Chris Ware
Editing is thinking: An interview with David Ball
The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is A Way of Thinking
I first met David Ball a few years ago, while working on a story for my employer, The Patriot-News, about how comics were being used in high school and college classrooms. Luckily for me, Ball just happened to be teaching a class on the subject at the nearby Dickinson College. Ball was kind enough to return the favor and invite me to speak to his comics class when he taught it again a few semesters later.
Fast forward to today, where Ball is co-editor, along with Martha Kuhlman, of the new book from the University of Mississippi Press, The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is A Way of Thinking, a collection of essays by noted comics scholars like Jeet Heer about the seminal Acme cartoonist.
Knowing Ball lived and worked next door (relatively speaking), it seemed silly for me not to get in touch with him and see if he was up for an interview. Thankfully, he was eager to talk about the book.
Why Ware? What is it about him and his comics that you feel justify a book of this nature?
Unlike many of our contributors in the collected volume, I came to Ware’s work very late and not as a dedicated reader of comics but rather as a scholar of American literature. I had known that fascinating things were going on in contemporary comics for a while, but reading Jimmy Corrigan knocked the wind out of me. The book seemed so versed in the American literary genealogy of Melville and Faulkner and Nabokov with which I was familiar, but was using techniques, referring to other comics, and stretching my brain in ways that were wholly new to me. I knew that I would need to educate myself rapidly to catch up — a still ongoing process — and that colleagues in history, art history, and comparative literature, as well as comics commentators and enthusiasts could help me better understand what I was reading. Ware quickly became a discovery I could share with others and a way I could talk to, and learn from, scholars and readers whose interests were different than mine. That kind of intellectual dialogue is what this book of essays is about, and I hope that readers of the volume will similarly find ideas that are new to them, and share in that sense of discovery. Every time I reread one of Ware’s comics, or get my hands on a new fragment of “Rusty Brown” or “Building Stories,” I find something new and unexpected. That sense of discovery is a rare thing in any art form, and I’m convinced it’s why we’ll still be reading Ware fifty years from now.
- May 7, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Comics College: Chris Ware
Quimby the Mouse
Comics College is a monthly feature where we provide an introductory guide to some of the comics medium’s most important auteurs and offer our best educated suggestions on how to become familiar with their body of work.
This month we’re examining looking at the career of one Chris Ware, who’s name you may have seen bandied about in certain circles here and there. He’s certainly become one of the more divisive figures in comics — those who love him proclaim him to be one of the finest and most important cartoonists working in the field today, while those who dislike him describe his work as cold, overly precise, depressing and overly pretentious.
I don’t believe any of those descriptors are true (at least not to the extent that his critics seem to think they are) but I can see where those who have for one reason or another avoided his work thus far may have difficulty finding an entry point. So let’s see if we can alleviate that problem somewhat …
- March 26, 2010 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Mautner
New Yorker celebrates birthday with Ware, Tomine, Clowes, Brunetti
Yes, the New Yorker
Heidi MacDonald and D&Q beat me to the punch, but just in case you missed the news, I thought I’d let you know that this week’s issue of The New Yorker magazine is sporting four swell covers by Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Adrian Tomine and Ivan Brunetti. Supposedly when you arrange the four covers together in a certain way, a super-secret picture forms. Alright, I’ll spoil it: It’s a picture of Eustace Tilly. It must be one of those “Magic Eye” type images though, because I’ve been staring at the bloody things for hours on end, and all I’m getting is a headache.
- February 9, 2010 @ 08:51 AM by Chris Mautner
Conan O’Brien’s Chris Ware homage
Conan O'Brien, the Smartest Fired Talk Show Host on Earth
As if we didn’t already have enough reasons to join Team Coco: Peggy Burns at Drawn & Quarterly draws our attention to a very cool pre-commercial bumper that the soon-to-be late and lamented Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien used the other night, featuring art that looks a whole heckuva lot like the sticks ‘n’ circles style of ACME Novelty Library genius Chris Ware. Peggy snagged the screenshot from Adam Kempa, who reproduces an earlier Ware Easter egg from the show as well. Unfortunately, with the final episode airing tonight, I guess we won’t be seeing any more … for now, at least.
I sat around trying to fill in the blank for “Heh, Jay Leno probably reads _____ instead,” but I couldn’t think of a comic so self-evidently lame that it wouldn’t fill the comment thread with pissed-off fans anyway.
- January 22, 2010 @ 07:48 AM by Sean T. Collins
Wanna see what the Chinese edition of Jimmy Corrigan looks like?
Chinese cover to Jimmy Corrigan
Of course you do! And thanks to this Flickr set, you can! (via)
- January 12, 2010 @ 10:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Batton Lash parodies Chris Ware in “The Scariest Kid on Earth”
The Scariest Kid on Earth
Batton Lash is posting the back-up story to Supernatural Law #39, which features a parody of Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, on his website in full color. The story is about a werewolf appearing as an attraction in Quimby’s Carnavale & Sideshow.
The complete press release is available after the jump. You can start reading the story here. Watch for new pages every Monday and Thursday.
- January 7, 2010 @ 08:45 AM by JK Parkin
What Are You Reading?
Humbug
Like a train eager to meet its next destination, What Are You Reading chugs along into the new year without ever once looking back. Our guest this week is the ridiculously prolific cartoonist, critic and blogger Shaenon Garrity (who can also be found here). In addition to her latest comic Skin Horse, you can read her regular reviews at The Comics Journal and she has a regular column over at Comixology.
But if you want to know what Shaenon’s reading this week, you’ll have to click on the link below.
- January 3, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Straight for the art | Chris Ware originals
Ware's original cover for Acme #17
Looking for something to cleanse the palate after all that ham and Christmas cookies? How about this: A rather lengthy and impressive collection of original art by Chris Ware, courtesy of the Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago. Just the thing to use all that money you got from your aunt on.
- December 28, 2009 @ 10:00 AM by Chris Mautner
McSweeney’s San Francisco Panorama takes comics stars to the streets
James Stokoe's poster for the San Francisco Panorama
Wow, newspaper nostalgia is quite the hot ticket for comics these days, huh?
First there was Kramers Ergot 7, Sammy Harkham and Alvin Buenaventura’s avant-garde anthology, printed at a massive size meant to emulate Winsor McKay’s full-page Little Nemo in Slumberland newspaper strips. Then there was Wednesday Comics, DC’s 12-issue anthology title, published on fold-out newsprint. And now there’s the San Francisco Panorama, a one-time-only “21st-century newspaper prototype” that doubles as the 33rd issue of author/publisher Dave Eggers’ McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern.
Boasting 320 pages of original content, the broadsheet-format Panorama contains full-color comics from Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Seth, Jessica Abel, Adrian Tomine, Kim Deitch, Ivan Brunetti, Gene Yang, Alison Bechdel, Erik Larsen (still can’t get over that) and more. It also features prose contributions of varying stripes from such comics-relevant authors as Michael Chabon, Chip Kidd, Stephen King, Junot Díaz and Michelle Tea, and a poster of the 49ers’ Patrick Willis drawn by Wonton Soup‘s James Stokoe. And there’s all the other stuff you’d expect from a newspaper — journalism, sports, features, a magazine, a book section and more. Only, y’know, all fancy-pants.
The New York Times reports that the paper has already sold through the limited run made available for sale on the San Francisco streets yesterday at the low price of $5, but it’s still available (or will be soon, that is) at the full $16 pricetag at bookstores and at the McSweeney’s site. Click here for an extensive preview.
(Times link via Pop Candy.)
- December 9, 2009 @ 08:30 AM by Sean T. Collins
Buenaventura does The Believer
He’s the man who helped bring us the sublime Kramers Ergot 7 and the ridiculous Boys Club. Now publisher Alvin Buenaventura is lending his Midas touch to stalwart literary magazine The Believer for its annual Art Issue.
