ACME NOVELTY 10: The Ordeal of Jimmy Corrigan

[jlroberson]

Warning: This is safe for work, but still quite horrifying.

Not for the easily freaked out, this one.
So I'm sure you've seen covers such as this before:

Now, suppose you were to take this concept--Superman as godlike, punishing father figure--mix it with one's own childhood resentments, and throw in a whole dollop of the Freudian? You end up with the (still unreprinted) ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY 10 by Chris Ware, a comic so brutal it needed two covers. This is the outer one.(the one on top is the inner) Sadly in scans you don't get the physical quality of the book. But you do get this. Jimmy, it appears, has some lessons to learn about growing up. Buried underneath the alt cartoonist Chris Ware is a former kid reading lots of DC Comics in the 70s, just like you and me. But I find this treatment of the concepts that breeds far superior to, say, that of Geoff Johns. Or any retcon. What Johns does is a species of fanfic. IMO, this is what happens when we verge into actual "Art": Examining one's childhood feelings, rather than trying to run back to one's childhood self. Also in my view, this story--the whole one, which you should track down if you like this--is one of Ware's very, very best. So--As much here as I could excerpt for you. I think there's enough here to get the gist. Keep in mind too, that there are in fact two Jimmy Corrigans--the adult, real-life one we see in the book JIMMY CORRIGAN THE SMARTEST KID ON EARTH, and this one, which is a bit less realistic and is often an outlet for Ware's thoughts about himself as a kid. Or his surreal side.

Jimmy's mom finds a new husband(who looks handsome in her eyes and ugly in Jimmy's--see first page below). Jimmy does not like him. They go on a little boat ride one day.



He also gives him a penny, for a movie machine nearby. But Jimmy saves the penny for when he's the most lonely and never looks.

Meanwhile, Super-Man saves people. Other people. Who deserve it more, presumably, than Jimmy. And all adults.

Sparky and his super-boys take it upon themselves to save Jimmy.

But you do not defy Super-Man.

All except the Olsen cover (c) Chris Ware.
PS -If interested, this week's LULU.

Comments

[protogarrett]

...wow.

I'm leaving now. Goodbye

[icon_uk]

I'm not sure what emotion this is supposed to evoke, but it really doesn't make me want to read any more of it.

[foxhack]

... That's his mother in the movie machine, isn't it?

[jlroberson]

We never see. The next panel is Jimmy sitting far away freaked out and Super-Man still at the machine, buckling his belt. We assume that Super-Man enjoyed the show much more than Jimmy.

[jlroberson]

It has to do with the impulse to refuse to grow up. It also makes much more sense in context of the rest of Jimmy Corrigan's story.

[punishermax]

Jimmy Corrigan is is on par with Grave of the Fireflies in terms of soul crushing depression.

[midnightvoyager]

Yeah, I might never be able to get the D: look off my face.

Sadly, I can't tell if I feel suddenly ill because of the weather or because of this.

(Stealth icon win there)

Sorry, it's just... this is supposed to be about childhood feelings and I'm trying to correlate this with childhood feelings and all I can come up with was "Show me on the doll where he touched you."

[punishermax]

You know there's an entire book about this right? And that it's just as bad as this and actually worse in a lot of places?

[midnightvoyager]

That might make it worse, yes. >.

[jlroberson]

But what's worse is not something fanciful like this. What's worse is Jimmy's real life, a thing so empty that when he meets his real dad he has no idea how to deal with it. No escape through parody or metaphor there.

Which, by the way, is the part of JC that is autobiographical. Ware really did meet his real dad and feel much like he portrays Jimmy. In a lot of ways Jimmy represents a part of Ware, the part where his fear, loneliness and inadequacies resided.

[meatwhichdreams]

Oh my goodness, I am a die-hard Ware fan and I have never heard of this collection. I knew he had some deranged child-Jimmy and Superman stories floating around unprinted but I had no idea he had a longer story going on. It's ....interesting. Seems like he's working out some of his own issues here. This came before Jimmy Corrigan, right? Seems like his more recently released Superman-as-God story is kind of it's twin. I'd love to read it in full - thanks for sharing!

[jlroberson]

It came out in the midst of the serialization of JC. He always seems to keep these JC stories--which are very different from the ones about Jimmy as a grownup--very separate from the ones most know, and rarely collects them. What is this other book you speak of? I think I missed it.

[palabradot]

Holy frigging (censored).

Dear god.

[wizardru]

You know, I saw an article indicating that this was one of those comics that people should read because it's great art and Important (tm) and shows people what Comics Can Be and so forth and what a tragedy it was that more people didn't read it and what a pox it was on comics today that this wasn't the best thing evar.

And yet reading it, I find it really hard to be entertained in any way. I accept that it's got artistic merit...but I'm not sure I could possibly read a whole serialized BOOK of it. Sometimes I just want read a story where a guy punches another guy, you know? Not a story where a boy's fantasy character is held prisoner by Superman on a desert island, puts out the eyes of his friends and then jerks off to naked movies of his mother. I'm as much for metaphor as the next guy, but DAMN, man.

[punishermax]

It's really really really hard to describe. The book itself is powerful because it's a great look at loneliness and aging. It's unreal how depressing it gets at times and it is possibly one of the most soul crushing comics ever created but god fucking damn is Ware an artist.

I really recommend that you pick the book up. It's something that really needs to be read in stretches and not in spurts like this.

[galateus]

That is the perfect icon for this post.

[galateus]

This is magnificently horrifying and I need to have it yesterday.

[jlroberson]

It's ACME 10. Have fun finding it on Ebay...

[jlroberson]

I concur with this. It's not really meant to be "entertaining" as such(in the same way as, say, a DC comic or something like that), and to go in expecting that is not a good idea. One should approach it the same way one would if reading a novel--including taking time with it and not expecting to finish it on one sitting.

Also: this chapter is not part of the book, and neither are any of the more surreal and weird "Jimmy As Kid" strips, where he looks like the kid from FAMILY GUY(who was blatantly ripped off from Jimmy, though it's easier to see in the other strips where Li'l Jimmy's head is more egg-shaped). It's almost a separate universe from the Jimmy as we see him in the graphic novel--that's as naturalistic as this is bizarre. The most interesting thing to me about the book itself is how Chris Ware makes time, and silent moments, almost like music.