Title: Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth
Author: Chris Ware
Context: Jimmy Corrigan is Chris Ware’s grand experiment of treating the comic book as an art object in and of itself and not just a bare vessel for the comics. Since Maus which was around fifteen years back, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth is one of the most acclaimed graphic novel, released in 2000.
Time has been split between a premature man and the title character, in the story. The cheerless and awkward character, Jimmy has a very limited social life and overbearing mother. The youth a lonely and meek thirty six year old, in flashback sees his grandfather during the 19th century, who was first neglected and finally abandoned by his own father.
Synopsis: For the first time in years, after an ill-timed phone call, Jimmy meets his deadbeat father again over Thanksgiving weekend in Waukosha, Michigan, a fictional town. It was only once in adulthood that Chris has met his father, while he was working on the book. His mother is not aware that Jimmy has agreed to meet his father.
Jimmy’s experience is stressful as except his mother, he can communicate hardly with anyone else. Jimmy and his father are not able to do much together and his father comes off as slightly inconsiderate and racist, to Jimmy.
Chris Ware has presented his artwork with utmost precision, his fractal complex panel layouts. The most heartfelt look is given by Chris Ware to the family, in the graphic novel.
Other works by the author:
2003 – Quimby the Mouse
2005 – The Acme Novelty Library
2007 – Acme Novelty Datebook
2010 – Jordan Wellington Lint. Drawn and Quarterly
2012 – Building Stories
2013 – The Acme Novelty Datebook: Sketches and Diary Pages in Facsimile. Drawn and Quarterly
2017 – Monograph
2019 – Rusty Brown, Part I