Rusty Brown

by Chris Ware

‘The week after I finished the last page of Jimmy Corrigan I immediately started a new long story based on characters who had originated as parodies, but whom now I wanted to humanize... amidst a setting of memories of my Omaha childhood and Nebraska upbringing.’
--Chris Ware, Monograph

Now, twenty years later, Ware is publishing Rusty Brown in book form. It is, he says, ‘a fully interactive, full-colour articulation of the time-space interrelationships of six complete consciousnesses on a single Midwestern American day and the tiny piece of human grit about which they involuntarily orbit.’ The six characters are Rusty Brown himself, a shy schoolkid obsessed with superheroes, his father ‘Woody’ Brown, an eccentric teacher at Rusty’s school, Chalky White, another schoolboy, Alison White, Chalky’s sister, Jason Lint, an older boy who bullies Rusty and Chalky and fancies Alison, and the boys’ teacher, Joanne Cole. Ware tells each of their stories in minute detail (or as he puts it, ‘From childhood to old age, no frozen plotline is left unthawed’), producing another masterwork of the comics form that is at once achingly beautiful, heartbreakingly sad and painfully funny.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Bande Dessinée, Comix, Comic Book

351 pages, Hardcover

First published September 24, 2019

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

[Sara the Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like my review is problematic right out of the gate because the fact that this just wasn't a book for me has nothing to do with Chris Ware's artistic talent (astounding), writing (witty, world weary, and downright lovely), or storytelling (solid). Its just so goddamn depressing I couldn't wade through it after awhile.

Ware examines, in minute fucking detail, a day in the life of several different characters at a midwestern school. All of them are in one way or another outsiders in their own lives, disconnected from each other and themselves. And they're all so goddamn depressed and lonely it almost killed me. There's the titular Rusty Brown, a fat, unpopular, intellectually challenged little boy who is horribly abused and bullied by everyone, his African American teacher who flashbacks reveal is just as bullied, and one of the bullies himself who pays for his treatment of Rusty by having a real fucking depressing life when he grows up.

There's just such an impenetrable layer of deep depression here that is totally impossible to break out of. Even the setting, for the most part the bleak midwinter, is heavy and painful. I don't need everything I read to be sunshine and puppies but when there's no catharsis of any kind I end up just floating in this sea of pointless sadness that isn't even mine.

I'm not sure who this book is for but you've got to have a high tolerance for misery.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I wonder why other people couldn’t see the virtues of an innately democratic pictographic poetry, grounded in a transdimensional metaphysic, anyway?”—Chris Ware

Rusty Brown is, like Jimmy Corrigan, and Building Stories (his three main books), epic in scope and length, exhibiting astonishing technical skill, humor and empathy, largely focused on the grimly sad lives of every day people.

“Why does every ‘great book’ have to always be about criminals or perverts? Can’t I just find one that’s about regular people living everyday life?”—a character in Jimmy Corrigan

Rusty Brown is really a collection of four books out of this boy’s world, written over the span of twenty years. As with his friend Seth’s Clyde Fans, which also took twenty years to accomplish and also came out in 2019, it is a comics and artistic and literary event of the year, some of which I have read over the past ten years in various forms and collections.

The tale begins in Omaha in 1975, where Ware was born and grew up and focuses on a school where a character named Chris Ware also taught. So this is autobiographical comics from Ware?! Ware says, yeah, well basically yes:

“Well, comics are the art of memory, and every word, picture, gesture, idea, aim, regret, etc. that's gone into the story has somehow filtered through my recollection and selectivity, so it's all somehow autobiographical.”

Well, that and much much more. We get a 30-page science fiction story by Rusty Brown’s almost unlikeable father Woody which. . . makes him more likeable. The Jordan Lint toxic male stoner book-within-a-book is a cradle-to-grave story that Ware refers to as about “the development of linguistic consciousness in graphically intuited form.” Okay, Chris! The Joanna Cole story, the one featuring Rusty’s (black) teacher, is the most moving part of it all.

What do we know about Rusty? Early on he is bullied as almost all of the central characters in any Ware story are bullied. They are nerds, comics readers for heaven’s sake, what would they expect?! There’s this crushing air of melancholy and loss; the lost childhood of Ware, with all its cool lunchboxes and Supergirl action figures amidst parental neglect and loneliness.

