Chris Ware

Yesterday i saw Daniel Raeburn's talk about Chris Ware at the MCA. He focused on the "language of comics" that Chris Ware is trying to advance, that will enable (is enabling) a previously primitive art form, one limited to broad comedy or dumb action, to conjure emotions with the subtlety of great music or film, etc.

So, yeah, i guess that sounds a little pretentious, and i guess a semi-academic lecture like this is bound to. But Ware's work to me is not at all pretentious. Although he's incredibly ambitious with the contortions and extensions that he subjects his medium to, his images and stories are always captivating enough to engage you and amply reward all the effort that you put into examining all the microscopic panels.

He had interesting things to say about the relation of architecture to comics, and a lot of great insight into the presentation of Ware's work. Raeburn also defined comics as neither a solely visual or written medium, but one that necessarily exists between the two. For this reason, the exhibition of Ware's work itself was a bit unusual, displaying for the most part only uncompleted sketches of pages from Jimmy Corrigan, Rusty Brown, and Building Stories. It was great to see these (in particular the images from Jimmy Corrigan showing the Chicago World's Fair,) especially as many of them are rather large and allow a real study of the details in the imagery. The best part, for me, was the commentary provided by Ware and the story notes and mock-ups from the production of Jimmy Corrigan that were on display.

If you're a fan of Ware, it's definitely worth while, and you can check out the Warhol display. Personally, i had a near-religious experience in front of one of the Elvis prints, and these early prints are among the best of his work that i've seen.

Meanwhile, i'm eargerly looking forward to the continuation of Ware's Rusty Brown story. I think that it may end up being the best of his work; i was particularly excited with the story line that follows Rusty's father and the story contained in his science fiction novel. Ware's skill with page layout has gotten almost frightening, and it's particularly overwhelming to look at them all layed out next to each other in one of his collections. Which i guess explains why i keep buying those pricy hardcovers.