Franklin Christenson Ware (b. December 28, 1967), (Chris Ware) is an American
comic bookA comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
artist and
cartoonistA cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
, widely known for his
Acme Novelty LibraryAcme Novelty Library is a comic book series created by Chicago cartoonist Chris Ware. Its first issue appeared in 1993. Published from 1994 by Fantagraphics Books and later self-published, it is considered a significant work in alternative comics, selling over 20,000 copies per issue.-Format, style...
series and the graphic novel
Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on EarthJimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth is a widely acclaimed graphic novel by Chris Ware, published in 2000. The story was previously serialized in the pages of Ware's comic book Acme Novelty Library, between 1995 and 2000 and previous to that, in the alternative Chicago weekly New City.-Plot...
. Born in
OmahaOmaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...
,
NebraskaNebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
, he resides in the
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
area,
IllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
. His works explore themes of social isolation, emotional torment and depression.
Style
Ware's art reflects early 20th-century American styles of cartooning and
graphic designGraphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
, 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 McCayWinsor McCay was an American cartoonist and animator.A prolific artist, McCay's pioneering early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set a standard followed by Walt Disney and others in later decades...
(
Little Nemo in Slumberland) and Frank King (
Gasoline AlleyGasoline Alley is a comic strip created by Frank King and currently distributed by Tribune Media Services. First published November 24, 1918, it is the second longest running comic strip in the US and has received critical accolades for its influential innovations...
); Charles Schulz's post-WWII strip
PeanutsPeanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...
and the cover designs of ragtime-era sheet music. Ware has spoken about finding inspiration in the work of artist
Joseph CornellJoseph Cornell was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage...
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:
I arrived at my way of "working" as a way of visually approximating what I feel the tone of fiction to be in prose versus the tone one might use to write biography; I would never do a biographical story using the deliberately synthetic way of cartooning I use to write fiction. I try to use the rules of typography to govern the way that I "draw", which keeps me at a sensible distance from the story as well as being a visual analog to the way we remember and conceptualize the world. I figured out this way of working by learning from and looking at artists I admired and whom I thought came closest to getting at what seemed to me to be the "essence" of comics, which is fundamentally the weird process of reading pictures, not just looking at them. I see the black outlines of cartoons as visual approximations of the way we remember general ideas, and I try to use naturalistic color underneath them to simultaneously suggest a perceptual experience, which I think is more or less the way we actually experience the world as adults; we don't really "see" anymore after a certain age, we spend our time naming and categorizing and identifying and figuring how everything all fits together. Unfortunately, as a result, I guess sometimes readers get a chilled or antiseptic sensation from it, which is certainly not intentional, and is something I admit as a failure, but is also something I can't completely change at the moment.
Although his precise, geometrical layouts may appear to some to be computer-generated, Ware works almost exclusively with manual drawing tools such as paper and ink, rulers and T-squares. He does, however, sometimes use photocopies and transparencies, and he employs a computer to color his strips.
Career
Ware's earliest published strips appeared in the late 1980s on the comics page of
The Daily TexanThe Daily Texan is the student newspaper of the University of Texas at Austin. It is entirely student-run and independent from the university. It is one of the largest college newspapers in the United States with a daily circulation of roughly 30,000 during the fall and spring semesters and bills...
, the student newspaper of the
University of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
. In addition to numerous daily strips under different titles, Ware also had a weekly satirical
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
serial in the paper titled
Floyd Farland: Citizen of the Future. This was eventually published in 1988 as a
prestige formatPrestige format is a term coined by DC Comics and later came into wider use to refer to a square-bound comic book with cardstock covers. A prestige format comic book is usually longer than a normal, stapled 32-page comic...
comic book from Eclipse Publishing, and its publication even led to a brief correspondence between Ware and
Timothy LearyTimothy Francis Leary was an American psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. During a time when drugs like LSD and psilocybin were legal, Leary conducted experiments at Harvard University under the Harvard Psilocybin Project, resulting in the Concord Prison...
. Now embarrassed by the book, which he considers amateurish and naive, Ware is reportedly purchasing and destroying all remaining copies.
While still a sophomore at UT, Ware came to the attention of
Art SpiegelmanArt Spiegelman is an American comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book memoir, Maus. His works are published with his name in lowercase: art spiegelman.-Biography:Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Polish Jews...
