The Acme Novelty Date-Book - Volume One: 1986-1995

The Acme Novelty Library

by Chris Ware

Acclaimed cartoonist Chris Ware reveals the outtakes of his genius in these intimate, imaginative, and whimsical sketches collected from the years during which he completed his award-winning graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (Pantheon). His novel not only won the Manchester Guardian First Novel prize in 2001 but it has sold over 100,000 copies. This book is as much a companion volume to Jimmy Corrigan --one of the great crossover success stories-- as a tremendous art collection from of one of America's most interesting and popular graphic artist.

Chris Ware has a passion for drawing that is surprisingly wide-ranging in style and subject. This book surprises the reader on every page with its sense of spontaneous vision. Architectural drawings from Chicago and interplanetary robot comics collide with cruelly doodled human figures and quietly troubling studies of the still life. A must for people with a passion for modern design and old-fashioned style.

Genres: Comics, Art, Graphic Novels, Nonfiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Sequential Art, Comix

208 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 2003

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

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Datebook collects many of Chris Ware's sketchpads. Don't go thinking you'll get much out of it, except that Chris Ware is a master of mediums. My mom opened Datebook up to a random page once and saw a man's penis. She's no graphic connoisseur, but if she can get something out of this book, then maybe you can too.

[Powells.com · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fans of the reclusive Chris Ware will rejoice at the visual wealth of information collected here. Datebook lays out the history of Ware's creative progression (ironically without dates) from the early days up to the design of the cover of Datebook itself. A personal sketchbook, it reveals the true talents of this acclaimed artist.
Recommended by Amy

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio...

[Manintheboat · Rating 1 out of 5]

My... that's an uncomfortable amount of masturbation. Literally.

[Tom · Rating 1 out of 5]

A sketchbook/journal that provides little in the way of transcendence. There's no moral to this story, just a cripplingly self-aware, sex-obsessed, young artist.

[Przemysław Skoczyński · Rating 4 out of 5]

Szkicownik Chrisa Ware - jednego z najwybitniejszych twórców komiksowych w historii - to z pewnością zabawa głównie dla fanów obeznanych już z większością ważnych dzieł autora. Pozycja świetnie wydana i kapitalnie zaprojektowana, uzupełniająca obraz artysty o prace bardzo intymne, najczęściej tworzone z myślą o praktyce i "chowaniu do szuflady". To rzecz bardzo osobista, przemycająca obsesje i motywy znane z komiksów Ware'a, lecz bez otoczki rozbudowanych fabuł. Mamy więc silny nacisk na seksualność, ale niekoniecznie świadczącą o realizacji i szczęściu (masturbacja w ilościach naprawdę sporych). Z tym pośrednio wiąże się wyczuwalne na każdym kroku poczucie wyobcowania bohaterów, ich nieporadność życiowa, problemy w relacjach z innymi, depresja. Obrazy dopełniają osobiste zapiski i komentarze na marginesach prac, świadczące o kompleksach i niemocy twórczej. Warto, choć nie dla każdego, więc tradycyjnie polecam zacząć od "Jimmiego Corrigana"

[Liam O'Leary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read only if you are a big fan of Chris Ware and are interested in his creative process. Barely any of this is representative of the aesthetic of his stongest works, but it does show how he develops his ideas. Reassuring and instructive for aspiring writers or artists.

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first thing I noticed about this facsimile book is that the author's name only appears in very tiny letters on the back cover in "about the artist." This book is very personal, and not to have the author's name seems like an act of courage. When you see this book on a shelf in a bookstore, do you automatically know it is by Chris Ware?

This is a wonderfully revealing sketchbook. Another way of looking at how people think, especially when words are not adequate or appropriate. I wish my aged eyes were more keen at seeing tiny details, as I'm sure there is lot which was overlooked.

There was a moment of synchronicity in seeing a reference to filmmaker Dick Myers, and his film, "37-73." Probably one of those obscure note to most people, but fraught with meaning to me. And I especially appreciated the drawing of "Joseph Cornell just shortly before his death --this expression is IMPOSSIBLE to draw!"

The paper quality of this book should be noted. It is a pleasure to turn each page.

[Rex Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sketch book from Chris Ware. It is filled with random art, sometimes great, sometimes just okay, but there is no story here, nothing but randomness and development ideas that he played around with. Don't expect a story or the usual polished looked you would find in his other books. There is a lot more nudity and sexual jokes than I expected. Certainly more than you'd find elsewhere, but there were beautifully rendered genitalia.

[Vicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really cool to look through selections from Chris Ware's sketchbook between the ages of ~19-28. I particularly enjoyed observational ink drawings of people in public, city buildings, and recognizable characters like Batman, Bert and Ernie, and such. This captures a horny and self-deprecating period, but I can imagine him still being intensely critical of himself. I didn't read through all the tiny square comics and tiny-tiny handwriting. That part of his style is not what I'm too into.

[Rich Farrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ware is one of my favorite artists/storytellers out there, so even though this isn’t traditionally a “five star” book, it was really fascinating to me. The character sketches on Jimmy Corrigan were interesting as was seeing his work and ideas develop over time. The neighborhood sketches were really wonderful.

[Blaine McGaffigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chris Ware’s range and maturity as an artist is astounding. It is cool seeing his concepting and imagining “Jimmy Corrigan” in his sketchbook which doubles as a visual journal.

Highly recommended for any fan.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth a look for a glimpse into Ware's process. There's a lot of good stuff in here, though probably not nearly as much for non-fans. Also hard to tell how Ware actually hates himself and how much is playing a role.

[Nikola Š · Rating 4 out of 5]

Find someone who loves you as much as Chris Ware hates himself.

[Gavin Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Endlessly fascinating

[Ruben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brings an insight into the years before he published the works he became famous for. And the origin of some of the characters and of his style.

Very different from what I expected.

[Panoramaisland · Rating 5 out of 5]

This admittedly has additional stars from me simply because I harbor an aching love for Franklin C. Ware, and paging through his sketchbooks feeds that aching love of mine by giving me a look into his creative process. Seeing both familiar and unfamiliar strips and characters in their gestational stages and watching Ware develop them in different directions, getting a looksee at his simple sketching practice, seeing him copy other cartoonists - Rube Goldberg, R. Crumb - and try out cartoon styles he never uses in finished work... There are many treasures here. One of the special features unique to the two Acme Novelty Datebooks (as far as I'm aware) is the plethora of more realistic figure drawings in various styles and media, including graphite, pen, and amazingly free and loose brushwork. I admire him all the more for his exceedingly tight work knowing that he is not chained to it - knowing that he can also be gestural, and can attain beautiful results in so doing.

It is also wonderful to be able to read his pages of miniscule notes, recounting dreams and experiences, outlining strip ideas, trying out layouts, and first developing the stories and characters that I have come to love so much. Many drawings have written criticisms beside them; many others have written griping: creative block, headaches, obsessions, sexual frustrations. Many of the same concerns that are so artfully laid out in the finished Acme Novelty Library editions are more directly and personally dealt with here: images of sexual frustration that are more direct and Crumbian than I'm used to from Ware are common.

This also makes Chris Ware more accessible and less intimidating to me as a fellow artist, and is inspiring in pushing me to pay more attention to my own sketching process and generally sketch more. Seeing this work seems to be the nudge I need to respect sketchbooks and take them more seriously as brewing pots for ideas.

That being said, much of the above is probably a bit obvious; if you're not a drooling fan like I am, you may well not care about the contents of the Datebook a whole lot.

The book is as beautifully designed and built as one would expect a Chris Ware book to be, and is done up in what I would call a mainstay Ware style. The main goody he's hidden in plain sight is a small circular timeline of his life on the front cover, which is exploded with added detail on the back.

I love this guy. Have you noticed?

[c]

Very interesting to see inside of Ware's mind (or at least what he allowed onto the private page), and especially to see the ideas that keep bouncing around and forming over years and years. There's definitely a wider emotional spectrum here than in the published work of his I've read, some of it (some warm, some laugh-out-loud funny) using characters that have become popular in his more sober, "dour" work. That too is interesting to see, both considering the characters used and in consideration of Ware working through different things using them.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s weird to look at so much beautiful art amongst self-defeating, overly critical notes scribbled by Ware where he seems to hate his work and consider himself a fraud. The lesson learned is, no matter how skilled one becomes as an artist, they will probably still be plagued by crippling self-doubt until death. Haha!

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

A peek into the early sketch books of Mr. Ware.

Watch the development of some of his characters.

Sit, uncomfortably, on Ware's ottoman of the mind. All the while, leafing through collections of Victorian adverts and rag time sheet music.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely for Chris Ware fans. Interesting glimpses into how he works, and how many great characters have developed. Glad I read it, but equally glad I checked it out of the library.

[Heinz Gitanes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice.

[Kim]

A different Ware. Must read for anyone interested in Ware's work.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

no.

[Clay Doran · Rating 4 out of 5]

chris ware's early sketchbooks. interesting look into a super productive and ingenious creator.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whoa.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book.