The Acme Novelty Library, Issue 18, 2007: Building Stories, Part 2

The Acme Novelty Library #18

by Chris Ware

In keeping with his athletic goal of issuing a volume of his occasionally lauded ACME series once every new autumn, volume 18 finds cartoonist Chris Ware abandoning the engaging serialization of his "Rusty Brown" and instead focusing upon his ongoing and more experimentally grim narrative "Building Stories."
Collecting pages unseen except in obscure alternative weekly periodicals and sophisticated expensive coffee-table magazines, "ACME Novelty Library #18" reintroduces the characters that "New York Times" readers found "dry" and "deeply depressing" when one chapter of the work (not included here) was presented in its pages during 2005 and 2006. Set in a Chicago apartment building more or less in the year 2000, the stories move from the straightforward to the mnemonically complex, invading characters' memories and personal ambitions with a text point size likely unreadable to human beings over the age of forty-five. Reformatted to accommodate this different material, readers will be pleased by the volume's vertical shape and tasteful design, which, unlike Ware's earlier volumes, should discreetly blend into any stack or shelf of real books.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Comix, Graphic Novels Comics, Sequential Art, Short Stories

56 pages, Hardcover

First published December 10, 2007

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

[Natty Soltesz · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's the details, of course: the fat dried drip of paint on the bottom of an old hook in the ceiling, a piece of errant spaghetti clinging to the side of a pot in the sink, the shade of a lamp turned ever so slightly from one panel to the next (thus denoting the passing of time). These things are nearly impossible to capture with words; it's visual poetry.

Then the words themselves - incisive, breaking down complex interior rituals and patterns that we don't even realize we contemplate ourselves until we see them there on the page. Nobody can articulate the minute daily realities of loneliness like Mr. Ware can.

This is his best since "Jimmy Corrigan" and perhaps his best work yet.

One stupid criticism (since I'm sounding off amongst friends): Ware seems to have grown especially fond of rendering flooring as a black field with white specks around the edges. While this does impart a dose of realism (most floors do have at least a little bit of crud lying on them at any given time), the starkness of the white against the black makes it stand out too much.

I'll follow that up by noting that I can't draw worth a shit.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this may be Chris Ware's best work yet. It's not perfect - not everything works equally well, and in particular his stilted narrator voice still feels pretty awkward to me - but in its unassuming way this is much more ambitious than any of his previous stuff. Loneliness is still the theme but now it's real-life loneliness, and his careful observation is now applied to a convincing character, rather than just to convincing moments in the lives of stylized characters. His virtuosic technique is now so confident that it is actually harder for the reader to pick up on all the layers he has built into the work; they are subtler and it reads much smoother at first glance. But it's as intricate as anything he's ever done, just more mature. Maybe it's not five stars for all time, but it was five stars as I was reading it with constant admiration.

[Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is so grim. A one-legged womans depressing absurd life. Beautifully rendered. Her eyes are tiny dots and in the last panels she fades and shrinks. Life is small and insignificant. But the feel and message would be so different if it were feverishly drawn or drawn as crass as the text. But it is breathtakingly arranged. Chris Ware is an artist beyond comparison but I don't think anyone will be a better person for reading this. It is only art after all. Hell will be full of aesthetes, distracted from doing good in this life because they spent their time looking and listening to beautiful things.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chris Ware has a way of reaching into my brain, pulling out my most recent obsessive thoughts, and presenting them to myself in the form of comic (i.e. graphic, not humorous or comedic) narrative. I stumbled across his early, largely experimental work when I was trying to write a critical paper on space and narrative devices in graphic novels, and his work's disparity between text and image provided the perfect example of an adaptation of the Chinese poetic device xing (兴). The maximalism that I found in his first Acme Novelty Library collection echoed the style I had been reading in Pynchon and that I was hoping to cultivate for myself. The social awkwardness in his longer graphic novels Jimmy Corrigan and Rusty Brown brought back my own murky memories of elementary, middle, and high school, times when I was riddled with the insecurity of adolescence.