, who invited Ware to contribute to
RAWRAW was a comics anthology edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly and published by Mouly from 1980 to 1991. It was a flagship publication of the 1980s alternative comics movement, serving as a more intellectual counterpoint to Robert Crumb's visceral Weirdo, which followed squarely in the...
, the influential anthology magazine Spiegelman was co-editing with
Françoise MoulyFrançoise Mouly is a Paris-born French artist and designer best known for her work with RAW, a showcase publication for cutting edge comic art, and as art editor of The New Yorker, a position she has held since 1993...
. Ware has acknowledged that being included in the prestigious 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 weekly paper
NewcityNewcity is an independent, free weekly newspaper in Chicago that specializes in music, stage, film and art and is notable for launching the careers of numerous cartoonists and writers and art critics. The publication was described by the Chicago Tribune as "sophisticated" and as an "alternative...
. Ware's work appeared originally in
Newcity before he moved on to his current "home", the
Chicago Reader. Beginning with the 16th issue of the Acme Novelty Library, Ware is
self-publishingSelf-publishing is the publication of any book or other media by the author of the work, without the involvement of an established third-party publisher. The author is responsible and in control of entire process including design , formats, price, distribution, marketing & PR...
his work, while maintaining a relationship with Fantagraphics for distribution and storage. This is an interesting return to Ware's early career, when he self-published such books as
Lonely Comics and Stories as well as miniature
digestsDigest size is a magazine size, smaller than a conventional or "journal size" magazine but larger than a standard paperback book, approximately 5½ x 8¼ inches, but can also be 5⅜ x 8⅜ inches and 5½ x 7½ inches. These sizes have evolved from the printing press operation end...
of stories based on
Quimby the MouseQuimby the Mouse was created by Chris Ware while he attended the University of Texas at Austin from 1990-1991 The strip originally appeared in the student paper, The Daily Texan....
and an unnamed potato-like creature.
In recent years he has also been involved in editing (and designing) several books and book series, including the new reprint series of
Gasoline AlleyGasoline Alley is a comic strip created by Frank King and currently distributed by Tribune Media Services. First published November 24, 1918, it is the second longest running comic strip in the US and has received critical accolades for its influential innovations...
from
Drawn and QuarterlyDrawn and Quarterly is a Canadian comic book publishing company, headed by Chris Oliveros, and based in Montreal, Quebec. Its focus is on graphic novels and underground or alternative comics. Drawn and Quarterly was also the title of the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s...
;
Walt and Skeezix, the on-going reprint of
Krazy KatKrazy Kat is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George Herriman, published daily in newspapers between 1913 and 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run...
by Fantagraphics; and the 13th volume of
Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly ConcernTimothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern is a literary journal, first published in 1998, edited by Dave Eggers. The first issue featured only works rejected by other magazines, but thereafter the journal began to include pieces written with McSweeney's in mind. McSweeney’s has since published works by...
, 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 for the
Phoenix Art MuseumThe Phoenix Art Museum is the Southwest United States' largest art museum for visual art. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western...
focused on the non-comic work of five contemporary cartoonists. The exhibition, titled "UnInked: Paintings, Sculpture and Graphic Works by Five Cartoonists," ran from April 21 through August 19. Ware also edited and designed the catalog for the exhibition.
Quimby the Mouse
Quimby the MouseQuimby the Mouse was created by Chris Ware while he attended the University of Texas at Austin from 1990-1991 The strip originally appeared in the student paper, The Daily Texan....
was an early character for Ware and something of a breakthrough. Rendered in the style of an early animation character like
Felix the CatFelix the Cat is a cartoon character created in the silent film era. His black body, white eyes, and giant grin, coupled with the surrealism of the situations in which his cartoons place him, combine to make Felix one of the most recognized cartoon characters in film history...
, Quimby the Mouse is perhaps Ware's most autobiographical character. Quimby's relationship with a cat head named Sparky is by turns conflict-ridden and loving, and thus intended to reflect all human relationships. While Quimby exhibits mobility, Sparky remains immobile and helpless, subject to all the indignities Quimby visits upon him. Quimby also acts as a narrator for Ware's reminiscences of his youth, in particular his relationship with his grandmother. Quimby was presented in a series of smaller panels than most comics, almost providing the illusion of motion à la a
zoetropeA zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures. The term zoetrope is from the Greek words "ζωή – zoe", "life" and τρόπος – tropos, "turn". It may be taken to mean "wheel of life"....