At his Blog Flume group blog, Buenaventura reveals that In addition to an Acme Novelty Library/Jack Surives “crossover cover” by regular cover artist Charles Burns, the issue features an interview between Acme‘s Chris Ware and Jack‘s Jerry Moriarty, other interviews with Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Peter Blegvad, and a poster by Moriarty.
Finally, the issue sees the launch of a new monthly feature: a comics spread featuring new strips from Burns, Al Columbia, Matt Furie, Tom Gauld, Lisa Hanawalt, Tim Hensley and more, edited by Buenaventura himself.
Click over to Buenaventura’s blog for sample art, click the individual links for the respective features, and get ready to gorge on some great comics content.
Wow — between this and issue #33 of The Believer‘s sister publication McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, dubbed The San Francisco Panorama and featuring comics by Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Erik Larsen (!) and more, it’s a good time to be a fan of comics in high-end literary periodicals.
- November 6, 2009 @ 09:57 AM by Sean T. Collins
Wall-to-wall Ware
How much Corrigan can you stand?
The Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture at the University of Tennessee has a new exhibit up entitled “MultipleXMultiple: A Survey of Contemporary Printmaking.” The interesting (and comics-related) thing about this show is they’re highlighting the work of Chris Ware by displaying every page from every issue of Acme Novelty Library so far on a wall. One of the student curators, Daniel Maw, has pictures of the installation on his blog, and talks about the idea behind the show over at Flog:
In order to showcase the epic nature of this comic we elected to purchase two copies, cut the bindings off each, collate the pages, and display all [390] pages in a grid on a 23 x 10 foot wall. It is quite impressive to take it all in at once as it demonstrates the tremendous amount of talent and work that went in to the creation of the book.
- November 2, 2009 @ 10:30 AM by Chris Mautner
Chris Ware ‘Unmasked’ in the New Yorker
Unmasked
The New Yorker has posted a new strip by Chris Ware that has a bit of a Halloween theme. And an iPhone.
- October 27, 2009 @ 10:20 AM by JK Parkin
Next week: Ivan Brunetti chats with T-Pain
Well here’s a celebrity meet-up I never in my most drug-induced haze ever thought of before: Chris Ware and Fall Out Boy bassist/lyricist Pete Wentz talking about comics, music and art against an LA backdrop. Apparently they have more in common than you think. For one thing, both agree that they’re embarrassed by most of their output. The first video is below, but you’ll want to go here to see several more, including some outtakes. (found via CR)
- October 8, 2009 @ 11:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Read the comic Chris Ware doesn’t want you to see
From 'Floyd Farland'
Long before there was Rusty Brown and Jimmy Corrigan, there was Floyd Farland: Citizen of the Future, Chris Ware’s very first published comic book.
Apparently he’s quite ashamed and embarrassed of it (as honestly most of us are by our early attempts at art), to the point where he’s tried to hunt down as many copies as possible and destroy them. Show up at a signing with a copy and he’ll beg you to buy it from you so he can burn in front of your eyes, laughing maniacally all the while.
That’s the story I’ve heard at any rate. But Brian Hughes of Again With the Comics managed to have a copy in his collection and share a few pages, as well as his impressions:
The writing is very “Angry Young Man” circa 1987, what with the “Thought Police” and the “Totalitarian Government” slant. The art style is almost the exact opposite of his current style: crude, stark, and unpolished. Ware now applies an architectural precision to each page, but his early work is thick–lined, blocky, and chaotic. Background detail is abstract, when it appears at all, and human faces are blob-and-line cartoons. It is fortunate that most of the story is driven by exposition, because figuring out the action on some pages is nearly impossible.
- September 25, 2009 @ 01:00 PM by Chris Mautner
What Are You Reading?
The Photographer
We have a very special edition of What Are You Reading this week, as our guests are none other than the legendary Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly. Spiegelman, you know, no doubt, as the author of such acclaimed books as Maus, Breakdowns and In the Shadow of No Towers, while his wife Mouly was co-creator and editor of Raw Magazine, art editor at the New Yorker and is spearheading the new Toon Books line of children’s comics.
To see what’s currently in their reading stack, just click on the link below …
- September 13, 2009 @ 02:14 PM by Chris Mautner