In Acme Novelty Library, Number 18, Ware picks up a new narrative, one of a one-legged young woman (never named) who works at a flower shop and spends all her days ruminating on whether her life still has any meaning. In the course of the book, we learn about the humiliating critiques she suffered at art school, the glimpse of a hollow life she gets while acting as a house-sitter and nanny for a rich family, and the failure of the only serious romantic relationship in her life.

Thus, what Ware captures in Number 18 is an intense feeling of intense loneliness, failure, and despair. His painstaking art perfectly supplements the mood. For example, the first four pages wordlessly depict the character's daily routine, all of its minutiae, while her glassily sorrowful facial expression, constantly looking downward, broadcast her thoughts more clearly than any sort of text ever could.

Fans of Chris Ware's previous work may be saddened to discover that Number 18 contains no faux-ads, pull-out sections, or any other old-timey dark humor for which he is so famous. But despite this departure, Ware is still Ware, and I found in these pages the usual mix of geometric layouts, experimentation with form, and sometimes-poetic phrasings. The poetry, while sometimes full of luster and originality (describing a “string of renters” of an apartment as “a fifty year long caterpillar,” which is then complemented visually by circles containing pairs of feet, all connected by a single wavy line), sometimes tries too hard, such as when he describes the delights of looking at the silhouettes framed in an apartment complex's windows, that a glimpse “seems somehow more revealing than any generous greeting or calculated cordiality (say, if the tenants were to be born unto the porch and welcome the voyeur, hands unnervingly outstretched).”

However, with Acme Novelty Library, Number 18, Ware has shown me once more what it means to be a lonely, modern individual; he has shown me once more what it means to be myself.

[Jamil · Rating 2 out of 5]

the two things that drive me crazy about Chris Ware are 1)his kinda relentlessly depressing, passive characters and 2) that his panelwork frequently sacrifices clarity for design. a third thing would be that the small detail work kinda inhibits my natural desire to read very fast. ooh, and a fourth thing, sometimes it's a little boring too, right? still he's a genius, I know. I'd just like to seem him turn that genius to some other kind of tale once in awhile. but I know, that ain't what geniuses do, right? they're focused!

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly, I'm really not a fan of solemn, navel-gazing, "isn't life depressing" comics, but sometimes, I just have to acknowledge how good a cartoonist is, even when I wish he was turning out more emotionally diverse work (Adrian Tomine falls into the same category).

Chris Ware is definitely worth the hype. His protagonist in this "issue" (and, really, he puts so much effort into each installment that it makes for a powerfully compelling read unto itself, and the hardcover and the design work make the individual installments gorgeous) is a young woman who falls in love, gets pregnant accidentally, goes through with an abortion and then loses her doted-upon boyfriend. On the surface, it's the tackiest, most melodramatic college creative writing pablum, but Ware manages to make it work 95% of the time.

There are plenty of small, character touches that round out the main character (like her wondering about all of the photos taken by other people in which she is part of the background, or her concern with her job at a flower shop), and Ware puts so much effort into the design and storytelling of each page that you're forced to invest yourself in the book just to follow the narrative.

Good work.

[Ian Carpenter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great, as always. And this one is full of the kind of heartache I fall for every time. He's such a great story teller.

[Mimi Chuang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked this a lot more than most of Chris Ware's stuff.

[Marissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Admittedly, Chris Ware is one of the trendier new comic book artists that I never really got the appeal of before I read this book. I had a really difficult time reading all the way through Jimmy Corrigan and there are still some little things about his work I take issue with. For one thing, while I realize his style is very distinctive and uber styley on purpose, I do think it pulls a little too much from the graphic design end of things for my taste. There is a sensation when you're beginning one of his strips that you are reading a very expensive, very hip, retro advertising insert. His characters have a rounded, playmobil quality to them that I'm still not really sold on. Also, it can often be annoying trying to figure out how the text flows. Occasionally, he assists the readers with arrows, but not nearly enough. On one hand, I appreciate that he is trying to experiment with the standard comics page layouts, on the other, it can really pull you out of the narrative when it takes you a few minutes to figure out what panel you're supposed to read next. And yes, some of the drawings and the text are just too damn tiny. With all that said, I still wanted to give the book five stars because it is incredibly well-written. I became so engrossed in the narrative in a way that neither a regular novel or a graphic novel has inspired in me in a long time. Reading it was a lot like how I feel when I'm listening to the best This American Life episodes. No doubt I felt a particular connection with it, since there is so much I identify with in the main character. He captures how lonesome it is to be a young adult without career direction or close relationships to rely on. And he also does an amazing job of depicting the lingering losses a person feels as they reflect on their memories; how you have to learn to live with being haunted by the good and bad things you've been through. It's a very, very depressing book, but also a very, very perfectly written one, much like Margaret Atwood's Moral Disorder, which I read not too long ago. Definitely recommended.