. In fact, Ware once designed a zoetrope to be cut out and constructed by the reader in order to watch a Quimby "
silent movieSilent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976...
". Ware's ingenuity is neatly shown in this willingness to break from the confines of the page. Quimby the Mouse appears in the logo of a Chicago-based bookstore "
Quimby's", although their shared name was originally a coincidence.
Rusty Brown
Ware's
Rusty BrownRusty Brown is a continuing series of comics and comic strips by Chicago cartoonist Chris Ware, named after its protagonist. In the strip, Brown is shown as a young Nebraskan boy and as a man approaching middle age, who has a lifelong obsession with the collection of action figures and similar pop...
is ostensibly about an action-figure-collecting manchild and his somewhat-troubled childhood, but which, in Ware's fashion, diverges into multiple storylines about Brown's father's early life in the 1950s as a
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer (
Acme Novelty Library #19) and his best friend Chalky White's adult home life.
Building Stories
Ware's
Building Stories first appeared as a monthly strip in
Nest Magazine. Installments later appeared in a number of publications, including
The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
,
Kramer's Ergot, and most notably, the Sunday
New York Times Magazine.
Building Stories appeared weekly in the
New York Times Magazine from September 18, 2005 until April 16, 2006. A full chapter was published in
Acme Novelty Library, number 18.
The Super-Man
The Super-Man is an antihero who wears a similar caped costume to
SupermanSuperman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
but also has a domino mask and receding hairline. Ware has said in interviews that he imagines that if the fictional superhero Superman were real, he would be much like Ware's Super-Man.
The Super-Man originally appeared as
GodGod is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
in Ware's early work, wreaking vengeance on people who annoyed him. The Super-Man later turned up in Ware's
Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on EarthJimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth is a widely acclaimed graphic novel by Chris Ware, published in 2000. The story was previously serialized in the pages of Ware's comic book Acme Novelty Library, between 1995 and 2000 and previous to that, in the alternative Chicago weekly New City.-Plot...
. In one scene, Jimmy sees the Super-Man standing on the cornice of a
skyscraperA skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
. Seeing Jimmy, he waves, to Jimmy's delight. The Super-Man then crouches as if to take off flying but instead falls to his death.
In a series of
stripsA comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
appearing in the
Chicago Reader, the Super-Man is seen walking about naked, eating a live deer, stealing money, killing people who annoy him, gambling, and kidnapping a young girl and living with her in the wild until she grows up, whereupon he impregnates her, grows bored with her and the child, then flies off. He then spends the next several million years in one spot, pondering it all even as the Earth falls away about him. His last thought remains of the girl and his child.
These strips have been compiled and published in 2005 as part of a book,
The Acme Novelty Library Final Report to Shareholders and Saturday Afternoon Rainy Day Fun Book. However, they are not listed in the table of contents.
Non-comics work
Ware is an ardent collector of
ragtimeRagtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
paraphernalia and occasionally publishes a journal devoted to the music titled
The Ragtime EphemeralistThe Ragtime Ephemeralist is an infrequently-published magazine about ragtime music put together by cartoonist and ragtime aficionado Chris Ware.-External links:...
. He also plays the
banjoIn the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
and
pianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
. The influence of the music and the graphics of its era can be seen in Ware's work, especially in regard to logos and layout. Ware has designed album covers and posters for such ragtime performers as the Et Cetera String Band, Virginia Tichenor, Reginald R. Robinson, the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra and Guido Nielsen.
He has also designed covers and posters for non-ragtime performers such as
Andrew Bird's Bowl of FireAndrew Bird is an American musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist.- Early life and the Bowl of Fire :...
and 5ive Style.
http://www.acmenoveltyarchive.org/category.php?cat=3 In October 2005 Ware designed the elaborate cover art for
Penguin BooksPenguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
' new edition of
VoltaireFrançois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
's
CandideCandide, ou l'Optimisme is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best ; Candide: or, The Optimist ; and Candide: or, Optimism...
.
In 2003-04, Ware worked with
Ira GlassIra Glass is an American public radio personality, and host and producer of the radio and television show This American Life.- Early life :...
of
This American LifeThis American Life is a weekly hour-long radio program produced by WBEZ and hosted by Ira Glass. It is distributed by Public Radio International on PRI affiliate stations and is also available as a free weekly podcast. Primarily a journalistic non-fiction program, it has also featured essays,...
and Chicago historian Tim Samuelson to illustrate and design
Lost Buildings about Samuelson and the preservation of Chicago's old buildings, particularly
Louis SullivanLouis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...
