| Title | : | McSweeneys #13 |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0241142695 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780241142691 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 368 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2004 |
McSweeneys #13 Reviews
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I would like to congratulate Dave Eggers for letting Chris Ware ruin what could have been one of the most memorable issues of McSweeney’s ever. Ware hates humanity and likes to force the reader to hate it too by making his texts completely inaccessible both emotionally and (sometimes) visually. The essays interspersed between the comics might be insightful, poignant, or (typical of Ware) absurdly humorous but printing them in four point font sort of spoils the entire deal. I get the joke but the joke is over.
Those are my grumps. My grumps! my grumps! My gnarly manly grumps! There is some wizened wisdom to Ware’s overall structure of the book. Case in point: closing the volume with contrasting biographic sketches; 1) David Heatley’s loving, complex, vulnerable father (the kind of person me on a good day wishes there was more of in the world) and 2) the pitifully self-loathing masochist Soren Kierkegaard - whose true life biography mirrors the shame factory efficiency of one of Ware’s fictional characters. (Is it necessary I indicate a biography as “true life?”) [Was it as necessary to do that in the past as it is now?]
It would appear too that most American underground comics creators are as neurotic and self-obsessed as Ware. There are a handful though that have the bravery, talent, and vision to deal with issues bigger than themselves even when working in an autobiographical mode; namely, Joe Sacco (war), Debbie Drechsler (abortion), and Chester Brown (minority rights). -
One of the best comics collections ever, a must for serious comics scholars and fans. Eloquently edited and put together, a treat in every way. I've owned it since it came out in 2004 from Egger's outfit, but I thought if anyone is reading about comics that I know, they should know about this, and it is typically immaculate for that press, but even better because The Champ Ware puts it together.
Included are essays by Ira Glass, Chris Ware, John Updike, and others. You get a sense of history because there are pieces on Rodolphe Topffer, George Herriman, and Charles Schulz.
Faves: Charles Burns, Seth, Joe Matt, Art Spiegelman, Joe Sacco, Adrian Tomine, R. Crumb, Dan Clowes, Lynda Barry, Julie Doucet, and Chester Brown. You can't possible read the selections and dismiss comics. You have to see this work as serious art. (Okay, sometimes silly, but you know . . .).
At the very least check it out of the library to see whose work you want to read more deeply. -
Edited by Chris Ware, McSweeney's 13 is a beautifully produced hardback with a design your own wraparound cover by Chris Ware and 2 bonus mini-comics.
Inside are comics essays by Ira Glass, Chris Ware, John Updike, Glen David Gold, Malachi B. Cohen, and Chip Kidd. There are also appreciations of the work of Rodolphe Topffer (a 19th century cartoonist and arguably America's first comics artist), George Herriman, and Charles Schulz.
And onto the comics themselves! Most of the samples are of larger works by their authors which, if you're familiar with indie comics then you'll have already heard of/read them already: "Black Hole" by Charles Burns, "Clyde Fans" by Seth, "Spent" by Joe Matt, "Underworld" by Kaz, "In the Shadow of No Towers" by Art Spiegelman, "The Fixer" by Joe Sacco, "Shortcomings" by Adrian Tomine, and "Louis Riel" by Chester Brown.
There are also contributions from R. Crumb, Dan Clowes, Mark Newgarden, Jim Woodring, Archer Prewitt, Lynda Barry, Chris Ware, Mark Beyer, Richard Sala, Kim Deitch, Ben Katchor, Richard McGuire, Jeffrey Brown, Julie Doucet, Debbie Dreschler, David Heatley, Gilbert Hernandez, and Ivan Brunetti.
There's no better place to start if you're new and interested in comics. For those who are more familiar with a few of the names above, you'll find samples by all the artists and might discover some new ones for yourself. I discovered the work of the excellent Richard Sala and Kim Deitch through this issue. The samples of other artists also allowed me to get an idea of what their work was like and I ended up reading/buying most of the artists' books off the back of this issue!
An excellent volume from McSweeney's, one of their best in fact, and a totally engrossing read. Highly recommended. -
I recently wrote a short thing about Dave Eggers and then realized that I hadn't rated or reviewed the many issues of McSweeney's I've read. The early issues were especially influential and inspiring to me. This comics one is aces.
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An anthology that starts out great and finishes lukewarm. I think I may lack context regarding when this was published, but surely there were more than three talented female cartoonists that could be included here. I also believe that Lynda Berry was the only cartoonist of color included. No anthology will be perfect in this regard, but I am happy that the explosion of comics creators in the years since this was published will change the demographics of future anthologies meant to invite new readers to this wonderful medium.
I found the selections here nearly identical to the other anthologies edited by Ware or Ivan Brunetti (and all other mainstream "alternative" comics anthologies, to be honest), including Ware's Best American entry and The Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories. I understand that Adrian Tomine is talented, but I swear if I see another excerpt from Shortcomings in an Anthology I'm going to scream. Some of the more creative writers had very short entries while others had very long excerpts that were less interesting.
