Chris Ware - (Monographics Series)

Daniel Raeburn

Yale University Press

2004

112 páginas

3h 44m

ISBN-13: 9780300102918

More proof that artist Chris Ware, best known for "Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth" (2000), has escaped the comic-book ghetto comes in this entry in Yale's series on eminent graphic designers, Monographics. Raeburn celebrates Ware's versatility by reproducing some 70 examples of his strikingly innovative work: comics pages, of course, but also paintings, posters, sketchbook pages, kinetic sculptures, toys, and even a sign for a bookstore and a lunchbox. Impressively knowledgeable about the comics medium, Raeburn contributes an invaluable essay revealing the autobiographical elements in Ware's work and demonstrating the influences on it of old-time newspaper strips and turn-of-the-century graphic design. Raeburn also insightfully annotates the individual works, explaining Ware's visually complex, postmodern style and his experimentation with narrative and graphic forms. The only fault of Raeburn's commentary is that there isn't enough of it. And while Ware's work itself is brilliant, the book's relatively small pages don't do it justice (much of the comic-strip dialogue is nearly illegible). Still, as a concise introduction to an important artist, it is ideal, especially for comics nonenthusiasts.