Building stories. Con Gioco

6/1/12: I just finished this brilliant, brilliant "book" (that comes in a game box, larger than a Monopoly box), with various sizes and colors and shapes of books and magazines and flyers and a children's book and a game board. Why a game box, with a game board? To resuscitate, in part, the idea of

The title Ware chose for this wonderful assemblage of art work and words makes me think about the many ways in which authors tell their tales. It also prompts thoughts on how we size people up. Ware’s creation gives us plenty to say about story-building and profiling. Context, the narrative arc, app Leggi tutto

Beautiful box. Beautiful books and newspapers and foldout strips. An epic of the everyday. The graphic novel response to Ulysses , with all the humour and ebullience removed. Like B.S. Johnson’s book-in-a-box The Unfortunates , each of the separate components can be read in either order, and like that Leggi tutto

[Note: this review looks much better on the site from which it comes . And has more pictures.] [There are an unexpected number of grocery shots in this book.] Back in March 2011, during that year's Tournament of Books , I was introduced to what might be best described as a concept book. Nox is Anne Cars Leggi tutto

Check out that photo above that I stole from Amazon. Isn't it pretty? It's a whole bunch of reading devices that fit into a colorful box. There's a hardbound book, there's a Little Golden Books-style book, a couple newspaper-sized comics, and several doodads and even two or three various whatchamaji Leggi tutto

2020 Update: enough time has passed for me to correct my rating, because for now Ware's big works are really the 5* standard for indie comics, despite the criticisms mentioned below. I think this has to be Chris Ware's magnum opus. Yes, Lint is a better story. Yes, Rusty Brown might be a better colle Leggi tutto

Where do we start? What do we do next? How do we make sense out of all this? With Chris Ware’s Building Stories , as with life, the answer seems to be, “Just keep going. It will all come together, probably.” Building Stories is a challenging, rewarding reading experience. I can’t say book ; I can’t say Leggi tutto