But why all this background, all these other character stories, for a title character who is largely abandoned in 356 (and with so many tiny panels I almost certainly went blinder—my main gripe with his work) pages?! Well, we can only expect in the next sections that young Rusty will play a central role, but this is a nature-nurture book. We are where we live and who surround us, for good or ill. We see people as they age and we see where they have come from and what they have experienced. Can we ever break way from where we have been?

Snowflakes figure in throughout in their literal and figurative senses (and even in the elaborately constructed dust jacket:

“Inspired by the structure of a snowflake, the six-sided shape of which is determined by the molecular structure of a water molecule, and which cannot form without a central piece of flotsam or grit.”

The four main stories are interlocking, and the last page, with just INTERMISSION written on it, let’s you know that what we have thus far read is just part of a larger story (there’s even a character from Jimmy Corrigan in it, so that novel is linked, maybe in ways we don’t yet know). I am in for the long haul, Chris. Keep working on it and you’ll have at least me here reading.

Why I love Comics by Chris Ware:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...

A reference on Ware to consider checking out: David M. Ball, Martha B. Kuhlman, ed. (2010). The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is a Way of Thinking.

Chris Ware talks about Rusty Brown:

“I knew it would be a long book, but as in the embarrassing cases of my other experiments, never thought it would go on as long as it has, or metastasize into such a sprawling mess. Then again, sprawling messes are what I aim for, since they most accurately reflect real life.”

The whole interview:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/b...

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brutal, beautiful, magnificent. If you don't like comics let this change your mind.

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've sampled Chris Ware here and there over the years, but I think this is the first full book of his that I have read, and frankly, I just don't get all the acclaim heaped on him. Pathetic and awful people live pathetic and awful lives in teeny tiny little panels.

I guess we can never have enough stories about toxic white males?

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading Chris Ware's work for over 20 years and I'm not sure if he'll be able to top this book. Is it depressing? Yes, but so is much of life. Is some of the type difficult to decipher even for someone with 20/20 vision? Yes. Do reading glasses help? Yes. Am I glad that I read this? Yes, very much so. Thank you, Mr. Ware, for continuing to share your artistic vision with the world.

[Lee Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awed again as always by Ware. For some reason I had lower expectations for this, maybe from some exposure about ten years ago to Rusty Brown pages that didn't quite do the trick for me, or maybe from mixed reviews on here and not much on my radar raving about it elsewhere online. After the first twenty pages into it I actually considered putting it down. Text in the dialogue bubbles in the parallel-story panels along the bottom margin was nearly indecipherable even with reading glasses. It reminded me why I quit reading Building Stories when it came out. I just couldn't read it! The print was too often too small, but that was before I started wearing basic 1.5 magnification reading glasses that made everything so much more legible. This time around, with glasses on, I asked wife if we had a magnifying glass (we did not). But after a while the lower panel merged with the main story and in the end flowed through its handful of sections (one of which I read nearly in its entirety a few years ago as Lint). In general, the single lingering impression is awe as well as recalibration of my understanding of what grand fulfilled ambitions looks like.

I also have a really strong desire, on behalf of the author and publisher and basic readerly intelligence, to right the wrongs in a few of the well-liked reviews on here. First of all, it's not "a day in the life" -- to discount or not notice the passage of time, particularly in the Lint section (each page equals a year in his life) but also the last section or the section dramatizing a sci-fi story set on MARS, is straight-up asinine or at least ignorant/blind when it comes to determining narrative structure. The second thing is the criticism that this is about "toxic masculinity" -- JFC, the male characters are all lonely, wounded, trying to do good but often repeating learned behaviors or letting themselves be led often by worst instincts into not very admirable situations or behaviors. It's highly detailed shorthand glimpses into representative/significant moments that evoke the complexity of existence, expressed in a wholly ambitious, totally individuated, completely at the forefront of its genre, moving, beautiful, episodically and associatively driven (ie, not driven by mutually conflicting sets of desires and/or a series of obstacles to overcome -- AKA "plot"). It's subtly Faulknerian, maybe, at least with the final story from the perspective of the black lower-school teacher Joanne Cole, a la Dilsey in The Sound and the Fury. Jordan Lint's first name seems to go back and forth between Jordan and Jason (Jason is the worst member of the Compson family). Rusty with his Supergirl doll is sort of like Benjy, I suppose, with his narcissus -- pretty innocent. But the analogy breaks down there. In general, it's a hyperstylized view into these lives that have one foot in mid-'70s Omaha, Nebraska and the other in a Ware universe that always errs on the side of dashed hopes, poignancy, sorrow, loneliness (never a positive sense of solitude), at most interspersed with a sense of beauty and grace and temporal mystery and divine enormity thanks to the author/artist's formal mastery.

