Franklin Christenson Ware (born December 28, 1967) is an American comic book artist and cartoonist, best-known for a series of comics called the Acme Novelty Library, and a graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, he resides in Oak Park, Illinois as of 2007. is the 362nd day of the year (363rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. ... A comic book is a magazine or book containing the art form of comics. ... Cartoonist Jack Elrod at work. ... The cover ACME Novelty Library issue 15 Acme Novelty Library is a singular and artistically adventurous comic book created by Chicago cartoonist Chris Ware and published by Fantagraphics Books. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Omaha redirects here. ... For other uses, see Nebraska (disambiguation). ... Downtown (Oak Park Avenue) Ernest Hemingway Museum Oak Park, Illinois Lake Theater and shops along Lake Street. ... This article is about the U.S. State. ...

Style

Ware's art is eclectic in its influences, and largely reflects his love of early 20th century American aesthetics in both cartooning and graphic design, transitioning through dozens of artistic styles from traditional comic panels to advertisements to cut-out toys. Although his precise, geometrical layouts may appear to some to be computer-generated, in fact Ware works almost exclusively with "old-fashioned" drawing tools such as paper and pencil, rulers and T-squares. He does, however, sometimes use photocopies and transparencies, and employs a computer to color his strips. Graphics are often utilitarian and anonymous,[1] as these pictographs from the US National Park Service illustrate. ...

His work shows tangible influence from early cartoonists, like Winsor McCay and Frank King (creator of Gasoline Alley); especially in its layout and flow. Outside the comics genre, Ware has found inspiration and a kindred soul in artist and sculptor Joseph Cornell, both men sharing a need to capture items of nostalgia, grace, and beauty within "boxes."^[1] Winsor McCay Winsor McCay (September 26, 1867(?) – July 26, 1934) was a prolific artist and pioneer in the art of comic strips and animation. ... Frank King (April 9, 1883 in Cashton, Wisconsin - June 24, 1969 in Winter Park, Florida) was an American cartoonist most famous for the comic strip Gasoline Alley. ... Gasoline Alley is a comic strip created by Frank King that was first published on 24 November 1918. ... Comics (or, less commonly, sequential art) is a form of visual art consisting of images which are commonly combined with text, often in the form of speech balloons or image captions. ... A photograph of Joseph Cornell Joseph Cornell Untitled (Dieppe) c. ...

Ware has said of his own style:

I arrived at my way of "working" as a way of visually approximating what I feel the tone of fiction to be in prose versus the tone one might use to write biography; I would never do a biographical story using the deliberately synthetic way of cartooning I use to write fiction. I try to use the rules of typography to govern the way that I "draw", which keeps me at a sensible distance from the story as well as being a visual analog to the way we remember and conceptualize the world. I figured out this way of working by learning from and looking at artists I admired and whom I thought came closest to getting at what seemed to me to be the "essence" of comics, which is fundamentally the weird process of reading pictures, not just looking at them. I see the black outlines of cartoons as visual approximations of the way we remember general ideas, and I try to use naturalistic color underneath them to simultaneously suggest a perceptual experience, which I think is more or less the way we actually experience the world as adults; we don't really "see" anymore after a certain age, we spend our time naming and categorizing and identifying and figuring how everything all fits together. Unfortunately, as a result, I guess sometimes readers get a chilled or antiseptic sensation from it, which is certainly not intentional, and is something I admit as a failure, but is also something I can't completely change at the moment.^[2]

Career

Ware's earliest published strips appeared in the late 1980s on the comics page of The Daily Texan, the student newspaper of the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to numerous daily strips under different titles, Ware also had a weekly satirical science fiction serial in the paper titled Floyd Farland: Citizen of the Future. This was eventually published in 1988 as a prestige format comic book from Eclipse Publishing, and its publication even led to a brief correspondence between Ware and Timothy Leary. Now embarrassed by the book, which he considers amateurish and naive, Ware is reportedly purchasing and destroying all remaining copies. The Daily Texan is the student newspaper of The University of Texas at Austin. ... University of Texas redirects here. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Prestige format is a term coined by DC Comics but now in wider use to refer to a square-bound comic book with cardstock covers. ... For the American baseball player, see Tim Leary (baseball player). ...