The most valuable parts of this collection were, for me, the sections of drafts from Charles Schulz and George Herriman. It discusses their creative processes and the development of their work over time. They are very valuable sections and pieces that I'm happy to own now. Some of the essays were interesting, like Ware's discussion of painter Philip Guston. However, many were less interesting anecdotes about reading super hero books as children. The attitude taken by Ware here in his approach to the book was very self-effacing, as he tends to be, and recently I've started to reject that attitude of comic artists as something more detrimental to the form than endearing. He is a genius, undoubtedly, and he could stand to be more proud of what he's done for the medium and it's place in the world of literature today.
Again, my expectations are based on what I want out of these books in 2018, but I am now committed to them and can't overlook these flaws any longer.
Second thought: I don't feel like rewriting this so I'll just admit that I should cut it some slack for being the first of its kind, just noting that it has not aged as well as it could have. -
This is, perhaps, the book that I wanted Arie Kaplan's recently-read
Masters of the Comic Book Universe Revealed! to be... a chunky anthology of graphic art pieces and essays about graphic arts, put together by
Chris Ware for McSweeney's and full to bursting with examples both historical and contemporary... with nary a superhero in tights to be seen.
Some of my own favorites are here, such as
Ben Katchor,
Robert Crumb and Chris Ware himself, as well as some surprising entries—who knew that
John Updike had started out as a cartoonist? There's also some interest in Ware's essays about Charles Schulz' methods and about the "inventor of comics," Rodolphe Töpffer.
My only real complaint about this book is that the reproductions are tiny, and therefore sometimes hard for my aging eyes to read... something to be aware of if you're in similar straits. Other than that, though... pick it up! -
I feel like this was a really brilliant idea that got tarnished by worries about 'attitude', but still came out rather decently.
Some of the stories grabbed my interest, others were (perhaps purposefully) bland. The articles were much the same way.
Unfortunately, I developed an insidious hatred for the dust jacket. I acknowledge that the design is clever and still plan to read Chris Ware's graphic novel "Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth," but it was a bad start. I did like his excerpt inside, though.
Favorites:
Ira Glass's preface
the article on Rodolphe Töpffer
Mark Newgarden's "The Little Nun"
feature on Charles Schulz (I've got a soft spot for "Peanuts")
Charles Burns's "Black Hole"
Glen David Gold's story "...nothing less than a bursting shell could penetrate his skin!"
Richard Sala's "Strange Question"
Ben Katchor's "Hotel & Farm"
Richard Mcguire's work
Jamie and Gilbert Hernandez's juxtaposing comics -
If you're snobbish about the comic book medium, then this might just change your mind; it's certainly given me an invaluable primer. Even if it does curiously ignore the superhero genre, the exquisite design and layout and the sheer quality of the work contained within should immunise it against most criticism.
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Very glad to have found this! Wonderfully published book (as only Chris Ware can, you can just feel his love for books). The dust jacket is a fold-out Chris Ware comic, and it's got some small comic books with it. Interesting collection of American comics creators and artists inside along with passionately written articles on comics history and artists. To read and enjoy again and again...
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The best and worst of comics -- mostly incredibly storytelling with a mix of whiny alternative cartoonists.
PS -- Chris Ware must love the fine print at the bottom of contracts. -
Man this collection was cool as hell.
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A lot about this book bugs me, despite its merits. First off, Ware's whingeing about comics not being taken seriously enough as art is old, even if this book did come out nearly twenty years ago. Second, as is always the case with Ware books, there are readability issues, either because all the type in the book is tiny, or because some of the strips are printed smaller than their intended size so the lettering is reduced, or, in the case of Ware's own contributions, because he has a fetish for tiny, unreadable lettering. That the dust jacket is a complexly-folded sheet the size of a newspaper page that has to be unfolded to read (and it has content on both sides--the reverse has tiny-font biographies of all the contributors) also doesn't help. The pain in the ass factor doesn't really compensate for the innovation. Third, I am not sure how much (if any) of what is included here in terms of contemporary cartooning was actually commissioned for this book, but a LOT of what appears here is excerpted from other works. I was fine with that in some cases, as I haven't read the larger works and generally the excerpts work fine as individual pieces, but it still irks me. I don't like reading excerpts, generally. I am especially glad I have read Seth's Clyde Fans because the excerpt from that (admittedly labelled as a "perplexing" excerpt) would be pretty hard to make sense of for anyone who hadn't read the rest of the book. There was certainly stuff in here that I liked--I think this is the first time I've read stuff by Ben Katchor that really grabbed me, for instance, and the mini-comics that were included as inserts into the insanely-folded cover were pretty cool, and there are other good sequences--but there's also a lot of the sort of self-involved navel-gazing, or aggressively anti-comics cartooning, that really bugs me. The school of cartoonists who thing badly-rendered art gives their work, I don't know, authenticity or whatever, do not appeal to me. For instance, there's a swatch of Jeffrey Brown's craft-free scribbling, and a bunch of ugly Mark Beyer anti-comics (complete with anti-punchlines), in one of which he moans about being picked on for his shitty comics. Boo hoo hoo. There are also some nice things in here, but it really is a mixed bag and rather a disappointment.
