Product Description

For five years Chris Ware has been drawing amazingly innovative 'comic strips' about a character called Jimmy Corrigan - a boy with the face of a disappointed old man. Here for the first time Ware's strips are assembled in a beautiful hardback, every inch of which, including an extraordinary fold-out jacket, has been designed by Chris Ware. Jimmy Corrigan has rightly been hailed as the greatest comic/graphic novel ever to be published.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12672 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 380 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Chris Ware's graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth should be required reading for all those who persist in thinking that all comics are little more than picture books for kids. Jimmy Corrigan is a lonely man in his mid-30s with an inferiority complex, a debilitating lack of self-confidence and an overbearing mother. The plot--dealing with Jimmy's reunion with his father, who abandoned him as a child--is almost secondary, as Ware tells the tale of previous generations of Corrigan males via flashbacks, demonstrating how their own lives and circumstances culminated in Jimmy's feeling of alienation, abandonment and social awkwardness. However, rather than flinching from the subject matter, or allowing the tale to descend into syrupy sentimentality, Chris Ware isn't afraid to make Jimmy wholly pathetic, at times frustratingly so. The reader is given all the reasons why Jimmy is the way he is, but at no point does Ware attempt to make him likeable (when, for example, he meets his half-sister for the first time). He offers explanations, not excuses.

Jimmy Corrigan is further set apart by Ware's visually stunning, two-dimensional artwork, where simple characters are drawn against painstakingly detailed backdrops, and an overall creative layout that utilises more traditional uniform panels, full-page vistas, draughtsman diagrams and cut-outs, among other things. With the flashbacks and disjointed narrative, Chris Ware shows a remarkable command of the comics medium, elevating Jimmy Corrigan far above its peers. More than just a great graphic novel, this is a classic in any medium and won the Guardian First Book Award 2001. --Robert Burrow

New York Times Book Review
'...in terms of sheer aesthetic virtuosity Ware’s book is arguably the greatest achievement of the form, ever.’

Time
‘This haunting and unshakeable book will change the way you look at your world.’

Customer Reviews

Not a cartoon...
I waited 2 months to get this book after reading that it had won the Guardian first book award. I don't regularly read 'graphic novels' (well not since I was 13/14 and then it was 2001AD etc!) so this was a bit of a departure.

I wasn't disappointed. Jimmy Corrigan is incredibly well observed. It is funny, tragic, absurd, moving, frustrating...don't read this novel if you are expecting a 10 minute, light hearted cartoon. The characterisation is superb, interaction is captured in a way which brings the characters to life, the way in which, e.g., it conveys conversational pauses and awkwardness is so accurate you feel like you are there with the protagonists, cringing, fearing, hoping, anticipating. Jimmy (and his father & grandfathers') experiences/thoughts/hopes/dreams/ambitions are dissected mercilessly, even cruelly, and yet there is affection and an affinity which goes beyond simple relationships (as does the book).

The story and the great artwork drew me in and made me really think about Jimmy, his life, his dreams, it is a fantastic book.

Do you want a book which makes you reflect, laugh out loud, moves you, is funny, tragic and above all brilliantly realised?

A simple yet epic masterpiece
This book is one of the finest comics I have ever read. It looks simple, and yet is so crammed with inner meaning and symbolism that it would take several readings to swallow it all. The layout of the pages is astonishingly complex, sometimes giving a whole page to just somebody breathing. Ordinary actions, like getting out of bed, are covered with so much detail that they soon look like moves in a cosmic chess game. It mixes everyday reality with daydreams with remarkable fluidity. A marvel of the comics medium.

The finest graphic novel ever?
This is an outstanding achievement, beautifully designed and possessing an emotional power and subtlety unmatched in the comic/graphic novel genre. Ware's exquisitely realized, yet flat and distanced graphic style intensifies the sorrow and loneliness of the story to a pitch of devastation. This extraordinary, unique book places its author in the company of the greatest masters of graphic story-telling and sets new standards for the form. Six stars!