While still a sophomore at UT, Ware attracted the attention of famed Manhattan cartoonist, publisher and designer Art Spiegelman, who invited Ware to contribute to his influential anthology magazine, RAW. This led to greater acclaim, and Ware's eventual relationship with Fantagraphics Books. His Fantagraphics series Acme Novelty Library defied comics publishing conventions with every issue. The series featured a combination of new material as well as reprints of work Ware had done for the Texan (such as Quimby the Mouse) and the Chicago weekly paper New City. Ware's work appeared originally in New City before he moved on to his current "home", the Chicago Reader. Beginning with the 16th issue of the Acme Novelty Library, Ware is self-publishing his work, while maintaining a relationship with Fantagraphics for distribution and storage. This is an interesting return to Ware's early career, when he self-published such books as Lonely Comics and Stories as well as miniature digests of stories based on Quimby the Mouse and an unnamed potato-like creature. This article is about the borough of New York City. ... Art Spiegelman (born February 15, 1948) is an American comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic memoir, Maus. ... Cover to RAW volume 1, number 1 (July 1980). ... Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint. ... The Chicago Reader is an alternative newsweekly in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded in 1971[2] by a group of friends who attended Carleton College. ... Self-publishing is the publishing of books or other media by those who have written them. ... Quimby the Mouse was created by Chris Ware while he attended the University of Texas at Austin from 1990-1991 (some of the strip was written from 1992-1993) The strip originally appeared in the student paper, The Daily Texan. ...

In recent years he has also been involved in editing (and designing) several books and book series, including the new reprint series of Gasoline Alley from Drawn and Quarterly Walt and Skeezix, the on-going reprint of Krazy Kat by Fantagraphics, and the thirteenth volume of Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, which is devoted to comics. He was the editor of The Best American Comics 2007, the 2nd installment devoted to comics in the Best American series. Gasoline Alley is a comic strip created by Frank King that was first published on 24 November 1918. ... Drawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by publisher Chris Oliveros, and based in Montréal, Québec. ... Krazy Kat is a comic strip created by George Herriman that appeared in U.S. newspapers between 1913 and 1944. ... Timothy McSweeneys Quarterly Concern is a semi-quarterly literary journal published by the McSweeneys publishing house. ... The Best American series is an annually-published collection of books, published by Houghton Mifflin, each of which features a different genre or theme. ...

In 2007 Ware curated an exhibition for the Phoenix Art Museum focused on the non-comic work of five contemporary cartoonists. The exhibition, titled "UnInked: Paintings, Sculpture and Graphic Works by Five Cartoonists," ran from April 21st through August 19th.^[3] Ware also edited and designed the catalog for the exhibition. Founded in 1945, The Phoenix Art Museum has served Americans with ehxibits such as The Gayness of Eden, Homosexuals in paradise, and most recently Why Security Guards Suck. ...

Over the years his work garnered several awards, including the 1999 National Cartoonists Society Award for Best Comic Book for Acme Novelty Library. The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists created in 1946. ... The cover ACME Novelty Library issue 15 Acme Novelty Library is a singular and artistically adventurous comic book created by Chicago cartoonist Chris Ware and published by Fantagraphics Books. ...

Recurring characters and stories

Quimby the Mouse

Quimby the Mouse was an early character for Ware and something of a breakthrough. Rendered in the style of an early animation character like Felix the Cat, Quimby the Mouse is perhaps Ware's most autobiographical character. Quimby's relationship with a cat head named Sparky is by turns conflict-ridden and loving, and thus intended to reflect all human relationships. While Quimby exhibits mobility, Sparky remains immobile and helpless, subject to all the indignities Quimby visits upon him. Quimby also acts as a narrator for Ware's reminiscences of his youth, in particular his relationship with his grandmother. Quimby was presented in a series of smaller panels than most comics, almost providing the illusion of motion ala a zoetrope. In fact, Ware once designed a zoetrope to be cut out and constructed by the reader in order to watch a Quimby "silent movie". Ware's ingenuity is neatly shown in this willingness to break from the confines of the page. Quimby the Mouse appears in the logo of a Chicago-based bookstore "Quimby's", although their shared name was originally a coincidence^[4] Quimby the Mouse was created by Chris Ware while he attended the University of Texas at Austin from 1990-1991 (some of the strip was written from 1992-1993) The strip originally appeared in the student paper, The Daily Texan. ... This article is about the cartoon character. ... A modern replica of a Victorian zoetrope. ... This article is about the comedy film. ...