[Clay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hesitated before rating this book and went to three stars first. It said, "You liked it." and that seemed so wrong. It was then that I understood why I didn't appreciate this very well written and done comic book. How could I have liked it?

It deals with a one-legged woman of an age around 30. She is completely alone, broken, stuck in a job without any career chances and so she thinks about her past. Her memories are very dark. Very very dark. I was kinda surprised by this because I read about Chris Ware in an interview with the singer of the great new band Alvvays, who make very beautiful, light, unpretentious surf rock music and write about the lives of young adults. So you will understand that I would have expected something like a story by Nick Hornby. But don't get me wrong, this comic book was not a bad work of art/literature.

The main character felt complex and vulnerable and the situations that were described were very tense. Therefore it was just an extremely uncomfortable reading experience.

It was just so very sad. That's actually an understatement. There was no light or hope, it was only bleak. Around halfway through it just got so horrible that I distanced myself from the character completely, I just wanted to finish reading the story as fast as possible. It was simply that horrifying.

So there you go. The main problem I had with this very well executed work was that it was all black, there was not a glimmer of light. It is something I cannot understand or relate to at all. I appreciate the work but I did not like it.

[Liam O'Leary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't think Ware should compile these into anything but standalone works, otherwise I am going to injure myself. Hunger, sleep-deprivation, unemployment, hermeticism? I have never felt almost morally compelled to read anything from cover-to-cover in a single sitting... in an empty university library on a sunny weekend morning in a comfy chair overlooking the main streets five floors below. I should have had lunch and started work hours ago.
God how my weekends feel like the first two pages, minus the cat plus the leg. I have Building Stories on loan in my room, which even has this in it but I ordered this before and couldn't resist, which I'm probably going to go home and annihilate now. That's it. I've rarely enjoyably read something at break neck speed, like I am there with it constantly and it is an unfolding unfinished thought that will be frozen there in the center of my mind if I don't flow through it now.

I'd say Ware's 'Lint' is better than this, but only slightly, and that of all Ware's works I've read I found this the least funniest (my humour is black) and the most self-involved (narrative more on thoughts than events).

*Spoiler alert*

When you have a book that ends with 'I am entirely, 100%, horrifyingly, alone' it kinda feels sadder than the death of the protagonist. I also never thought I'd cry about a cat.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though it deals with themes now familiar in Chris Ware's work - namely those of loneliness, isolation and deep sadness - Acme Novelty Library #18 marks a bit of a change in style.

I thought this might be the case when I noticed that the cover of the book doesn't contain the usual wordy apologies in tiny print, and flicking through, the main narrative isn't spattered with fake adverts, cut-outs and other um, 'fun'.

Instead it focuses on doing one thing very well - taking us inside the head of a young woman whose life has reached a dead-end, and who can't help but focus on the past.

Inevitably it's all beautifully rendered, the at first glance intimidating complexities of some of the pages actually very easy to follow. It's full of lovely little tricks and flourishes, and above all feels very real.

