The book he is caught in is, in its intricate straight-line grids, both puzzle and cage. Jimmy is approaching middle age, but looks at once like a baby and like an old man. My gut reaction has not changed in 15 years I hope I have a language for it now.ĥ. Jimmy Corrigan, I thought, was a highly intellectualized exercise in self-pity, its ironic sneer at the past masking its wounded longing. But this is hardly Chris Ware’s fault we were simply born in different years and grew up reading different iterations of the Superman character.)Ĥ. The Superman of my youth was a sensitive, vulnerable, and humane citizen, a man of impeccable liberal sentiment in a romance of equals with a professional, feminist woman-he was not a punitive patriarch. (Nor did I share Ware’s generational relation to Superman. But the quality of pastiche-the design and visual storytelling echo early twentieth century comics and commercial art, from Winsor McCay to art deco-put me off, as I myself had no investment in those earlier aesthetics.ģ. Back in 2000, when I was all of 18, I remember being immensely moved by some of those first 100 pages Jimmy’s fantasy of being murdered by Superman, in particular, overwhelmed me. I bought it and began reading it in late 2000 I set it aside after about 100 pages and only took it up again-a library copy I have no idea where mine is-two days ago. I both intellectually acknowledge the brilliance of this book and viscerally dislike it.Ģ. Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Wareġ.
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