I'll soon go back to Building Stories with my glasses this time -- and may try to read this again this year. It's apparently the first installment. I look forward to the rest whenever it arrives. The author expects to live until 2050 per the dust-jacket, which I had off my copy and then savored as the perfect finisher.

[Peter Hollo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Technically astounding as always, at times truly beautiful and with streaks of genius, but unrelentingly depressing. The best of it, Lint, was published as a self-contained story as ACME Novelty Library 20, although Joanne Cole's sequence is lovely and has a real emotional hit at its denouement.

When Ware turns his pen to depicting sympathetic characters who we can really care about (generally female), the misery is tempered by loveliness and even some kind of peace - that's why Building Stories is so brilliant. But the Rusty Brown stories have always been the most painfully misanthropic, and so it is with most of this big compilation - only half of the entire work, what's more!

The fact that Joanne Cole's story is the most recent (and mostly unpublished) work does bode well for what comes next - although those of us who've read all the ACME Novelty Libraries know that Rusty himself only becomes a more pathetic figure as he gets older.

[Keen Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

Make no mistake about it, in the hardback edition of this book the quality of the art work and overall presentation is yet again exquisite. It’s all clean lines, eye-popping colour and just a delight to take in, which is the standard of which we have come to expect of Ware. But what of the story itself?...After all visually speaking, “Jimmy Corrigan” was beautiful, but the story was nothing more than mediocre.

This is a dark, weird and twisted story, which again is no surprise. The first thing which starts to grate in this, is the irritating habit of drawing many micro panels, at times only postage stamp sized or even smaller, turns this more into a bitter test than enjoyable read. This was so bloody frustrating to read at times, it reminded me of the last time, with all of that lovely art work seemingly squandered in another mediocre attempt at a plot line.

Rusty Brown appears to be the glue that connects all the other characters together in some way. The main characters seems to be his dad, a guy who looks like a cross between Bill Bryson and the Monopoly guy, a guy who bullied him at school (who has a whole battalion of demons to battle himself) and a black school teacher dealing with many struggles herself.

This is one of those books which is too cool for actual page numbers, the story is increasingly hard to follow as the order and style of the panels keeps changing. Too often the lettering is tiny. I have decent eyesight, but there were times I was really struggling to read so much of it, so I imagine this would be borderline impossible to read in the paperback format.

But then on the other hand there are some really clever visual devices and attempts at deeper stories within stories. He dabbles with many ideas, and explores many themes which sometimes result in something worthwhile and other times it ends in frustrating disappointment. He obviously has some serious talent, but it is just not consistently expressed in the most effective or pleasing ways for this to be well-rounded or really enjoyable and again that lovely art work is sorely let down by a half-baked story and the micro panels and tiny lettering.

[César · Rating 5 out of 5]

Como todos los trabajos de Ware, un prodigio técnico y artístico. Tengo la impresión de que en este volumen experimenta más con el dibujo que en otras obras anteriores.
En lo relativo al guión, parece que Ware siempre cuenta la misma historia, las mismas vidas. El caso es que lo que cuenta son las corrientes amargas que corren bajo todas las vidas, que son comunes a cualquier ser humano, con variaciones en el grado de tragedia.
Uno se encuentra sonriendo ante escenas de una crueldad mayúscula. Esa manera que tiene el autor de afrontar las desgracias enarbolando la bandera del humor negro no siempre será del agrado del lector, pero es que ante tanto dolor acumulado, se me aparece como la única vía solvente si tu propósito es mostrarlo y relatarlo y no provocar la indigestión de quien se acerque a estas páginas.

[Maricruz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bueno, qué maravilla. Al comenzar a leerlo esperaba una ración de Chris Ware con sus cosas de Chris Ware, que era la sensación que me transmitieron las primeras páginas. Y estaba bien, habría sido suficiente, porque me gusta mucho lo que hace este hombre. Pero ha superado mis expectativas. Es curioso cómo un cómic que presta tanta atención a lo formal te permite al mismo tiempo sumergirte en la historia, porque los recursos gráficos y narrativos van tan acorde con lo que cuentan que puedes disfrutarlo todo al mismo tiempo. Si eso no es la perfección, yo no sé qué puede serlo.

[Chr*s Browning · Rating 3 out of 5]

great art, great deconstruction of the comic form, but geez if the plot (as it were) isn’t an unending (perhaps occasionally relenting i.e. the last page) stream of misery and depression and (3 out of 4 sections) damaged male horniness. often the pages look beautiful with Ware’s geometries and solid lines, but it’s just so fucking hard (emotionally) to read and for what? what does this share about the human condition beyond that life’s fucking miserable? even authors like DFW, who worked in a similar sphere, allowed sustained moments of catharsis. i wouldn’t say that this isn’t worth reading because it has its qualities (as an art object, few graphic novels come close), but be warned: it’ll put you in a dark mood.

[Drew Canole · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the past year, we've gotten Lutes's Berlin, Seth's Clyde Fans, and we're now blessed with Ware's Rusty Brown.

What other epic years-long projects are still ongoing at this point?

[Ritinha · Rating 5 out of 5]

À terceira empreitada de Chris Ware já sabia ao que ia. Mas nem por isso a experiência - e a arte sequencial de Chris Ware é realmente uma vivência sensorial e não apenas leitura - foi amortecida no embate.
Se Building Stories e Jimmy Corrigan tinham gente digna de toda a empatia que partia o coração ver redomadas em solidão, rejeição e frustração, aqui temos gente moralmente menos aprovável nessas mesmas condições e um quase domínio da linguagem audiovisual que simultaneamente lhe veste a forma absoluta enquanto transmite substância narrativa de densidade exponencialmente superior à da forma deliberadamente escolhida.
Consta que esta obra demorou duas décadas a ser concluída, sendo intermediada com outras obras do Ware. O formato presta-se bem às interrupções e parece ter até beneficiado delas, já que o resultado final é um lote de segmentos existenciais sobrepostos e/ou entrecruzados, quinhoando do malogro-base que é a bênção de existir, esbracejando diante de terceiros um bailado no singular ritmo de cada um, desde a solidão violenta do nascimento até à absoluta e solitária perda de si, que é a morte.

[Mark Schlatter · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hated the first half of this book.

I'm not a huge Chris Ware fan, but I liked the experience of Building Stories and I gave a good review to the third portion of this volume (Jordan Lint). But the first two stories in this tome (Introduction and William Brown) delve deeply into the personas of stunted man-children obsessed with things sexual, super-hero, and science-fictiony, and I found them deeply painful to read. I understand that the development of independent comics in the 80's, 90's, and 00's often involved commentary on the very geeky and masculine subculture they were trying to break free of. Love and Rockets tried doing it with a sense of joy, Dylan Horrocks used a historical approach with Hicksville, and Evan Dorkin simply burned the house down with the Eltingville Club. But now, you can see graphic novel after graphic novel produced that doesn't reference the (sometimes truly awful) gender issues that ran alongside the early days of the industry and fan base. So, seeing that same approach now was not only a shock, but felt like a revisiting of shame and hurt that I didn't really want to revisit (at least not from Ware's perspective). Watching a young boy obsess over sexualized daydreams of Supergirl (to the exclusion of all else) or a high school teacher obsess over the physical appearance of a new female student or a grown man turn his sexual misunderstandings into a cruel misogynist science fiction story just read like insights into incel culture. And because Ware is so formalistic in his approach, nothing in the art releases you from that intense gaze on the character.

Also, this middle-aged man had quite a few problems reading the smaller text at times. You might want a magnifying glass.

Reading Jordan Lint through for the second time, I was struck by how much Ware took a "douchebag" character (a stoner high schooler, a sadistic frat boy, a serial womanizer) and added texture to his life. Lint is not exactly sympathetic (thank goodness!), but Ware makes a logic of his life that is compelling. I was fascinated to see the times Lint thought he had turned his life around only to lose it again and again.

The last story (Joanne Cole) is the biggest departure in the volume and felt more like Building Stories than anything else. Ware's protagonist is a female African American teacher (who taught Jordan Brown and Rusty Brown and works with William Brown). The usual Warian themes of isolation and regret are there, but the story feels more open and takes more interesting turns. (Or, I was just relieved to not read about disgusting men...)