But I wouldn't recommend this over his other works - if you're new to Chris Ware, I suggest starting with Jimmy Corrigan or Acme Novelty Library #16 for something with more humour and variety to it. And if you're already a fan of Chris Ware, well, chances are you'll already have bought this making another worth addition to the collection.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is everything you would expect from an installment in Ware's Acme Novelty Library. This is, apparently, the first of a three part series each about a different tenant in a three floor apartment. This story, centered around the past 10 years of the life of a lonely one legged girl in her late twenties who left dreams of being an artist and now works in a flower shop pretty much sounds like it would find its way to the bottom of just about any recommended reading list. But this is Chris Ware, whose mundaneness is juxtaposed with some of the most beautifully colored and cleverly arranged comic panels in the genre, that what would be a cliche' downer of a tale transforms itself into a vibrant epic of a wrecking ball on the readers empathy. This is, arguably one of the most heartbreaking of all of Chris Ware's work that I've read (which is admittedly not that much), but I think it's now my favorite. Though it can be read in one sitting, make sure you take it all in, the pictures are definitely worth at least as much as the words, but certainly more.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The more Chris Ware I read, the more I like his work. When I picked up this book, Jenny asked what it was about. I said I wasn't sure, but it was probably about lonely people struggling with relationships, self-doubt, and sexual frustration, with a little bit of despair sprinkled throughout, rendered in gorgeous architecturally crafted, intricate art.

Turns out I was right.

The central story in No. 18 concerns a young florist who lives a lonely life in her apartment, the top floor of a three-flat. We learn of the challenges she's faced growing up, the frustrations with her art and her missing leg, the difficulties of working as a nanny shortly after she finished college, and the one relationship she had that turned out badly.

Once again, Ware infuses the mundane everyday with a magical sadness. My favorite bits are the carefully sculpted diagrams detailing a particular thought process, showing her thoughts about sex or death or her mind, or the images of the building, rendering moments from the life of the building all at once.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would give the 1st half of the book 4 stars and the latter 3. I found the beginning to be really sad, depressing, and interesting to observe this young woman's point of view, but then her story became a tad bit too repetitive, but such is life, right? Perhaps that's the entire point the author's trying to make. I get caught up in the story and the details and have difficulty looking at the overall point of stories...The front endpages made me cry...luckily that was not the continuing experience for the rest of the book. If nothing else, check out this book for the vibrant colors and pinpoint perfect detailed illustrations of small, everyday objects such as gerber daisies and disposable cameras. It's pretty awesome how on-his-game Chris Ware is, in that respect. I also was really impressed with his understanding of a woman's perspective at the beginning of the story. Oh, and a thanks shout-out to Pam since she gave me this as a birthday/Christmas present : )

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

With this eighteenth installment in his Acme Novelty Library series, Chris Ware has refined a portrait of modern urban loneliness to an almost painful pitch, and yet as in so many of his previous works, Ware succeeds by finding the truths behind his seemingly exaggerated themes. The artwork is colorful and gorgeous as always, and the innovative page and panel layouts continue to amaze with their complex intent and simple beauty. There is an undeniable poetry to Ware's loving explication of his unnamed protagonist and her seemingly bleak world of empty days and nights. And yet the strength of this work is Ware's ability to rise above a morbid fascination with his heroine's unfulfilled dreams, and find in her a continuing capacity for love, even if it is expressed in small and often unrecognized gestures. Ware continues to dare to be true to the modern human spirit, and that alone makes this volume a significant work of art.

[Nate D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chris Ware is better at drawing depression than anyone else in the business, I'm convinced. It has to do not with any single rendering but in the mass effect of endless mundane details in a portrait of terrible inertia and quiet desperation, and it relies on his other great strength: intricate and beautifully-designed page layouts. Storywise, we're only getting a little bit of a much larger and more ambitious work here ("Building Stories"), but I do find the nameless heroine a more fully rendered -- and thus more sympathetic -- character than Ware's long-running but hopeless Jimmy Corrigan. Anyway, I'll certainly be looking forward to the next edition, so hopefully Ware will be able to keep up his one-issue-a-year pledge.

[Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll admit up front that I am a gigantic Chris Ware fan. I think he's the best living graphic designer/book designer, and one of the greatest storytellers ever. That being said, I was a little skeptical going into this book (I mean comic, but look at the thing, it's a hardback book!), knowing that he was turning his attention to a female lead character. I remember reading Alberto Moravia's Two Women and just feeling like he couldn't write for a female character the way he had for his male characters in other novels. I thought Ware was going to suffer from the same fate. I was pleasantly surprised; i think the story is amazing. The layout of the panels and breadth of time covered in this story of a one-legged lonely former art school student slowed my pace down and had me appreciating every moment. Every page is a beautiful almost staggering work of art.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the most technically interesting comic out there for a long while. My problem is, as much as I enjoy weird patterns instead of panels, I need a story. I am lame and middle class and need the characters to do things that make other things happen. Maybe Tv ruined me. But my favorite parts look really amazing, like they're from the USSR. Some of it looks like it's a newspaper strip from the Depression, so my Dad might even like it - plus my Dad likes Dada and this is kinda Dada without the cutting of newspapers. What is sad is that what I love best - the mouse walking around pages - could be wicked wrapping paper. But there never was or will be anything else like this. Wait. It reminds me oddly enough of when the first "Raw" came out in the 80s. Due to that, I am adding a star.

[Lee Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sheer Ozu-y goodness in this one. "Parent's house" appears twice, the only real flaw, other than maybe excessive (very small) text. Otherwise, Ware's quest to correct for decades of action-heavy cartooning with wholly original, imaginative, purposefully quotidian assaults on readerly eyes and hearts continues. As always, amazing stuff. Totally individuated art, with nods to Proust and Ozu and Perec's Life: A User's Manual: Revised Edition here and there. 4.75 stars (I'm saving the fifth star for his next full-length book).

[Damon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of surprisingly, I thought this was very good. Ware approaches his character here with a lot more sensitivity, instead of irony or mockery, and as a result, while she still seems pathetic, it's in a way that actually touches you somewhat as the reader, instead of just being dark and awkwardly comedic. I was also kind of surprised at how much of the story I could relate to personally - while I'm not a young woman with a missing leg, I saw a lot of parallels to her art school experiences and my own, and also some similarities between her personal experiences (life alone and with others) and mine.
It's not necessarily a pleasant book , but it had a really unexpected amount of depth for an issue of Acme. I'm glad I read it.

[Madeline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm pretty sure that I'm going to give everything Ware has ever done five stars because, seriously, what other graphic novelist can compare? Ware is untouchable in his attention to detail and prolific-ness. His stories may not be for everyone--his sense of humor is incredibly dark and subtle--but I personally think them genius. I regret that someday my eyesight may become too awful to read anymore Ware.

This installment features a female narrator and a two pages spread of a pixelated vagina. The narrator is equally as pathetic as Ware's mice and men, but she is rendered in a slightly less mocking tone.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've always been a huge fan of Chris Ware, and this latest Acme installment doesn't disappoint. His themes don't often vary, but his richness of style makes up for his monotony of topic. He is also the only comic author and one of the few authors of any type that makes reading about stifling depression and loneliness anything but boring.

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ware continues to explore the alienation of the modern human being and to test the elasticity of the bond between text and image, while still managing to craft a poignant and visually arresting story. I kind of hate him for that.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Either things have been getting to me much much more lately, or this book is incredible in its ability to do in a comic what most often happens with novels and movies - shredding up your heart. What a beautiful book.

[Isa · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the last 2 editions left me a little.. let's say cold, this one actually grabbed me immediately. This time the story is told from a female perspective. I absolutely adored the many panels in the flower shop. Sad and gorgeous as always.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because Ware's designs are so intricate, this read has definately been on a bit-by-bit process. However, if anyone is into collecting rare vintage books, you'd get a kick out of the way Ware chooses to format his comics!

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must . . publish . . next . . . book . . .

Mr. Ware has got me hooked ever since Jimmy Corrigan. I wish I knew when to quit!

[álvaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

¿por qué nadie lo edita en España?
¿por qué casi ninguna librería española lo traer de importación?
siempre me toca comprar el Acme Novelty Library en lugares lejanos...

éste lo compré en Barcelona en Fiestas de Gracia 2008.

[Mrlunch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chris Ware is a genius!
I love how he tells stories of characters who don't fit in or are depressed for some reason, but does it in a way that is so beautiful and unique that the heavy subject matter is palatable and even appealing.