's buildings. Originally produced for a live "Lost in America" stage show in 2003,
Lost Buildings was later published as a book and DVD. In 2007-08, he produced animations for the
This American Life television series on Showtime and also contributed to the show as a color consultant. Ware created poster art for
Tamara JenkinsTamara Jenkins is an American screenwriter, actress and director. She is best known for her two feature films, Slums of Beverly Hills and The Savages .-Early life:...
' film
The SavagesThe Savages is a 2007 American comedy-drama film, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.-Plot:...
(2007).
Mural for 826 Valencia
Dave EggersDave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is known for the best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and for his more recent work as a screenwriter. He is also the co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia.-Life:Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts,...
commissioned Ware to design the mural for the facade of San Francisco literacy project
826 Valencia826 Valencia is a non-profit organisation dedicated to helping children and young adults develop writing skills and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.-Overview:...
. The mural depicts "the parallel development of humans and their efforts at and motivations for communication, spoken and written." The 3.9m x 6m mural was applied by artisans to Ware’s specifications. Describing the work, Ware said "I didn’t want it to make anyone 'feel good', especially in that typically muralistic 'hands across the water' sort of way,"..."I especially wanted it to be something that people living in the neighbourhood could look at day after day and hopefully not tire of too quickly. I really hoped whomever might happen to come across it would find something that showed a respect for their intelligence, and didn’t force-feed them any 'message'."
Fortune 500 cover
In 2010, Ware designed the cover for
Fortune magazine's "Fortune 500" issue, but it was rejected. Ware had mentioned the work at a panel at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo on April 16, as first noted in an April 20 blog post by Matthew J. Brady. The cover, featuring the circle-shaped humans common in Ware's more broadly socially satirical comic-strips, turned the numbers 500 into skyscrapers looming over the continental United States. On the roofs, corporate bosses drink, dance, and sun themselves as a helicopter drops a shovelful of money down for them. Below, among signs reading "Credit Default Swap Flea Market," "Greenspan Lube Pro," and "401K Cemetery," a helicopter scoops money out of the US Treasury with a shovel, cars pile up in Detroit, and flag-waving citizens party around a boiling tea kettle in the shape of an elephant. In the Gulf of Mexico, homes are sinking, while hooded prisoners sit in Guantanamo, a "Factory of Exploitation" keeps going in Mexico, China is tossing American dollars into the Pacific, and the roof of bankrupted Greece's Treasury has blown off. A spokesperson for the magazine only said that, as is their practice, they had commissioned a number of possible covers from different artists, including Ware. Brady wrote in his blog that Ware said at the panel he "accepted the job because it would be like doing the [cover for the] 1929 issue of the magazine".
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
In 2011, Ware created the poster for the U.S. release of the 2010
Palme d'OrThe Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
winning film
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past LivesUncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is a 2010 Thai film directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. It won the Palme d'Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:The film centers on the last days in the life of its title character...
by Thai director
Apichatpong WeerasethakulApichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul is a Thai independent film director, screenwriter, and film producer. His feature films include Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, winner of the prestigious 2010 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or prize; Tropical Malady, which won a jury prize at the 2004...
. Describing the poster, Ware said "I wanted to get at both the transcendent solemnity of the film while keeping some sense of its loose, very unpretentious accessibility... This being a poster, however—and even worse, me not really being a designer—I realized it also had to be somewhat punchy and strange, so as to draw viewers in and pique their curiosity without, hopefully, insulting their intelligence."
Awards and honors
Over the years his work garnered several awards, including the 1999
National Cartoonists SocietyThe National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...
's Award for Best Comic Book for
Acme Novelty LibraryAcme Novelty Library is a comic book series created by Chicago cartoonist Chris Ware. Its first issue appeared in 1993. Published from 1994 by Fantagraphics Books and later self-published, it is considered a significant work in alternative comics, selling over 20,000 copies per issue.-Format, style...
.
In addition,
Acme Novelty Library won the 1996 and 2000
Eisner AwardThe Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, and sometimes referred to as the Oscar Awards of the Comics Industry, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books. The Eisner Awards were first conferred in 1988, created in response to the...
s for Best Continuing Series, as well as the 2000 Eisner for Best New Graphic Album.
Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth won the 2001 Eisner for Best Reprint Graphic Album. In 2008, Ware won the Best Writer/Artist: Drama Eisner for
Acme Novelty Library 18. Ware has won the Best Colorist Eisner four times, in 1996, 1998, 2001, and 2006. His publication design has been awarded the Eisner six times, in 1995–1997, 2001–2002, and 2006.
Ware has won the
Harvey AwardThe Harvey Awards, named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman and founded by Gary Groth, President of the publisher Fantagraphics, are given for achievement in comic books. The Harveys were created as part of a successor to the Kirby Awards which were discontinued after 1987.The Harvey Awards are...
for Best Letterer four times, in 1996, 2000, 2002, and 2006. He has won the Best Colorist Harvey Award in 1996–1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004. He also won the Best Cover Artist Harvey Award in 2000. Ware won the Harvey Award for Excellence in Production/Presentation five consecutive years, from 1995–2000. In addition,
Acme Novelty Library won the Best Continuing Series Harvey Award in 1995, and the Best Continuing or Limited Series in 1995–1996. Acme Novelty Library also won the Best Single Issue or Story Harvey Award in 1997 and 2000. The Jimmy Corrigan book won the 2001 Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work. In 2006, Ware was awarded the Harvey for Best Cartoonist.
In 2002, Ware became the first comics artist to be invited to exhibit at
Whitney Museum of American ArtThe Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
biennial exhibition. With
Will EisnerWilliam Erwin "Will" Eisner was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an...
,
Jack KirbyJack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
,
Harvey KurtzmanHarvey Kurtzman was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic books and magazines. Kurtzman often signed his name H. Kurtz, followed by a stick figure Harvey Kurtzman (October 3, 1924, Brooklyn, New York – February 21, 1993) was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic...
,
Robert CrumbRobert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
and
Gary PanterGary Panter is an illustrator, painter, designer and part-time musician. Panter's work is representative of the post-underground, new wave comics movement that began with the end of Arcade: The Comics Revue and the initiation of RAW, one of the second generation in American underground comix...
, Ware was among the artists honored in the exhibition "Masters of American Comics" at the
Jewish MuseumJewish Museum may refer to:Australia* Jewish Museum of Australia, Melbourne, VictoriaAustria* Jewish Museum ViennaCzech Republic* Jewish Museum of PragueDenmark* Danish Jewish Museum, CopenhagenGeorgia...
in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
,
New YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, from September 16, 2006 to January 28, 2007. His work was the subject of solo exhibitions at the
Museum of Contemporary Art, ChicagoThe Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues...
in 2006 and at the University of Nebraska's Sheldon Museum of Art, in 2007.
Ware's
graphic novelA graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on EarthJimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth is a widely acclaimed graphic novel by Chris Ware, published in 2000. The story was previously serialized in the pages of Ware's comic book Acme Novelty Library, between 1995 and 2000 and previous to that, in the alternative Chicago weekly New City.-Plot...
won the 2001
Guardian First Book AwardGuardian First Book Award, issued before 1999 as Guardian Fiction Prize or Guardian Fiction Award, is awarded to new writing in fiction and non-fiction.-History:...
, the first time a graphic novel has won a major United Kingdom book award. It also won the prize for best album at the 2003
Angoulême International Comics FestivalThe Angoulême International Comics Festival is the largest comics festival in Europe. It has occurred every year since 1974 in Angoulême, France, in the month of January.The four-day festival is notable for awarding several prestigious prizes in cartooning...
in France.
In 2006, Ware received a USA Hoi Fellow grant from
United States ArtistsUnited States Artists is an independent nonprofit and nongovernmental philanthropic organization based in Los Angeles, California and dedicated to supporting the work of living American artists by the granting of cash awards, called USA Fellowships...
.
Sources
- "The Art of Melancholy". The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, October 31, 2005
- Arnold, Andrew. "The Depressing Joy of Chris Ware." Time
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, November 27, 2001.
- Onstad, Chris. "Visual Tribute to Chris Ware". Achewood, January 11, 2008.
- Peters, Tim. "Chris Ware's ANL #20". The Point, Spring 2011.
- Schjeldahl, Peter. "Words and Pictures: Graphic novels come of age". The New Yorker, October 17, 2005.
- Wolk, Douglas. "The inimitable Chris Ware". Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
, September 2, 2005.
- Wondrich, David. "Ragtime: No Longer a Novelty in Sepia", The New York Times, January 21, 2001.
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