If you are interested in Chris Ware, I would not recommend this as a first book. I'm going to find it hard to keep the volume given that I already own the Acme Novelty Library with Jordan Lint in it. But it might be worth checking out of the library to read the second half.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the uninitiated, Rusty Brown is a continuous series of comics, Chris Ware has been working on since 2001. This particular volume collects all the comics so far. I assume that there will be a second tome in the future.

As Chris Ware likes to experiment with the comics medium, I did not expect Rusty Brown to be a conventional story and I was right. The whole thing is divided into four parts.

The first part consists of two narratives happening at the same time. One is of the titular Rusty Brown and his soon to be friend, Chalky. Both are obsessed with superheros, although Rusty is more naive and believes that he has superpowers. This segment focuses on how Rusty and Chalky bond with each other. There’s also a subplot involving Chalky’s teenage sister, who is going through the usual trial of adolescence. The part also serves as an introduction to some characters who will reappear later on in the book.

The second part is about Rusty’s father. In typical Ware fashion, this part begins with a science fiction story about a couple and their dog relocating to another planet. It later transpires that Rusty’s father wrote the story when he was a young adult. The focus then shifts to his life until the birth of Rusty and his current position teaching at Rusty’s private school. (spoiler : it’s full of heartbreak and longing)

The third narrative is about the life and death of school bully Jason Lint. Out of the four segments, this was my personal favourite. Although the most tragic of the lot, it also gives good insight problems in youth can still be carried well into adulthood. As this story goes well into the 00’s it gives a good glimpse at what happens to the other characters in the book ( I also think that in volume two we’ll have more insight to Rusty and Chalky)

The last part is about the third grade teacher, Mrs. Cole, and her rise to assistant principal, who harbors a secret, which is revealed at the end of the book.

Themes? dozens : father/son relationships, family dynamics, feminism, changing America, racism, culture clashes, psychology, escapism. Each page can be interpreted in many different ways. Ware comes from a show, don’t tell background AND works in a medium which benefits from the exact opposite so it is up to the reader to piece everything together and figure out clues.

Then there’s the artwork. Ware’s first collection, Jimmy Corrigan was amazing but here he outdoes himself. The art styles varies from Ware’s trademark minimalism to full blown maximalist spreads, especially in the Jason narrative. Then there’s his ways of cramming details, one page has 80 panels, there’s the dust jacket which needs at least 20 minutes of your time to study it and the ornate endpapers. With Chris Ware, each graphic novel has, not only, a lot of care but details to help the reader connect narrative.

As this is a first reading, although, I stretched reading the book for as long as I possibly could, I’m sure that I missed out some details and those will occur during my second read. Saying that I think Rusty Brown is a must for fans of the comic and is probably the best thing Ware has worked on. I eagerly await the next volume.

[Paul Dembina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chris Ware specialises in lives of quiet desperation and excels himself with this set of 4 interlinked stories. My favourite being the life story (literally from birth to death) of Jordan Lint

[Liam O'Leary · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could choose only one book to recommend my GoodReads friends to read, it would be Rusty Brown.

It would be this book because it is the most underappreciated and originally constructed work from my Favorites list on GoodReads.

On September 26th 2019 I emailed my university library:

Please add this masterpiece, even if I have to read it in [the university library's special collections room for books too valuable to loan].

No spoilers, but if you've got four minutes for a trailer, click here to hear Chris Ware describe the making of Rusty Brown

I think this book sincerely depicts the loneliness of reality to the same level and standard as works such as The Catcher In The Rye, Ham on Rye, Infinite Jest. I mean that the narrative includes ordinary events that make it relatable, while also showing how they can (surprisingly) lead to strong psychological experiences. What it does uniquely is to express things that would be extremely difficult with words, such as the first thing a baby sees, or exactly how its head looked like as came out of its mother.

The book contains three main character arcs, two of which have been previously published, one of which (Lint, Acme Novelty Library #20) has for a long time been mine (and perhaps the world's) favourite graphic novel. I've actually bought Lint twice already to give to as gifts. Now in this flawlessly expanded form beside the two other character arcs it cushions this gem and makes it more balanced.

Like I sometimes cringe or feel a little sick when I read some gory or disgusting text, but some of these images make me laugh or recoil like words never could.

Indie comics are one of the newest, most unexplored form of narrative, and I don't understand why people aren't paying more attention to them. Building Stories (the 'prequel' of sorts) was literally like a puzzle box, and now Rusty Brown interweaves life histories from within that same already gigantic story. I don't understand why most readers would rather read one more traditional fictional narrative when there's an entirely new written media genre unfolding right before our eyes about living today. It could be the price, the unavailability or the stigma of comics as being for young audiences, but I just simply urge you to Chris Ware's latest works down in whatever way you can.

I'll be meeting this incredible human being in Montreal at a book launch for D&Q and honestly I couldn't be more excited to meet any other living author.

[Stewart Tame · Rating 4 out of 5]

A new work from Chris Ware is always an event. No one does comics quite like him, and he seems to enjoy stretching the limits of the medium further with each story.

Surprisingly, despite being literally the name of the book, Rusty Brown is barely in it. He’s there as a child at the beginning, but about a third of the way through the book, Ware shifts focus to the lives of various significant figures in Rusty’s life (father, teacher, etc.) Since the book ends with the phrase “Intermission”, and we know that Ware has written many stories of Rusty as an adult, I’ll hazard a guess that another Rusty Brown book will appear at some point.

As always, Ware’s characters are painfully human. David Sedaris expresses it best regarding previous Ware books: “So real and awkward, it almost feels wrong to read it.” His characters seem to routinely stumble into situations that are almost nightmarishly embarrassing, but are so similar to things we’ve all done--not every single one, obviously, but if you read enough Ware, eventually he’ll hit upon something that is alarmingly close to your most embarrassing, shameful moment ever--that we can't help but empathize.

As always, Ware has produced a fascinating book. Highly recommended!

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great to read this collected, a book I actually found hopeful in the end, and full of human moments both sad and funny.
I also probably relate to Rusty and Chalky as kids far more than is normal...

[J.T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gets 20,000 stars from me. There is no artist whose work I look forward to more than Chris Ware. He was instrumental in my interest and eventual career in comics with early issues of The Acme Novelty Library, and he continues to be the apex of cartooning (for me, anyway).

There's no disputing his pure artistic ability, obviously honed by years and years of unceasing practice. Every single page, every single panel, hell even the slip cover is a work of art worth pouring over. Possibly more importantly, Ware's writing is impeccable. With very little exposition, we learn so much about each of the characters through often uneventful moments of their lives.

Yes, there is an uneven focus on the cruelties, insecurities and despair of these characters. It's a grim, often pessimistic view of humanity. Ironically, though, there's such a true beauty in the art and writing, that I find myself exhilarated and uplifted by Ware's work rather than crushed by its bleakness.

Also ironically, I can identify with the obsessive nature of collecting exemplified by Rusty Brown & Chalky White (although this is present in other Rusty Brown strips NOT collected in this volume) through my obsessive collecting of Chris Ware's work! I'd read all of this collection through past Acme volumes, literary magazines and random books other than the mostly unpublished Joanne Cole chapter. I was, however, not disappointed to have everything collected in one book. Reading it all collected together is an overwhelmingly incredible experience.

I look forward to the next volume of this story should we not be wiped out by the current pandemic. Please, spare Chris Ware!

[Kim Lockhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know quite how to describe this compilation of interconnected stories, except to say that they are fascinating. The setting took me back in many ways. Most of the characters have been disappointed by life, and have in turn, disappointed the people in their lives, sometimes severely. That makes their stories ring truer. The time period focuses primarily on the 50s, 60s, and 70s, but it's clear that the more times change, the more some things stay the same.

CW: There is some disturbing violence, and not always just to people.

As an aside, the print is tiny. Perhaps it was originally printed on larger pages? Anyhow, I used a magnifying glass, which helped tremendously.

[Jonathan Hawpe · Rating 5 out of 5]

At 350 pages, one could be forgiven for wishing that Chris Ware's dense, macro/micro-scopic graphic novel take on 20th C. American life was... um, complete, but it ends with an "intermission". So there is more yet to come, however, more of Ware's work should always be welcomed, and Rusty Brown is only really incomplete in the way that Proust's Swann's Way is part of the larger In Search of Lost Time. And that comparison is not too elevated: Ware makes the richest, deepest, most humane, and visually beautiful work in comics. Rusty Brown makes the mundane milieu of suburban, mid-western, mid-size city, USA the site of universal struggles, wrenching pathos, and sweet-sad tragi-comedy, while Ware's absolute mastery of the comics form allows him to craft a structure so intricate and gorgeous that it eventually lifts the reader away from the edge of misery into a transcendent sense of human connection and perseverance. Solid gold literature.

