Quimby the Mouse - Softcover

Chris Ware lives in Oak Park, Illinois, and is the author of Jimmy Corrigan - the Smartest Kid on Earth. He is currently serializing two new graphic novels in his ongoing periodical The ACME Novelty Library, the 20th issue of which will be released in fall 2010. He has guest-edited McSweeney's Quarterly Concern and Houghton-Mifflin's Best American Comics, and was the first cartoonist chosen to regularly serialize an ongoing story in The New York Times Magazine. A semi-regular contributor to the New Yorker, his work was included in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, was favored with an exhibit of its own at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in 2006, and will be exhibited at the Gavle Konstcentrum in Gavle, Sweden, in 2010.

This large-format collection of Ware's early work, mostly from 1990 and 1991, repackages material that appeared in Acme Novelty Library as well as other publications, but still feels amazingly fresh. Even in these early strips, Ware displays a virtuoso ability in both rendering and storytelling. The material consists of primarily one or two page strips focusing on Quimby's remarkable bad luck in life and everything else. Quimby resembles a distant cousin of Disney's iconic Mickey Mouse, but instead of being a chipper mascot, he's a tiny, bleak figure travelling across a hostile world. The depressing subject matter is clothed in the peppy antics of primal cartooning, making the strong emotions that much more potent for being so surprising. All of the work is packaged impeccably-Ware's beautiful gold foil stamped cover alone is worth the book's price, while his running joke that the book is, in fact, a discarded library book is funny and touching, underscoring comics' ephemeral quality. Ware also provides a wonderful autobiographical introduction that gives the work context without ever explaining it; he simply adds another layer. Fans of Ware's earlier Jimmy Corrigan will find much to enjoy here; the tragicomic sensibility, beautiful drawing and impeccable packaging that marked that book are all here in full effect.
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