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Notable stories: A Precursor of the Cinema by Steven Millhauser
Couting Underwater by Kiara Brinkman
Asusncion by Roy Kesey (although deeply disturbing)
Sales by Judy Budnitz
Orphans by Benjamin Rosenbaum
Seven Stories by Gyrdir Eliasson
My Room by Bragi Olafson
Nerve City by Birna Anna Bjornsdottir, Oddny Sturludottir, and Silja Hauksdorrit
Interference by Andri Snoer Magnason.
Most of the rest I couldn't get through. -
There's a lot of comics packed into this volume, all of the indie-autobio-underground school. This is right up my street, obviously. Not really a sampler of the style, but a good precis for those already interested in it to read further from.
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I’ve been wanting to read this issue for quite awhile and it was definitely worth the wait. Interestingly, I found quite a few pieces that I’d encountered before. I enjoyed everything about this issue!
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It was good to read a lot of shorter comics by a bunch of different comics artists, but geez if this isn’t a white dude centric collection. And some of the individual comics were so tired. There’s a lot of good throughout, mixed with a lot of bad.
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The book presents a diverse array of cleverly designed pieces. The font-size is so small that the physical labor of reading created, for me, a serious impediment to completing the book. I did finish it, though.
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I don't toss books aside lightly, but I had no choice with this one. The type in the essays is microscopic, and completely unreadable for me. This was the case with quite a few of the comic strips as well. Overall, a deeply unsatisfying outcome that any competent editor could have avoided..
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They can’t all be winners.
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Heartbreak consolation through books. McSweeney’s marathon makes it all better. Just the right dose of humour as band-aid!
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The tiny print found throughout this work was the only thing about it that bothered me. The question remains, then, whether this work was effective.
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Great collection of artists.
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I really don't understand how this book sat on my shelves so long before I read it. When I first heard about it, I wanted it immediately. But I was in a cheap phase, so I only put it on my paperbackswap wishlist. After a lot of patience, I finally scored a copy, but it languished, unread, until I put it on my to-read shelf this year to rectify the situation.
This really is an incredibly interesting sampler of comics. From the inventor of the form, through some classic newspaper strips, to an impressive variety of modern comics, it's hard to falt this collection for its contents. The only thing that grated for me was the editorial writing, which felt casually misogynist. Descriptions of female characters were exclusively restricted to reports on their figures (and not kindly, one woman is described as being the size of an upright Naugahyde couch, even though the actual drawings of said woman seemed not nearly so exaggerated, nor was her size every played derogatively in the printed comics.) There were some female comic writers included, and some "women's stories," but much of the text seemed to reinforce the idea of comics as a boy's club, which disappointed me.
I wouldn't say it was worth passing this book over for, it just could have been better. -
Absolutely gorgeous and the second most impressive looking item on my bookshelf (following only Building Stories). I would give it a 5 based on appearance alone. Obviously, I love Building Stories so was delighted to see that Chris Ware was the editor. Ware's dust jacket is amazing and I was super pleased to discover the mini-comics hidden in its folds.
My tastes do run a little on the heart-wrenchingly miserable side, so I really enjoyed the more crushing comics chosen for this anthology. Charles Burn - check! Underworld series - check! Richard McGuire does an even better job than Ware of making me feel so very, very small. I didn't love everything in this collection, of course, but it would have been unreasonable to expect to. Beautiful addition to my library, for sure. -
This book in the series includes new work by Robert Crumb, Linda Barry, Los Bros.Hernandez and many others. There are also new & reprinted articles on the history of the comicstrip and comic art in America. Many of the comics are of an auto or semi-autobiographical nature, so your interest may very from artist to artist. I have to admit that, even though I've been reading comics (alternative & mainstream) for well over 40+ years I found some a bit hard to get through. Certainly not a book you would want to read in a single day, but rather pick up and read a section or two over a week or more.
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An anthology of comics and essays about comics edited by Chris Ware. The essays are by Ware, Ira Glass, John Updike (who knew he drew comics?), Glen David Gold, and Chip Kidd. Some of the comics had to be printed too small to read comfortably, but most are fine, and the quality of the printing is excellent. This is McSweeney's, after all. It gives you a sense of the history of comics. I recognized a lot of the cartoonists, but it would have been nice to to have more info on what each comic was excerpted from.
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This anthology is so good and ground-breaking I wish someone would buy it for me. So glad to find a copy in the library after seeing a review of it in Fine Books and Collections. Material ranges from old classics to new artists but everything is fresh and captivating. There's also some articles on the history of specific artists, publishers, and the media interspersed throughout. If you like comics, pick this one up if you see it! Very much worth your time.
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McSweeney's is first and foremost concerned with pulling you out of your comfort zone. I first read this when I was into fiction, and I found it opened the world of graphic novels to me. The sheer variety of style and voice is amazing, and a great jumping off point if you're looking for something new.
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Ron Regé Jr's piece, a loose little booklet accompanying this issue, is a gut-wrenching, tear-inducing, illustrated version of a transcript between a female suicide bomber and an Israeli soldier. I'd give it 4-stars, but I have to add an extra one for the gorgeous layout and Chris Ware's cover piece.