Rusty Brown

Ware is currently at work on Rusty Brown, a series ostensibly about an action figure collecting manchild and his somewhat troubled childhood, but which, in Ware's fashion, diverges into multiple storylines about Brown's father's early life in the 1950s as a science fiction writer and his best friend Chalky White's adult home life. Rusty Brown is the protagonist of the strip of the same name by Chicago cartoonist Chris Ware. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ...

Building Stories

Ware recently finished work on "Building Stories", which first appeared as a monthly strip in Nest Magazine. Installments have since appeared in a number of publications, including The New Yorker, Kramer's Ergot, and most notably, the Sunday New York Times Magazine. "Building Stories" appeared weekly in the NYT Magazine from September 18, 2005 until April 2006. For other uses, see New Yorker. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... is the 261st day of the year (262nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The Super-Man

The Super-Man is an antihero who wears a similar caped costume to Superman, but also has a domino mask and receding hairline. Ware has said in interviews that he imagines that if the popular fictional superhero Superman were real, he would be much like Ware's Super-Man. In literature and film, an anti-hero is a central or supporting character that has some of the personality flaws and ultimate fortune traditionally assigned to villains but nonetheless also have enough heroic qualities or intentions to gain the sympathy of readers or viewers. ... Superman is a fictional character and comic book superhero , originally created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian artist Joe Shuster and published by DC Comics. ...

The Super-Man originally appeared as God in Ware's early work, wreaking Old Testament vengeance on people who annoyed him. The Super-Man later turned up in Ware's Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth as an assumedly unseen mentor. In a particularly poignant scene, Jimmy sees the Super-Man standing on the cornice of a skyscraper. Seeing Jimmy, he waves, to Jimmy's delight. The Super-Man then crouches as if to take off flying, but instead falls to his death. It is easy to perceive the Super-Man's purpose as a metaphorical stand-in for Jimmy's long-absent father. This article is about the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ... Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations · Other religions Ecumenism · Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Important figures Apostle Paul · Church Fathers Constantine · Athanasius · Augustine Anselm · Aquinas · Palamas · Luther Calvin · Wesley Arius · Marcion of Sinope Archbishop of Canterbury · Catholic Pope Coptic Pope · Ecumenical Patriarch Christianity Portal This box:      Note: Judaism... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... For other uses, see Skyscraper (disambiguation). ... This article is about metaphor in literature and rhetoric. ...

In a series of strips appearing in the Chicago Reader, the Super-Man is seen walking about naked, eating a live deer, stealing money, killing people who annoy him, gambling, kidnapping a young girl and living with her in the wild until she grows up, whereupon he impregnates her, grows bored with her and the child, then flies off. He then spends the next several million years in one spot, pondering it all even as the Earth falls away about him. His last thought remains of the girl and his child. This article is about the comic strip, the sequential art form as published in newspapers and on the Internet. ... The Chicago Reader is an alternative newsweekly in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded in 1971[2] by a group of friends who attended Carleton College. ...

These strips have been compiled and published in 2005 as part of a book titled The ACME Novelty Library Final Report to Shareholders and Saturday Afternoon Rainy Day Fun Book. Yet they are deliberately not listed in the table of contents.

Non-comics work

Ware is an ardent collector of ragtime paraphernalia and publishes an annual journal devoted to the music titled The Ragtime Ephemeralist.^[5] He also plays the banjo and piano. The influence of the music and its era can be seen in Ware's work, especially in regard to logos and layout. Ware has designed album covers and posters for such ragtime performers as the Et Cetera String Band, Virginia Tichenor, Reginald R. Robinson, the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra, and Guido Nielsen. He has also designed covers and posters for non-ragtime performers such as Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire and 5ive Style. [1] Ware also designed the façade of the San Francisco writing lab and pirate store 826 Valencia. In October 2005 Ware designed the elaborate cover art for Penguin Books' new edition of Voltaire's Candide. In 2004, Ware worked with Ira Glass of This American Life to create illustrations for a slideshow called Lost Buildings, which is now available as a book and DVD set.^[6] In 2007 he animated a sequence for the This American Life television series on Showtime and also contributed to the show as a color consultant. Ware recently created the poster art for the film The Savages. Look up ragtime in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... For other uses, see Banjo (disambiguation) The banjo is a stringed instrument developed by enslaved Africans in the United States, adapted from several African instruments. ... Pianoforte redirects here. ... Andrew Bird (born July 11, 1973) is an American musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. ... It has been suggested that Penguin Modern Poets, Penguin Great Ideas be merged into this article or section. ... For other uses, see Voltaire (disambiguation). ... For the Bernstein operetta based on the book, see Candide (operetta). ... Ira Glass (born March 3, 1959) is an American public radio personality, and host and producer of the radio and television show This American Life. ... This American Life (TAL) is a weekly hour-long radio program produced by Chicago Public Radio. ... This article is about the pay TV channel. ... The Savages is a 2007 comedy/drama feature film directed by Tamara Jenkins, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Laura Linney, and Philip Bosco. ...

