Jimmy Corrigan: The Saddest Kid on Earth

At first it can be hard to know what to make of this book. It can be difficult to know where the eyes should move to, where to focus, who is saying what (we saw the same thing with Chris Ware’s comics in McSweeney’s). Even the layout is unusual, but Ware makes great use of space (and not a centimeter seems wasted). Ware does make a lot of his works intentionally opaque, and I can’t say it’s a style that I immediately appreciate, but I think if I had a lot more time with this book, I’m sure could get so much out of it. While I like books that make the reader work a bit, and Ware leaves a lot up to the reader, but the difficulty of this piece almost seemed self-congratulating on Ware’s part, and I don’t think he needed to create such an imposing tome in order to get his points across about alienation and awkwardness. I didn’t find the character Jimmy to be as unappealing as some people did, though, and I really like Ware’s drawing style.

Despite his simple, almost child-like drawings, this is clearly a labor of love, and I actually loved the retro-style drawings, which reminded me of old comic strips. The introduction on the inner cover alone is comprehensive and hilarious – even if the “exam” includes immediate sexist humor, asking women to put the book down. Ware also draws women in a very specific way, generally obscuring their faces right through the very end. He uses obscenity and offensive humor immediately, creating a highly controversial work (and it absolutely looks like he relishes the controversy, judging by the selected reviews copied in the very beginning. It seems like much of his works (though brilliant, and wonderful) are deliberate attempts to cause discomfort and just generally get people talking about Chris Ware.

Jimmy Corrigan, like many of the other stories we’ve read, shows pathetic circumstances, callow people, and dramatic events in a matter-of-fact, very human way. This book focus on strained parent/children relationships, which were interesting to read immediately after Exit Wound- although in this case, the reader is actually privy some of the more abusive, sad moments between father and son, whether dreamed or real.. Again, this book deals with with issues or alienation, social awkwardness, perhaps more poignantly than anything else we have read. Despite how pathetic they were for the most part, the characters still resonated with me, Jimmy is very haunting. Jimmy wants so badly to be liked, to be fully human, and this desire was so touching and pitiable. The story left me searching for reasons about foolish behavior, precisely because Jimmy was so real to me, and so heart-wrenchingly pathetic. Someone mentioned being turned off by the nervous ticks in their speech, the “huff”s and “uh”s. I liked them; those ticks occur so frequently in real dialogue, but hardly ever in written pieces.

It takes Chris Ware a long time to get on with his story here, but I’ve seen him convey incredibly powerful stories in just a few pages. It is as if Ware uses the difficulty of reading this book to prove a point, and while it is a piece that stuck with me, it’s also profoundly frustrating, and I like my books to be pleasurable, too – no matter how important the message is, it needs to be one that people will access. It was hard for me to follow such a long book when the main character barely even attempts to react to life’s circumstances, much less actually make efforts to improve his lot. At the same time, I have to disagree with people who resent Jimmy, or can’t feel any compassion towards him. I think that the scenes of Jimmy as a child (as well as the scenes showing the flawed men who came before him) really cement him as an empathetic character; it is hard not to feel remorse over what has become of a boy who was once so excitable and vibrant. We see Jimmy’s mom hovering over him, stunting him from actually growing up, and it’s hard not to feel any empathy towards him. How can anyone look at Jimmy’s big sad eyes and not feel empathy for him, even if much of his pain has been caused by his own flaws? I also just generally appreciated Jimmy’s snark and overall immature sense of humor, and could relate to his awkwardness and isolation.

Finally: In the front a number of “quotations regarding the hardcover edition” are selecting in order to increase confidence in the purchase. Who but Chris Ware would include “‘Nearly impossible to read’ – The LA Times Book Review” in order to increase purchasing confidence? Another reviewer, Ted Rall from Slate, likens the book to Ulysses, saying “no one’s ever read it, and those who have know that it sucks”. I think it’s an apt comparison, and of course most authors welcome controversy surrounding their art, but still, few would so proudly display how unreadable their works are.