simplest objects: a peach, a crutch and most especially the Columbian Exposition, a fair which was designed in honor of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World. The exposition celebrated where America had come from and looked ahead to where it was going; and the same goes for the Corrigans—though Jimmy has absolutely no idea what’s ahead on his perilously icy road.

Visually, Ware is at the opposite end of the spectrum from R. Crumb. Ware’s panels are light, airy and simple while Crumb’s are thick and heavy (though Ware and Crumb do explore the same themes of dysfunction). In Jimmy Corrigan, you might be reminded of the “clear line� artistry you see in The Adventures of Tin-Tin. Jimmy III, in fact, reminds me a bit of Henry, the bulbous-headed comic strip kid who never said a word—except, of course, he’s an older version of Henry, one with jowls and a Prozac prescription.

Ware, whose work has appeared in Raw magazine and was previously collected by Fantagraphic Books in a series called the ACME Novelty Library, is an artist of the highest caliber, using simple lines and muted colors to present a world that leaps off the page. At one point, James I is on his way to see the Columbian Exposition for the first time, but he wonders whether this is just another of his father’s broken promises. These worries are cramped into tiny, postage-stamp-sized panels. Then suddenly there’s a bird’s-eye view of the palatial exposition grounds filling the entire next page. To call it “breathtaking� is a gross understatement.

Another thing I liked about Jimmy Corrigan was the use of sound effects. Ware shows he’s really listened to the world around him and he transcribes that music onto the page. Here, for instance, is the sound of a man nervously playing with the pop top of a soda can: pk pk pk; or, turning on a faucet: tsssssh; or inserting a set of keys into the door: chngle chng. It’s details like these that set Jimmy Corrigan apart from anything else you’ll read this year.

My one and only quibble with the novel is that it’s sometimes hard to follow the flow of the action. Ware crowds your vision with panels of varying sizes, occasionally guiding you with arrows, but there are times when I got them out of sequence and had to backtrack to the start of the page. But that’s such a minor quibble in the face of the big picture. There is far too much beauty at stake here—both visually and textually—to be nitpicking.

Ah yes, the text—another quality of Ware’s to admire. Every so often, especially in the 1890s story, the panels are scripted with a narration composed of obsolete language. Just listen to some of the poetry Ware employs:

on this humid morning, [the city] shimmers with the smell of cattle, chocolate and garbage

and, when James I, anticipating another beating from his father, is sitting alone on the back porch with his head on his knees:

A distant roll of thunder and cooling breeze bearing the slur of neighborhood voices emerging from the stale house heat. Crickets, fireflies…all ruined by a stomach-turning sense of dread. It makes his toes hurt (and the familiar sniff of his own kneecaps which always precedes any punishment). SOMETIMES if he pushes on his eyeballs hard enough he sees pictures—red splotches and patterns of purple green sparkles, silvery smears.

Now you see what I mean about Faulkner?

It’s rare that literature as deep and moving as this comes along and I hope that by now I’ve convinced you to at least consider running out to your neighborhood Books-R-Us to hunt down Jimmy Corrigan. In the space of three panels, Ware is able to convey what some novelists struggle to describe in entire books: the heartbreak, the struggle and, finally, the glimmer of hope in our dark, dull lives.

Yes, all that (and more) in a “comic book.� ( )

http://estherbester.wordpress.com/200... ( )

http://www.archidose.org/books/corrig... ( )