[Koen Claeys · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a great admirer of the work of Chris Ware. I consider him a brilliant illustrator and storyteller. Of course I have already read most of this thick, heavy, 350-page hardcover in Acme Novelty Library # 16, 17, 19 and 20. I even saw 'Lint' (Acme Novelty Library # 20) being performed as an opera in Brussels. To my surprise this collection contains a new chapter of 100 pages. This time he puts teacher Joanne Cole at the center of an extremely moving story. Chris Ware presents quality on lonely heights, keeping his colleagues a few leagues below him.

[Zack Quaintance · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are not one but several achingly-beautiful stories told in this book. The intersection may be billed as a single day at school, but it soon emerges that the real commonality in these pages is the complicated nature of the human condition. Just a gorgeous work.

[Sergsab · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ha sido increíble. Lo que hace Chris Ware no lo hace nadie más. Tengo que digerir todo esto y poner mis ideas en orden.

[Koen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh my... I couldn't find myself liking this in any way possible.. maybe I don't understand it or is it another reason why, then please somebody explain to me why this is so acclaimed?

[Titus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This feels like the apogee of the themes of Ware's two previous big works. Like Jimmy Corrigan, it explores how the effects of trauma and loss can echo through lifetimes and across generations – how one unfortunate incident can taint a life, and how parents' actions can not only affect their own children but can also have knock-on effects on further descendants. Like Building Stories, it ruminates on the mundane, unremarkable non-events that make up the majority of most people's lives – sometimes celebrating the subtle beauty of these small moments, but more often wallowing in their monotony and the melancholy, ennui, anxiety, loneliness and self-loathing that can bubble beneath them. Also like Building Stories, Rusty Brown looks at how different individuals' lives intersect, emphasizing that the real world has no background characters, and people who play minor roles in your life all have whole lives, histories, futures and problems of their own – sometimes very similar to yours, sometimes completely different, but ultimately no less important. And of course, like all of Ware's work, the focus is squarely on characters who are, in a variety of different ways, broken.

That said, there are some new angles. A big one is that whereas Jimmy Corrigan and Building Stories each had a clear protagonist, Rusty Brown has a true ensemble cast, with 7 major characters, 3 of whom are subject to deep dives into their biographies and psyches. Another difference is the extent to which Rusty Brown focuses on bad people: although Ware's characters are all nuanced and complex and he approaches them all with sympathy, two of the characters who receive deep dives are, on balance, terrible human beings. Ware always focuses on broken people, but here for the first time he takes a long, hard look at how a person's brokenness can manifest itself as morally repugnant actions and attitudes. Another new aspect is a greater focus on regret: the common thread connecting the three most important characters is that they all spend their adult lives obsessing over aspects of their past, wishing things had gone differently, and as a result making a total mess of their presents.

All of this is to say that fans of Ware's other work are sure to love Rusty Brown. Not just the themes, but also the tone, art style and formalist approaches are all very familiar, and certainly no less expertly realized than elsewhere in his œuvre. Is this, then, his magnum opus? The culmination of his career? Well, it’s certainly excellent stuff. Most notably, the chapter known as Lint (which makes up about a quarter of this book) is as powerful as any comic, novel or film I’ve ever encountered, standing head and shoulders above the rest of Rusty Brown and easily on a par with anything else Ware has made. The chapter is an unflinching depiction of the whole life (from birth to death) of a troubled, pitiful and frankly hateful individual, and it’s astonishing in its ability to build empathy and understanding without ever making excuses for its protagonist. Nonetheless, taken as a whole, Rusty Brown doesn’t quite match Building Stories in my estimation, but that’s hardly a criticism; the bottom line is that both Building Stories and Rusty Brown can be counted among my all-time favourite creative works in any medium.

Of course, I should note that while Rusty Brown is an excellent work in its own right and feels perfectly complete, it finishes with a double-page spread bearing the word “intermission”, and Ware has said that there will be a sequel (though probably not soon). It remains to be seen, then, how the complete work will hang together, and whether it might earn the status of this master’s chef-d’œuvre.

