The Virgin Read: Chris Ware, Tough Words, Her Longest Piece To Date, Just Different

Acme Novelty Library # 19
By Chris Ware
Published by Chris Ware

This is my first experience with the work of Chris Ware.  This is old school Virgin Read.

Let me begin my saying how much I love this art.  If you've read this column at all before, you might remember that the only other art I’ve raved about is Michael Avon Oeming's art for Powers.  Something about these two artists--who have nothing in common–is just so smooth, and creamy.  I just want to drink the art off the page. 

Acme Novelty is the truest art of storytelling with pictures I've seen.  There’s text, yes.  But the quietness and loneliness portrayed throughout the pictures in the first few pages is the hook.  I just knew that this was a sad man.  Something was wrong…but what?  And even more engaging was after being led through the quiet sadness of this man’s daily ritual, he walks outside to face the huge silhouette of a rocket ship.  Huh?

So, I kept reading.  I definitely enjoyed it.  I initially didn’t think I’d be able to finish it in time to write my weekly review.  (And, well, I didn’t.  I’m a day late! )   But I’m torn now by my need to please all of you comic folk who know way more about this stuff than me, and my desire to tell you my most visceral reaction to this experience.

Tearing over. Here goes nothing. 

My most visceral reaction is that I kept getting really irritated by the bleakness.  Irritated at the author of this bleakness.  I guess that could be a testament to how "good" the art is.  The story of the dog and the perimeter, followed by the perceived deception and betrayal of his “friends”….it wasn’t just that all that stuff was "well told."  It was the illustration of the dog as she died, or the illustration of our protagonist as he desperately ran through the night to find an extra suit in the pod.  It was all so painful, but in this encompassing way that honestly, I wasn't prepared for, never would have expected, and am not really sure I wanted to go through.

But I hung in anyway, through the irritation, through the bleak portrayal of this sad man and his pain.  I hung in because after such a set-up, and such a conflict, I wanted the pay off of a resolution.  I wanted it to end, to climax, to--not a happy ending.  Just an ending.

BUT THERE ISN’T ONE.

Which is TOTALLY irritating.

There I was learning that this story is just a story inside of a story.  I had to put the book down--and this was days ago--and I couldn’t pick it up again for awhile.  I'll be honest--I felt gypped. And tricked.  I felt used.

I got over it.  Wanted to read more.

So there I was, and there it goes: story within a story number two.  (Which had a flashback in it.)  And again, yes, the pain and desperation and discomfort of our young “hero” (hardly!), was palpable and well depicted.  But things just got worse and worse.  There’d be an upswing and then a downturn again.  Oy.  After a while, this became almost totally repellent.  There’s some humor thrown in, sure--this guy likes to randomly pull his pants down to his ankles and expose himself when he is by himself.  Ha Ha.  I’m not sure I understood this joke, and probably had the same quizzical expression on my face every time I came across this--is it just another part of the storytelling, where the joke stands in stark contrast to other things around it?  It just seemed so "male."  Not in an Alpha-dog, macho kind of way.  It's just all wrapped up in sex and lust and what male people do when male people are by themselves and feeling, um,sorry, lame.  It was like reading the diary of an extremely wimpy younger brother.

You know what came to mind for me?  The Moth’s Story Slam instructions.  Yeah.  Let me explain.  A few years ago I heard about these Story Slams at a café in the West Village in NYC.  I don't know why, but it sounded really interesting.  People get up and tell a story, and the audience votes.  And the whole thing is like a tournament with big winners at the end.  They win the big story slam prize.  I don't know what it is.  They get to be king of stories.

Anyhow, I never attended one, but I thought about it and thought about telling a story there.  Here’s some of the key points from their “how to” page.  (The stuff in italics is there words.)

First:  Start in the action.  Have a great first line that sets up the stakes or grabs attention.

Not This Way: "So I was thinking about climbing this mountain. But then I watched a little TV and made a snack and took a nap and my mom called and vented about her psoriasis then I did a little laundry (a whites load) (I lost another sock, darn it!) and then I thought about it again and decided I'd climb the mountain the next morning."

Yes This Way: "The mountain loomed before me. I had my hunting knife, some trail mix and snow boots. I had to make it to the little cabin and start a fire before sundown or freeze to death for sure."

I think Acme started just as suggested.  Like I already mentioned, in the first few pages it started in the action, set up the stakes – lonely guy with dog, sad – and they seem to be there (wherever "there" is) due to this giant spaceship sitting in the field.

Here's the next Slam tip:

Steer clear of meandering endings.  They kill a story!  Your last line should be clear in your head before you start.

Now, sure, they’re talking about when you’re telling the story.  But I think it goes for any book too!  And this seems to be almost the style Chris Ware kept using.  The stories would trail off with one ending and then start telling another story.  Look, I understood how "they are all connected" and that "it's part of the storytelling," but the meandering definitely had the power to lose me.  And it did lose me.  And sometimes it threw me out of reading it completely.

