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 chris ware interview
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.The Jimmy Corrigan author pours his heart out. When Jimmy Corrigan won the Guardian’s First Book Prize in 2001 and reached bookshop shelves all over the UK, it seemed as though a new era for comics, graphic novels - whatever you call them - had been ushered in. In fact, theirs is a grand history of challenging and grown-up cartoonists. And it’s a history that Ware will certainly go down in. Using a cast of characters, including his hot-headed alter ego, Quimby The Mouse, and the tragicomic everyman Jimmy Corrigan, Ware spins heartbreaking tales of alienation and struggle. He claims not to be pessimistic though. “I just try to be realistic, and optimism eventually seems to lead to one’s heart being trounced. I find it a very strangely solipsistic idea to believe that simply by being in jolly spirits all the time that ‘everything’s going to turn out OK’.” Brace yourself before reading, in Ware’s worlds things rarely do.  Rusty Brown. In this latest collection, The Acme Novelty Library, from the comic of the same name, we’re introduced to Rusty Brown, a teenage fanboy who collects toys and finds himself grown into a lonely fat man’s body. Like his fellow characters and their mundane lives, which are spiced up only by personal fantasies, Rusty rarely gets a break. Fans will be familiar with its format. Pared down comic-style images illustrating narratives of love, death and loss stretched over generations, cut-out-and-make maquette designs and tiny instructional text - here advertising things ranging from Fat Folks Anti-Corpulence Tablets to the Meaning Of Life. The book conjures a combination between quiet human desperation and cartoon humour, but is also intricately decorated. “I consider comics to be a visual language and I’ve found over the years that my cartoons ‘read’ more easily if they’re treated more as personal picture symbols. Cartoon pictures affect memory and sight simultaneously, sort of blurring the line between the two, and if carefully balanced can provide an experience which is both internal as well as ‘theatrical’.” In fact, the 15-inch-tall book is as much an eye-catching object as anything else. "My goal is to make pages that have a similar degree of density and texture that the natural world seems to have, an intricacy and patterning that’s something like one might find by picking up a leaf or a stone and looking at it intently."  Tales of Tomorrow and a self-portrait. “For this particular book, the cover is sort of an anchor to the strips in a way that’s ridiculously pretentious. I figured with this book I’d allow myself to indulge in the ostentatious, because it’s otherwise mostly a collection of gags, jokes and piffle.” After losing his creative inspiration a couple of years ago, Ware now publishes issues of the Acme Novelty Library himself. “When I imagined taking over every aspect of it myself, I was suddenly inspired, almost anxious, to work on it again. In short, it just feels a little more like ‘art’ to me now, since I’m responsible for everything, and there’s no one to blame but myself if it’s awful (which it may very well be).” And although he feels that comics “hold a low level on the cultural ladder”, Ware is more than just a saviour to a postmodern Marvel generation. Merging art and literature with what could be thought of as a kitchen-sink cartoon style, he invites newcomers to the world of comics and turns them into fans. Even if he makes them cry along the way.
Rowan Kerek
The Acme Novelty Library, out now published by Jonathan Cape.
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see also
 quimby the mouse review chris wares mcsweeney's comicareview
related member reviews
 jimmy corrigan review by rowan
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