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CHRIS WARE • Acme Novelty Library iconic page featuring Jimmy Corrigan * NOT AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE *
Price: $10,000.00
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CHRIS WARE • Acme Novelty Library iconic
page featuring Jimmy Corrigan and father images
Chris Ware is a celebrated and award-winning artist
(including both Eisner and Harvey awards). Ware began his
cartooning career while a student at the University of
Texas, having strips such as Quimby the Mouse published by
the Daily Texan. The Chicago-based artist been published
in RAW, the New Yorker, the Sunday New York Times
Magazine, Blab!, and in his own series, Acme Novelty
Library. His graphic novel, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest
Kid on Earth was called “one of the 10 best English
language graphic novels ever written” by Time magazine.
The top half of this iconic original page shows a variety
of blacked-out faces, all purporting to be Jimmy
Corrigan’s long-lost father as a reflective and
sad-looking Corrigan in the bottom half waits forlornly in
an airport waiting room holding a basket of fruit. This is
a beautifully crafted early page, which reflects the
strained relationship at the core of Ware’s epic story
(see additional text below Provenance). Classic pages by
Ware rarely come to market, and this is a special one.
Medium/Size/Condition: Blue pencil, brush,
pen, and ink on heavy Crescent illustration board
measuring 15 x 23¾ inches.
Price: $10,000
Provenance: From the collection of James
Kitchen.
Mention of this page from key sequence in critical texts:
“Jimmy Corrigan, the main protagonist Jimmy is portrayed
as a lonely middle-aged man who does not have much going
for him in his life. From the start of the novel it is
prevalent that his father’s presence was absent during
Jimmy’s childhood. Based on the dreams Jimmy has over the
course of the novel, it can be seen the struggles he faces
with coming to terms with his relationship with his
father. Jimmy expresses his anxiety in meeting and getting
to know his father. It appears that either he has never
known his father or time has made him forget. Because of
that, his mind started to create multiple case scenarios
on how he thought his father would actually be like. While
he was waiting at the airport for his father to pick him
up, we are shown various depictions of men with their eyes
censored. The fact that each of these figures call out a
different greeting to Jimmy demonstrates the ambiguity he
feels towards his father. The truth is he does not know
anything about his father- physical features, personality,
and his feelings for his son.” ---From Words & Images
“Since Jimmy’s idealized fantasy father–figure fails him,
he is left with the sixty–something–year–old man who
contacts him unexpectedly to spend Thanksgiving with him.
He is at quite a loss since he has not heard from this man
in over two decades. James William Corrigan, it turns
out––and not surprisingly––is not the most sensitive guy
around. When his estranged son flies into the airport to
meet this man for the first time in his memory, his father
has lost track of the time and is in a bar watching a
boxing match. Then, the first words out of his mouth are
criticism about the way that he is using his crutch.
Following, in the next several scenes we see him treat
people thoughtlessly, and repeatedly make racist comments.
However, one redeeming quality is that James has reached
out to his son, Jimmy, in an attempt to somehow make
reparation for the time that they have been apart.”
---Quote from “Sins of the Fathers: Oedipal
Characteristics in Jimmy Corrigan” by D. J. Dycus
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