2000 ∙ Chris Ware ∙ 380 pgs
Who knew a comic book (sorry, graphic novel) could be so horribly depressing? This thing should have been called Jimmy Corrigan: The Saddest Kid on Earth. It’s especially dark watching four generations of Corrigans wasting away in full color. Loneliness, rejection and abandonment follow the male Corrigans as they slog through their lives. Be it the 1980’s or today, there is an inevitable cloud of failure hanging over all of their heads. The faces of the characters barely change throughout the narrative, as they move through the ages in Chicago, never breaking out of the same rut. They are losers. They are disenfranchised middle-America. Men surrounded by sad men. We can only assume that there is a large part of the author, Chris Ware, lurking in these pathetic characters, all of whom just want somebody to love and somebody to love them. This is certainly adult reading, and certainly more powerful than most of the so-called serious fiction out there these days.
