Chris Ware
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (2000)
Author: Chris Ware
Genre: Graphic Novel (Psychological/Emo)
Plot Summary:
Chris Ware’s semiautobiographical graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth was first published in segments over seven years, but finally found its way into a comprehensive edition published in 2000. Ware’s first novel is rich with interesting details such as cut-out inserts and a fold-out poster, and spans four generations of the Corrigan family from the 1890s to the 1980s. The youngest Jimmy Corrigan is a 36 year old office drone living in Michigan. He is socially awkward and inept even when situations require very little of him. He lives alone and spends his time daydreaming and fielding the innumerable phone calls he receives each day from his overbearing mother. One day Jimmy receives a letter in the mail from his estranged father, inviting Jimmy to come spend Thanksgiving with him. After much deliberation, and no notice to his mother, Jimmy decides to go and meet his father. Told in segments alongside ‘young’ Jimmy’s story are also the stories of his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, all named Jimmy Corrigan. We learn that Jimmy is painfully self-conscious and shy. He plods along never saying much, though the reader is privy to his inner fantasies and imaginative longings for something, anything other than his normal life. SPOILER As Jimmy becomes somewhat acquainted with his long lost dad, the story of his grandfather‘s abandonment by his own father during the Columbia Exposition in Chicago in 1893 comes forth. Interspersed with the stark, somewhat sad stories of his family Jimmy learns he has an adopted African-American half sister, his father is in a serious car accident, is hospitalized and dies. Nervous and continually self-doubting, Jimmy is uncertain how to handle his sister’s grief and the death of someone he barely knew, so he returns early to his eventless life and job. He goes into work on Thanksgiving Day and meets a new female employee, also the nervous type and stressed about starting her first day in the office. She hints at their both being alone and at the office on Thanksgiving, saying she has never eaten at a restaurant on the holiday. However, Jimmy Corrigan is typically, and rather pathetically, oblivious.
Geographical Setting: Michigan/Chicago
Time Period: 1890s/1980s
Appeal Characteristics:
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth perfectly explains what it is to be lonely. With his simple, believable text and colorful but minimalist drawings Chris Ware has still managed to create characters full of depth. For example, Jimmy’s mother is mostly described through her phone conversations and rarely seen, however it is still with relative ease that the reader can picture her. Also the reader will quickly notice that Jimmy is a rather spineless and wimpy character, with very little self-confidence. However, this type of character development is accomplished more through dialogue and the characters’ inner thoughts, than from lots of action. In fact, Ware does such a great job of capturing the utter awkwardness that is Jimmy Corrigan that adults and younger readers can really feel how he might have. That is really what is so compelling about this story is how well the emotions of the characters are conveyed to the reader in a very raw and realistic way. No judgments or presuppositions are presented by the author or another voice to supplement the facts of the story, making it very psychological in nature. We know the thoughts of the characters and the things they say/do to each other, but it is up to us to interpret it all, such as when there are several frames in a row that look almost identical. Readers who enjoy cerebral types of stories will certainly enjoy that aspect of the book, as it requires that one formulate their own ideas about what they learn from the plot. The pace is measured, and though quite a bit happens in the story there is very little physical action. The story shifts between generations of the Corrigan family, and that often makes it seem to move a little faster. Of course there are major events, such as Jimmy meeting his father for the first time and finding out he has an adopted half-sister, but Jimmy’s emotional reactions are minimal if at all, which moves the story along without much drama. Readers will enjoy how even a slow, steady pace can be a page-turner because though the characters are very direct in their speech and don’t embellish much, the very stories they tell are interesting enough on their own. These are often asides to the main story, such as going back in time in the grandfather’s stories, but readers will enjoy their unapologetic honesty and not feel that they slow the story. Nothing about the tone of this book is light or happy. Jimmy Corrigan lives a lonely, sad life, and his father and grandfather tell stories of child abuse, hunger, and abandonment. Readers who enjoy deep, introspective stories with hopeless characters will appreciate this book for its dark tone and grit. Even in the frames that are clearly fantasies of the characters, the tone remains matter-of-fact and serious. Setting, in combination with the artwork contributes to the dark quality of the novel. The story takes place in the winter, a cold and darker time of year. In general the color palette is very dark, with muted and dark tones dominating the frames. Frames depicting scenes from the past have dialog boxes in cursive to differentiate from the present, because besides that the characters look almost identical. In that way the art is very simple, with thick black outlines and bleak coloration. The author revealed that omitting the detail from the characters was intentional because he hoped readers would focus more on the dialogue and what was actually happening in the story. However nondescript the characters may be there is no denying that Ware is a talented artist. The use of color and black and white, along with the dark outlines really conveys the message of loneliness so overarching in this novel. Visual art-minded readers will appreciate how the art flows so seamlessly through the generations in the story, as well as the detailed cut-out diagrams and the art-only sections without any text.