Awards and honors

With Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman, Robert Crumb and Gary Panter, Ware was among the artists honored in the exhibition "Masters of American Comics" at the Jewish Museum in New York City, New York, from September 16, 2006 to January 28, 2007. Ware is also the first comics artist to be invited to exhibit at Whitney Museum of American Art biennial exhibition, in 2002. In May 2006 he exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an acclaimed American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. ... Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg, August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was one of the most influential, recognizable, and prolific artists in American comic books, and the co-creator of such enduring characters and popular culture icons as the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Hulk, Captain America, and hundreds... Harvey Kurtzman (October 3, 1924 - February 21, 1993) was a U.S. cartoonist and magazine editor. ... Robert Dennis Crumb (born August 30, 1943), often credited simply as R. Crumb, is an American artist and illustrator recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream. ... Gary Panter (born 1950 in Oklahoma), known to many as the father of punk comics, is a fine artist and a luminary of the post-underground, new wave comics movement that began with the end of Arcade: The Comics Revue and the initiation of RAW. Overview As an early participant... The Jewish Museum Berlin (Jüdisches Museum Berlin) is a museum in Berlin covering two millennia of German Jewish history. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... This article is about the state. ... is the 259th day of the year (260th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 28th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... Night view of Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art is an art gallery and museum in New York City founded in 1931 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. ... The Museum of Contemporary Art is a contemporary art museum in downtown Chicago. ...

Ware's graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth won the 2001 Guardian First Book Award, the first time a graphic novel has won a major United Kingdom book award. It also won the prize for best album at the 2003 Angoulême International Comics Festival in France. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... The Angoulême International Comics Festival is the main comics festival in Europe. ...

Notes and references

1. ^ Pantheon Graphic Novels
2. ^ P.O.V. - Tintin and I . On Cartooning . Chris Ware | PBS
3. ^ UnInked: Paintings, Sculpture and Graphic Work by Five Cartoonists, Retrieved March 5, 2008
4. ^ :: Quimby's ::
5. ^ Ragtime: No Longer A Novelty In Sepia - New York Times
6. ^ http://shop.npr.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10051&storeId=10051&productId=21136&langId=-1

• "The Art of Melancholy". The Guardian, October 31, 2005
• Arnold, Andrew. "The Depressing Joy of Chris Ware." Time, November 27, 2001.
• Wolk, Douglas. "The inimitable Chris Ware". Salon.com, September 2, 2005.
• Wondrich, David. "Ragtime: No Longer a Novelty in Sepia", The New York Times, January 21, 2001.
• Schjeldahl, Peter. "Words and Pictures: Graphic novels come of age". The New Yorker, October 17, 2005.
• Onstad, Chris. "Visual Tribute to Chris Ware". Achewood, January 11, 2008.

This article is about the day. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Guardian. ... is the 304th day of the year (305th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... TIME redirects here. ... is the 331st day of the year (332nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... Salon. ... is the 245th day of the year (246th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 21st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... is the 290th day of the year (291st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 11th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Chris Ware's published works
• The Rag-Time Ephemeralist. Periodical written and published by Ware
• Acme Novelty Archive: Unofficial database of the works of Ware
• NNDB profile
• Acme Novelty Toy Gallery
• Stripped Books: A Comics Panel - comics-form adaptation of a panel featuring Chris Ware, Seth, and moderator Ivan Brunetti
• Interview and evaluation of Ware by designer Chip Kidd
• United States Artist Video