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Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
 
Manufacturer: Pantheon
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Customer Reviews
Wowie Zowie
 
Review Date: October 7, 2004
Reviewer: Christopher Magowan, Mississauga, ON
I had seen a bit of Chris Ware's Artwork in newyork and was impressed with his graphic skills. I decided to pick up this book, just to see some more of his drawings. I did, but also, i found my new favourite book! There is somthing so beautifully simple about this while at the same time not a boring plot at all. I suggest this book to anyone and everyone who can read.
Chris Ware is a genius
 
Review Date: September 12, 2000
Reviewer: ,
I strongly urge those of you who think that the term 'comic book' is synonymous with juvenile hijinx to at least peruse this book. Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan is a character written with as much realistic literary precision as most any Dickens or Hemingway protagonist. The difference: In the ever-expanding and exciting medium of 'comix' or 'illustrated literature', we are brought into this sad character's world in a much different way than mere words are capable of. The story is highly detailed with the 'mundanities' of daily existence, yet quite simple in plot. Jimmy Corrigan, a lonely, middle-aged man living in the 1980's, wants one thing: someone who will love (or at least like) him. Involving 3 generations of the Corrigan clan, we find out why it's been so hard to find this elusive contentment. From abandanment to abuse to 'momma's boy' syndrome, we learn exactly how desparately lonely Jimmy is. This is not a happy book, let's get that straight. Yet, in it's nihlistic sadness, we find a moving and inspirational story, if only in comparison of our lives to the lonley existence of so many people like Jimmy. Written over the course of some seven years, we find in Jimmy Corrigan--The Smartest Kid on Earth an amazing and important work.
Amazing.
 
Review Date: September 13, 2000
Reviewer: , Columbus, OH United States
I don't read comic books. Used to, thought I outgrew them. Then I read some reviews of this thing in Brill's Content and Time Magazine. I thought to myself, OK, maybe I should look into this. I bought it the first day it came into the bookstore that I work at. It's cliche but I laughed and I cried at it's brilliance and poignant storytelling. Melancholy at it's finest. I feel what this character feels. Amazing color illustrations that, from what I read, took about 8 years to complete. I can only hope that it won't take that long for another one to come out. In three words: Buy it now.
The Smartest Comic Book on Earth
 
Review Date: September 13, 2000
Reviewer: Chris Cilla, Portland,Oregon,U.S.A.
This beautifully designed collection of the work of Chris Ware is a must have for lovers of the art of comics.The meticulously lettered,folded dust-cover wraps some of the densest narrative yet put onto the comic page.The story concerns the shy,lonely Jimmy and his bleak life,as it is interrupted by the intrusion of his previously unknown father. The subsequent involvement with this "new" branch of his family shows just how alienated Jimmy is,and further illustrates how far apart the individuals that make up modern families are in our divisive society.Ware uses a series of flashbacks to the Civil War and the International Columbian Exposition in Chicago to echo the modern ennui with a claustrophobic awareness of the inevitability of Family.This may sound like tiring material for a "comic book",but the consummate artistry of Ware pulls the disparate threads of this stunning work together.Jimmy Corrigan is recommended for adventurous readers who have yet to sample the great fruits of sequential narrative,as well as those who already enjoy their bounty.
Brilliant -- Perhaps the first true graphic "novel"
 
Review Date: September 16, 2000
Reviewer: Michael S. Manley, Chicago, IL USA
Having been entranced by Ware's "The Acme Novelty Catalog" (a meticulously produced comic book containing the Jimmy Corrigan novel and extras, plus other pieces and marginalia that rivals even that of Dave Eggers) for a long time, and having followed a great deal of this book's story in Chicago's NewCity paper, I was no less impressed and moved by encountering the entire story here in one collection. While the abject loneliness of Jimmy Corrigan is more deeply rendered through the extra vignettes in Acme Novelty Co., this book brilliantly captures the evolution of a strain of melancholy across generations (from the dispossesed Irish immigrant/veteran to the abused orphan to the ignored/smothered Jimmy), beautifully counterpointed by the promise of real family assembled from the fragments of others (Jimmy's father and sister). The epilogue (which, frankly, would resonate even more if some of the aforementioned vignettes had been included in this book) lends Jimmy's story a saving grace the likes of which I've not read in a novel -- text or graphical -- in ages. Chris Ware is an artist in more ways than one, and this book lends great hope to the maturation of the comic as serious literature.

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