[Pytaniazsali · Rating 5 out of 5]

„Rusty Brown” Chrisa Ware’a to wstrząsająca, wielka powieść graficzna; rzecz absolutnie fenomenalna, chyba jeszcze potężniejsza niż „Jimmy Corrigan…”, nad którym już piałam z zachwytu na tym peju. Odleżała trochę na półce, bo musiała mnie dopaść jesienna niemoc, żebym mogła się zgrać z potężnym ładunkiem emocjonalnym książki. Ale jak już przysiadłam, to przez dwa dni trudno mi było się od tego oderwać.

Ware ma niebywały talent do budowania bohaterów w taki sposób, żeby za pomocą radykalnie empatycznej strategii pokazać naraz obrzydliwe zepsucie i bezsilną tragedię wszystkich stron konfliktów. Bardzo dobrze używa medium, w którym pracuje, po to, żeby ostatecznie stworzyć polifoniczną wielką powieść realistyczną w dość klasycznym rozumieniu. To szczególnie ciekawe, bo na początku lektury można odnieść wrażenie, że historia będzie w pełni koncentrowała się na dziecięcych bohaterach i, sprawnie pracując na detalach, prześledzi okrucieństwo różnych presji oddziałujących na bezbronny, dopiero kształtujący się podmiot. Ale narracja zatacza coraz szersze kręgi, tak osobowe, jak i czasowe. I dzięki temu, że Ware potrafi bardzo przekonująco ścisnąć życiorys na kilkudziesięciu stronach, udaje mu się wyciągnąć na wierzch takie zachowania, strategie myślowe i sposoby na redukowanie dysonansu poznawczego, których trudno nie odnaleźć we własnej przeszłości. W tym sensie „Rusty Brown” jest książką, która mimochodem konfrontuje czytelnika z jego najgorszymi stronami.

Ale u Ware zachwyca nie tylko ta psychologiczna precyzja. „Rusty Brown” jest tak sprytny kompozycyjnie i tak dobrze pracuje np. w przyspieszeniach i zwolnieniach (oddanych dość klasycznie poprzez wielkość kadrów), że nie sposób tej precyzji odmówić piękna. Arcydzieło, co mam powiedzieć.

Kiedy zobaczyłam tę książkę na półce w Artetece, to aż podskoczyłam z radości. Ta publikacja nie była dostępna właściwie nigdzie w Krakowie, więc kiedyś wypełniłam przez stronę Biblioteki Rajka formularz z sugestią zakupu. Nie wiem, czy egz. został nabyty właśnie na moją prośbę, ale tak czy siak - ogromnie mnie cieszy jego obecność na bibliotecznej półce!

https://www.instagram.com/p/DQhQqFRCq77/

[Zioluc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forse il miglior Ware letto fino ad oggi: la consueta tecnica narrativa incredibilmente complessa e bilanciata regala virtuosismi grafici a suggerire impressioni, contemporaneità, suoni: una gioia per gli occhi e la mente, per una esperienza impegnativa ma scorrevole.
E l'aspetto che mi stava allontanando dall'autore, cioè la disperazione opprimente delle vite mediocri dei personaggi, pur non assente - del resto è un suo marchio di fabbrica - stavolta è limitata e non ha avvelenato la mia lettura.

[Jesús · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes I forget just how good Chris Ware is. This is an incredible work—something like a Paul Thomas Anderson ensemble movie (Boogie Nights or Magnolia) set in a Catholic school in Omaha in the 1970s. Rusty Brown is both more restrained and less fussy than Ware’s other work. He relies more on his storytelling and characters to do the heavy lifting rather than on flashy layouts or unusual book design.

Each of the book’s chapters focuses on a single character’s inner life and has a distinct visual style that sets it apart from the other chapters. As is the norm for Chris Ware, his characters are all repressed and awkward Midwesterners whose lives are dominated by guilt and regret. But where Jimmy Corrigan experimented with obsessive design and Building Stories with the form of the book, Rusty Brown experiments with narrative structure. One chapter uses simultaneous and parallel storylines. Another is a comic adaptation of a short story from a science-fiction magazine. Another is a Joycean cradle-to-grave tale. And the final chapter (and the book’s highlight) is a jumble of fragments of memories with long sections being told without dialogue or narration.

It’s also only the first half of an intended six chapters, so this volume ends with an “intermission” (the whole book is presented as a teleplay). Considering that Ware started working on this book almost 20 years ago, it will be a while before we see the second part, so I wouldn’t wait for the full thing before reading this. Also, this reads like a complete work on its own so there’s really no reason to hold out.