There are several other Slam tips, but the last two that I want to mention are:

Contestants are judged on ……sticking to the theme and having a story that sticks—one that has a conflict and a resolution.

and

No rants!  Take up this anger issue with your therapist, or skip therapy and shape your anger into a story with some sort of resolution. (Stories = therapy!)

I felt like I was reading a lot about conflict and very little about resolution.  And when there was a resolution it didn't feel like it was any kind of choice--it felt like random happenstance.  This character is a classic victim – at least that’s how it felt, to me, to read.  It was like hanging out with that friend who only knows how to complain.  They want things to be different, but jeez, if things would only go their way for once!  It's exhausting.

Which brings me to the final tip up there, “No Rants.”  There’s no anger issue here, but there is a whiny, wimpy issue.  Enough already.  It's really boring.  I mean, you really are "catching him with his pants down" over and over again.  Now, sure: we all have plenty of these moments in our life, but god, it doesn't really make for great entertainment.  It's therapeutic for the writer, for sure, but not for this reader.  I just felt uncomfortable.

All that being said – this is unlike any other comic I’ve read to date.  I recently wrote about Punisher and how I wish the artist would have taken a little more time with the moments that could really have shown some difficult emotion, any difficult emotion.  That’s something I'm not coming across in comics, and I'm starting to wonder if it just doesn't happen that often.  And here’s an entire work that deals so well with art and emotion in a totally unique way.  I should be standing up in my chair applauding.  One could argue that this is true blue, honest to god, Big Bold Letter Art.

But honestly, you know what it reminded me of?  It reminded me of that actor or actress who is really good at crying.  Crying in a scene is hard to do.  It's not merely making your eyes water.  The impressive part is in witnessing an actor so committed to a role, and so committed to buying fully into the desires and objectives and obstacles of the character that they are playing, that they truly react as if they are that character.  That takes true talent.  But even though it takes skill, and even though it takes talent, going to watch a great actor or actress to a series of unconnected monologues in which the actor/actress cries every single time?  Well, that’s boring.  I don't care how talented the actor is with that skill.  When there’s no distinct conflict and resolution, well, there’s no drama.  And if there’s no drama? 

Then you’ve just got someone crying on stage for a couple of hours.  It's not entertainment.  It's not art.

Now, that comparison right there, that isn't really fair.  Acme Novelty Library isn't extemporaneous public storytelling.  It's an exquisitely drawn piece of work, an emotional comic book by a legendary artist who I know very little about, and the very little I know comes from one other person.  I feel, and I felt, completely over my head in this task of "reviewing" it.  I don't pretend that I've got any expertise in talking about this, in reviewing it.  I've never read a comic like this, I've never spent time with one of this caliber.  I don't even know what to call it--comic book doesn't even feel right, it's nothing like what I've read before for these columns.  I'm glad I read it.  It took a while, and it...hurt.  You understand?  This hurt to read, and it's hard to explain.

I didn't know that they could do them like this.  Okay?  I didn't know.

-Nina Stone, 2008

Comments

[Matthew J. Brady]

Nina, have I mentioned that I love your reviews? This is just excellently written, and I love the way you are able to express your reactions to the various comics you read. You're awesome.

[andre]

awesooooome review, if i were you i would read him again. now you know what to expect. with stuff like that i feel maybe the point is to show you life as it IS rather than how chris ware or anyone else would like it to be. That way you can take your own lessons from the story and everyone gets their fill in their own way right?

[Chris Mautner]

Keep in mind this volume is one chapter in a much larger story and thus some resolution may be forthcoming, though it won't necessarily be pretty. Ware tends to go for the gut.

[Kenny]

Nina, you are the Goddess of Reviews. You are the best on the web, period. This is the best review ever written of Chris Ware's work because you don't even care about hurting his feelings or having some art comic snob come along and go, "Gawd, you're so stupid! You missed the entire point!" You're just like, "Yeah, this shows a lot of talent, but it's boring...and so what if you don't agree?"

Your review makes me want to go home and reread my volume of Acme and look at it in a different way and that's the power of a *great* review.

[Noah B]

I liked the review a lot too. It's especially nice because, though you're a first-time reader, you really hit on just about everything that's ever said about Ware, I think.

[Jason Michelitch]

I've read interviews where Ware talks about being far more interested in achieving specific emotional or psychological effects as opposed to any particular narrative goal. This can certainly result in a more narrative-oriented reader getting bored. Sometimes I'm that reader, sometimes I'm not. But resolution is not really something Ware provides -- his work seems to exist to dip in and out of, like really sad ambient music.

As always, great column.

[Nina]

Hey -- I just wanted to say thank you, to every single one of you. I feel so flattered to have such insightful, supportive people reading my column.
You guys are great.

[frank santoro]

wait, did you just write a review comparing Punisher to Acme? Thats an alchemical tight-rope act of the highest order. haha