Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth

For having such a simplistic style, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth may be the most complex graphic narrative I've ever read. I've actually owned the graphic novel for quite a while and just hadn't gotten around to reading it. I actually have been using it as my mouse pad as the cover makes quite an attractive pad and it the perfect size. After finally starting to read it I'm quite ashamed that I've let such a masterpiece literally sit under my hand for so long without reading it. Looking at the thickness of it initially I thought I definitely would be able to knock out the whole book in one sitting. I'm still not done reading it. The drawing style of Chris Ware is deceivingly simplistic, but Jimmy Corrigan is so chockful of complex content it creates a maze-like experience. Ware even has the reader turning the actual book as they read and reading pages of lilliputian writing that actually matters to the character development. Featuring multiple story lines spanning generations, dream sequences, internal daydreams, phone calls, and even instruction booklets it is extremely easy to get lost in this narrative if you do not read it very slowly and closely. Even then I still got lost, but thankfully this was anticipated by Ware and he gave a lovely little intermission synopsis to clear up all the things that had been happening. While I'm glad for that little clearing up part, I'm not upset about the getting lost part. In fact it's pretty clearly intentional, especially since he put in a part later to help the reader make sense of it. The way Ware writes and how all of these separate elements kind of flow together is very existentialist in a way. He's really pointing out that all of these things all of these stories are the same story and it's all part of the same thing. Jimmy's grandfather's experiences could have very well been his own experiences and Jimmy's father is currently experience a similar re connection with his father. Everything is so connected to a point that they are really all the same. They aren't really different story lines and time doesn't matter, they are all part of one thing.

Out of all the tragic happenings in this the superman suicide was the most intriguing to me. Not only is Jimmy having to deal with his mother and his father just now reaching out to him, he also has the burden of a suicide being partially blamed on him. It's very odd the way the almost treasures it, like he had some kind of influence on something and it's proof that he matters. Also it cements the way that everyone just kind of want him to bend to what they want and what they want him to be concerned about, even strangers. Jimmy never really does anything because he wants to do it. He is even forced to feel like he is to blame for a suicide because he didn't pay attention to someone else's needs enough. Though he is clearly very distraught by this, and when his father washes his pants without asking that has note in it and it's all torn up it shows even further that the people around him are not really concerned about what he wants. I have yet to finish the book yet, so I don't know how the superman thing resolves, but just wanting to find out about that and how it affects Jimmy makes me want to keep reading.