Read-alikes: Readers who enjoyed Jimmy Corrigan will not want to miss the work of Daniel Clowes. Though best known for Ghost World, a good read-alike suggestion is David Boring. The name says it all about main character David. But when the woman he falls in love with disappears and an old friend gets shot and David is the prime suspect how could it get any worse? Though this book has much more action than Jimmy Corrigan, it has a similarly dark tone and theme, with its elements of murder and mystery. Readers who enjoyed the dark emotions brought forth in Jimmy Corrigan will also the adventure of David Boring. Readers of Ware will also note similarities in the artwork of Clowes, with its muted coloring and simple, realistic characters. They will also enjoy a similarly tortured main character with David as they found in Jimmy. Another good suggestion is Clumsy by Jeffrey Brown. Clumsy uses every day scenes to tell the story of a long-distance relationship and the pain often caused by love. Readers will notice the same dark tone present in Jimmy Corrigan, as the characters struggle with their inner emotions and thoughts, in Jimmy’s case about his father and in this case about love. Art-lovers will also appreciate the way in which the style matches the mood of the characters. Just as in Jimmy Corrigan they were rather blank and homogenous to symbolize their emotional emptiness Clumsy uses delicate, thin lines to represent the frailty and vulnerability of a new relationship. Both books present very real, honest characters and readers who liked Jimmy Corrigan’s minimalism will also find that in Clumsy. Another great suggestion that also focuses on family relationships in the past and present is Epileptic by David B. An autobiographical story about the author’s epileptic brother is painfully honest and realistic, much like Jimmy Corrigan. This novel has a similarly dark tone, with the artwork (black and white) reflective of the somber mood. As much as Jimmy Corrigan is about the lack of emotion of its characters, Epileptic is fine with revealing that emotion, but in a matter-of-fact sort of way. This still creates a similar characterization, where readers know the inner thoughts and facts from which they can glean meaning and form an understanding of the story. Curses by Kevin Huizenga may be a more adventurous read-alike suggestion, but Huizenga employs much of the same directness with underlying complexities that are found in Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan. Curses is a collection of short stories in a wide range of topics with a list of characters from zombies to Hitler. It employs a similarly dark tone, with hints of fantasy, like Jimmy’s daydreaming, juxtaposed with the very real life. The artwork, mostly black and white, has its roots in the mundane, everyday world, much like Ware’s ordinary characters, and through them tells simple stories with the ability to mean much more to their readers. Another great suggestion is Harvey Pekar’s The Quitter. Readers will recognize some of the same characterization of this autobiographical story. Harvey Pekar is an awkward person, much like Jimmy Corrigan, and because of it has strange interactions with others. Though Harvey reacts differently from Jimmy, confrontational as opposed to timid, he possesses the same self-doubt and trouble with communicating as Jimmy. The tone set by the telling of Harvey’s life from boy to adult is similarly dark, mostly because of his trouble fitting in, like Jimmy. Both books also contain artwork that helps the reader delve more deeply into the minds of the characters and the story. Though The Quitter may be more expressive than Jimmy Corrigan, both graphic novels contain art that furthers the story and engages the reader, either with colorful cut-out diagrams or visually descriptive frames of characters’ emotions. Readers interested in exploring another autobiographical coming of age story set in the Midwest should check out Blankets by Craig Thompson. The story centers on growing up in the Midwest, falling in love, coming to terms with fundamentalist Christian values, and revisiting these experiences as an adult. Thompson's illustrated novel set in black and white reads faster than Ware's Jimmy Corrigan despite its size (592 pages). For another complex multiple character centered plotline that features first rate storytelling and similar artwork look no further than David Boring by Daniel Clowes. Like Ware's Jimmy Corrgian Clowes' David Boring tells the story of a timid young man with a rich imagination and an intense fondness for the oppsite sex. Boring's escapades involve shootings, drownings, and a handful of other tragedies before he finds love again with the mysterious woman he lost. If Ware's characterization and colorful, although not always reality-based, imagination left you wanting more try James Thurber's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. This classic story centers on the wildly entertaining fantasies of a man who is frustrated with his dull life and escapes into worlds where he is brave airplane pilot and a gifted doctor. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang is another literary graphic novel that features racism, which was a big feature of Jimmy's grandfather's storyline. This book takes readers into the world of a young American boy born to Chinese parents. The book is told in three parts: the first focuses on Jin Wang who faces racism on the playground at school; the second is a sitcom with a stereotypical Chinese boy who visits his American cousin who's embarrassed by him; the third is the mythological tale of the Monkey King who isn't allowed to join the other deities in heaven.
Red Flags: Child neglect; language; racist slurs
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