15 December 2004
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, 'Fortunately...'
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, "Fortunately...". James Reed Corrigan, the grandfather of the title character, plays hide-and-seek with neighborhood children during the viewing of his recently deceased grandmother. An older red-headed girl catches his attention.
I had read this a few months ago (after years of reading its praises) and was captivated. The author, Chris Ware, has for-lack-of-a-more-insightful-description a completely unique graphic storytelling style. It is part stylized illustration and part illustrative diagramming. The details of some of the more inventive pages are too precise and intricate to reproduce here, so I've chosen a more poetic piece. The inside covers include glossed reviews that both praise and deride the work--allowing Ware to poke fun at himself in the same self-depracating tone that the narrative takes in its assessment of his family's history. Some reviews are so over-the-top, I suspect they're planted: The colours are dreadful, it's like looking at a bottle of Domestos or Harpic or Ajax. Awful bleak colours, revolting to look at; it's on its way to the Oxfam shop. Disgusting look to it. really horrible.
- poet Tom Paulin, BBC Newsnight, December 8th 2001.
Brits.
Here's the text of the page (with panels denoted by ellipses):
Fortunately, for these children ... A recent planting of trees, telephone poles, & houses on their bleak neighborhood landscape ... helps to make their game much more exciting. ... After all, who'd want to play hide & go seek in a swamp? ... A half centruy earlier, the only place to secret yourself around here might've been in a depression in the ground ... or behind an indian on horseback. ... But, with the inevitable forward march of progress ... come new ways of hiding things, ... and new things to hide.
- Music from the Sonic Generator concert, 6 May 2015 posted by sstrader on 7 May 2015 at 11:01:42 PM
- The strangely enduring power of kitsch posted by sstrader on 21 December 2014 at 4:34:46 PM
- Nowhere Men phantom issues posted by sstrader on 22 April 2014 at 11:55:50 PM
- Where was I? posted by sstrader on 22 February 2014 at 11:54:34 AM
- New comic books discovered in Denver in October posted by sstrader on 7 December 2013 at 11:06:53 AM Other entries categorized in Current Interests:
- A Visit from the Goon Squad; Jennifer Egan posted by sstrader on 13 May 2013 at 9:36:56 PM
- The Fractal Prince; Hannu Rajaniemi posted by sstrader on 28 November 2012 at 12:11:33 AM
- Three books on atheism posted by sstrader on 11 November 2012 at 2:15:21 PM
- Three recent books posted by sstrader on 15 August 2012 at 7:41:32 PM
- The Unfolding of Language; Guy Deutscher posted by sstrader on 26 April 2012 at 9:48:06 PM