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Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth [Hardcover]

Chris Ware (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
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Book Description

Publication Date: 14 Jun 2001

Jimmy Corrigan has rightly been hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever to be published. It won the Guardian First Book Award 2001, the first graphic novel to win a major British literary prize.

It is the tragic autobiography of an office dogsbody in Chicago who one day meets the father who abandoned him as a child. With a subtle, complex and moving story and the drawings that are as simple and original as they are strikingly beautiful, Jimmy Corrigan is a book unlike any other and certainly not to be missed.

(2002-10-18)

Frequently Bought Together

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth + Building Stories + New York Drawings
Price For All Three: £44.21

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  • Building Stories by Chris Ware Hardcover £19.20
  • New York Drawings by Adrian Tomine Hardcover £11.01

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 380 pages
  • Publisher: Jonathan Cape (14 Jun 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0224062107
  • ISBN-13: 978-0224062107
  • Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 3.9 x 16.9 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 8,240 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon 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

Review

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

‘Introverted and Joycean in its complexity, it’s a comic book with the soul of a literary novel.’ -- New Yorker

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

‘Ware may be the best cartoonist of his generation and Jimmy Corrigan is his masterpiece.’ -- Men's Journal
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Customer Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars
15 reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Not a cartoon... 10 May 2002
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
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?

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A simple yet epic masterpiece 19 May 2002
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
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.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A book everyone should read at least twice. 26 Jun 2003
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
This book is almost undescribable, the artwork is beautiful and intricate - I read it about 5 times just to look at the detail.
Ware creates a sad and totally helpless character who we grow to know and love, but he also frustrates as he is TOTALLY helpless. The character's innate muteness matches the clean illustrations - this lack of text, however, is not detremental to the quality of the book, we still see the depth of plot and complexity of character we would expect from a 1000 pages of writers block.

The plot follows Jimmy Corrigan meeting his long lost father and inturn meeting his half-sister. The story interchanges with the plot of Jimmy's grandfather as a child, growing up with his unloving father during the time of the World Expo in Chicago.
The narration is very disjointed and the boxes sometimes hard to 'read' in the right order, furthermore the story lapses into dreams or 'what if's without warning making the book a challenge to read but this only makes you want to read more.

Ware captures his characters life in the short space of time and accurately and truthfully portrays it in the plot, the plot whizzes along with no evident climaxes or low periods simply events. Jimmy seems to just drift through these events in his quiet bumbling way, avoiding fuss of any kind although he secretly longs to be a superhero.

Overall I believe this book to be one of the most incitive and wonderful books I've read.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Graphic novel for grownups
Jimmy Corrigan is an unlikeable character in a book that brings the graphic novel into the same field as all other great art forms; and, possibly, the artform with most to develop... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Catcher Dickoff
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome!
Awesome story and illustrations.
This book will spread your mind and change completely the concept of what a comic book is.
Published 9 months ago by Chiruley
5.0 out of 5 stars a beautiful book
This is a beautifully illustrated book - a nice combo of comic, graphic novel, dark humour, schematics and all that jazz. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Mr. Grant P. Killoran
5.0 out of 5 stars The saddest little man in the world
I never read a sadder graphic novel than this. But it's so a wonderful one, so personal and original. I'm an addict!!
Published on 23 Feb 2011 by Moka
5.0 out of 5 stars Profoundly well designed, for me, not the best graphic novel
I gave this book 5 stars which it deserves, as it is a ridiculously good looking book, from it's fold out dust-jacket and inner cover to it's every page. Read more
Published on 14 July 2010 by AndyK
5.0 out of 5 stars Low price for a work of art
Though the maudlin story is itself not exactly a page turner (at times it's quite hard going - something the author himself admits to), the way it's told is extraordinary. Read more
Published on 15 Jan 2010 by M. Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars If not the best graphic novel I've ever read, then the second
An Astounding Examination of the Failures Between Fathers and Son

Rare is the work of literature that leaves you in stunned silence when the last page has been turned,... Read more
Published on 23 May 2009 by Richard Kunzmann
5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent
I loved every picture of that amazing book. It's art, it's feelings, it's profound, and on top of all that, so original. It's an absolute "must-have".
Published on 28 Jan 2007 by Joëlle
5.0 out of 5 stars superb, a benchmark for the graphic genre
This is one of the most sublimely beautiful, elancholy books I've ever read. The detail taken to create this is truly breathtaking. Read more
Published on 21 Jan 2002
5.0 out of 5 stars Picture Perfect
Readers of The Guardian will be sick of hearing about this book by now, but for the uninitiated, this book by Chris Ware has just become the first graphic novel ever to win a... Read more
Published on 8 Dec 2001 by John Self
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