The Acme Novelty Date-book, Vol. 3: 2002-2023

The Acme Novelty Library

by Chris Ware

The third and final installment of the artist’s facsimile sketchbook series.

After over fifteen years deferral, delay and dawdling, the ink-and-paper cheerleader F. C. Ware finally succumbs to imaginary public pressure by concluding his tiresome experiment in reader trust with the third and final volume of secret notebooks and sketches spanning over thirty-seven years of bus rides, airport delays and telephone hold music.

Exquisitely crafted fine art doodles, hand-selected meanderings and artisanal rewritings of personal conflict are scattered throughout comic strips unconsciously revealing private hostilities and unflattering portraits of public transportation riders, the whole carefully cleansed of any impugnable or litigious tracery. As a professional adult-picture-book drawer and regular contributor to the New Yorker, Le Monde and the Illinois Cook County Assessor’s office, Mr. Ware’s work in these pages secures his reputation as an reliably unreliable self-narrator, willing to say or write anything to win petty disputes and imagined squabbles.

208 full-color pages augmented by annotations, introduction and a professional apology, with paper boards and cloth spine of misleading demureness to conceal its native prurience.

Genres: Comics, Art, Graphic Novels

208 pages, Hardcover

First published October 29, 2024

About the author

Chris Ware is an American cartoonist acclaimed for redefining the visual and narrative possibilities of the graphic novel, known especially for his long-running Acme Novelty Library series and major works including Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, Building Stories, and Rusty Brown. His work is distinguished by its emotional depth, frequently exploring loneliness, memory, regret, and the quieter forms of pain that shape ordinary lives, rendered with extreme visual precision, intricate page designs, and a style that evokes early twentieth-century American illustration, advertising, and architecture. Raised in Omaha and later based in the Chicago area, Ware first attracted attention through his strips for The Daily Texan, where an invitation from Art Spiegelman to contribute to Raw helped encourage him toward an ambitious, self-publishing approach that would define his career. Acme Novelty Library disrupted conventions of comic book production in both format and tone, presenting characters such as Quimby the Mouse and later Rusty Brown in narratives that blend autobiography, satire, and psychological portraiture. Building Stories further expanded his formal experimentation, released as a boxed set of interconnected printed pieces that require the reader to assemble meaning from varied physical formats. Ware’s artistic influences range from early newspaper cartoonists like Winsor McCay and Frank King to the collage and narrative play of Joseph Cornell, and he has spoken about using typography-like logic in his drawing to mirror the fragmented, associative way memory works. His practice remains largely analog, relying on hand drawing and careful layout, though he uses computers for color preparation. Ware has also been active as an editor, designer, and curator, contributing to volumes reprinting historic comic strips, serving as editor of The Best American Comics 2007, and organizing exhibitions such as UnInked at the Phoenix Art Museum. His work has extended into multimedia collaborations, including illustrated documentary materials for This American Life and visual designs for film posters, book covers, and music projects. His later projects include The Last Saturday, serialized online for The Guardian, and Monograph, a retrospective volume combining autobiography with archival material. Widely recognized for his influence, Ware’s books have received numerous honors, including multiple Eisner and Harvey Awards, and Jimmy Corrigan became the first graphic novel to win the Guardian First Book Award. He has exhibited at major institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and his contributions to the medium have led many peers and critics to regard him as one of the most significant cartoonists of his generation.

Reviews

[Peter Landau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love sketchbooks!

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Everything makes me so fucking sad" (197).

[Simon Chadwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chris Ware’s meticulous and engrossing work is instantly recognisable, which makes this particular book, and its two sister volumes, so fascinating. It collects illustrations, cartoons, strips and thoughts from his sketchbooks. In another cartoonist’s hands it would be excused for being a bit slapdash in places – it was created in a sketchbook, after all. Not Chris Ware’s though.

There is a degree of looseness and letting go at times but, often, what you’re seeing are strips, frequently hand-coloured, that any other cartoonist would be proud to have as final published work.
This book covers 2002 to 2023, covering the birth of his daughter Clara and following her growing up and leaving home, a journey he regularly documents in his diary strips, using phrases and events as punchlines.

He doesn’t neglect Covid and the lockdowns either, and his observational sketches while traveling on public transport capture many a mask-wearing individual in the moment.

He’s notorious for his fine lines, packed detail and tiny lettering (something I struggled with at times) so you can lose yourself in a page for a considerably long time. The outer and inner cover are prime examples of this. A cartoon genius.

[Drew Canole · Rating 4 out of 5]

18 years since the last Date-book came out. Crazy!

This collects a sampling of Ware's sketchbook from a 20 year period. And has some of the daily comics about his daughter he's mentioned before - I believe he said they'd never be published. There's probably a ton more out there. Oddly his wife is never really mentioned in the strips, but his daughter comes up a lot.

Ware fans know what to expect here. Lots of talk about things that sound to me like imposter syndrome and depression. Wild that a guy as accomplished as Ware still doesn't feel confident in his work but its a reminder that success (or other external factors) doesn't necessarily change our perceptions or feelings.

I have the first two volumes but missed out on getting the box-set slipcase. Would be cool, but I do try not to spend comic-fund money on stuff I don't really need... not that I "need" to buy any comics.

Maybe I'm getting old, but this is the first time I'll join the Ware critics complaining about the small text size! Holy, some of the mini comics are tiny here.

It's interesting seeing Ware address criticism of his work. Also dealing with the rise of internet and social media, and the addiction that comes with that.

[Chris Barsanti · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeously printed, lovingly curated exhibition of Ware’s short-form work and sketches, cannily made to resemble a random odds-and-ends assemblage...

Full review at Minneapolis Star Tribune .

[spoon]

DNF 12/18/2025 (got up to p.56 or 57 -- that's where my bookmark is) -- officially giving up on this one too.

There is, apparently, a limit for how much Chris Ware I'm willing to tolerate. I have found that line and it is here.

[Berslon Pank · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why does he write so small? I have up on reading most of it because of eye strain. The illustration work was beautiful but the rest was so horribly self involved and unreflective.