克里斯·韦尔

Franklin Christenson Ware (born December 28, 1967) is an American cartoonist known for his Acme Novelty Library series (begun in 1994) and the graphic novels Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (2000), Building Stories (2012) and Rusty Brown (2019). His works explore themes of social isolation, emotional torment and depression. He tends to use a vivid color palette and realistic, meticulous detail. His lettering and images are often elaborate and sometimes evoke the ragtime era or another early 20th-century American design style.

Ware often refers to himself in the publicity for his work in self-effacing, even withering tones. He is considered by some critics and fellow notable illustrators and writers, such as Dave Eggers, to be among the best currently working in the medium; Canadian graphic-novelist Seth has said: "Chris really changed the playing field. After him, a lot of [cartoonists] really started to scramble and go, 'Holy [expletive], I think I have to try harder.'"

Early life and education

Chris Ware was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1967. His parents separated shortly after his birth, and he was raised by his mother, who worked at the Omaha World-Herald. Because of her work schedule, Ware spent significant time with his grandparents and became especially close to his grandmother, whose storytelling he has cited as an important early influence.

Ware has cited American newspaper comic strips as a source of inspiration, particularly early cartoonists such as Winsor McCay and George Herriman, as well as later figures including Frank King and Charles M. Schulz.

Ware attended the University of Texas at Austin, studying painting and printmaking, and earned his BFA in 1991. Shortly after graduation, he moved to Chicago to attend a graduate program in printmaking at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1991–1993), which he did not complete.

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 Comics, and its publication even led to a brief correspondence between Ware and Timothy Leary.

While still a sophomore at UT, Ware came to the attention of Art Spiegelman, who invited Ware to contribute to Raw, the influential anthology magazine Spiegelman was co-editing with Françoise Mouly. Ware has acknowledged that being included in Raw gave him confidence and inspired him to explore printing techniques and self-publishing. 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 alternative weekly Newcity. Ware's work appeared originally in Newcity before he moved on to the Chicago Reader. Beginning with the 16th issue of Acme Novelty Library," Ware began self-publishing his work while maintaining a relationship with Fantagraphics for distribution and storage. This was a return to Ware's early career, self-publishing 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.

Ware's first graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, published by Pantheon Books in 2000, originated as a weekly strip for Newcity beginning in May 1992, with Ware producing one full tabloid-size page per week and developing the story largely improvisationally, before the material was later serialized in Acme Novelty Library and ultimately revised and collected into the 2000 hardcover edition.

Ware has also been involved in editing (and designing) several books and book series, including the new reprint series of Gasoline Alley from Drawn & Quarterly, titled Walt and Skeezix; a reprint series of Krazy Kat by Fantagraphics; and the 13th volume of Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, which is devoted to comics. He was the editor of The Best American Comics 2007, the second installment devoted to comics in the Best American series.

In 2007, Ware curated an exhibition, titled UnInked: Paintings, Sculpture and Graphic Works by Five Cartoonists, for the Phoenix Art Museum focused on the non-comic work of five contemporary cartoonists. Ware also edited and designed the catalog for the exhibition.

In 2017, Ware's book Monograph was published. It is a part-memoir, part-scrapbook retrospective of his career to that point. The New York Review of Books described it as "a grand tomb in the Egyptian mold, whose contents will tell anyone who breaks into it what this person’s life was like", adding that "it seems almost an invasion of privacy to enter this crypt."

Style

Ware's art reflects early 20th-century American styles of cartooning and graphic design, shifting through formats from traditional comic panels to faux advertisements and cut-out toys. Stylistic influences include advertising graphics from that same era; newspaper strip cartoonists Winsor McCay (Little Nemo in Slumberland) and Frank King (Gasoline Alley); Charles Schulz's post-WWII strip Peanuts and the cover designs of ragtime-era sheet music. Ware has spoken about finding inspiration in the work of artist Joseph Cornell and cites Richard McGuire's strip Here as a major influence on his use of non-linear narratives. Ware has said of his own style: