F. C. Ware

In October 2012, when Pantheon released "Building Stories," the $50 (now $100) graphic novel-in-a-box was described by many people at the time as Chris Ware’s magnum opus. For this architect, who has a few books that come in boxes, it can be seen as the pinnacle of “architectural” box sets. The graphic novel, set in a three-flat apartment building in Chicago, consists of 14 “distinctively discrete” books, booklets, magazines, newspapers, and pamphlets — all totaling 260 pages and all fitting within a large tabloid-sized box. How is it architectural? Not only is the apartment building an integral element in the various stories depicted by Ware in his dense and distinctive comic format, “the organizing principle of Building Stories is architecture,” as reviewer Douglas Wolk wrote in the New York Times upon its release. “Ware renders places and events alike as architectural diagrams.” There is even a cutaway isometric of one floor of the building on the back of the box, accompanied by depictions of the 14 pieces. Many of the comics were originally published in places such as the Times, making the box set a means of controlling the format of the publication — page size, paper type, binding, etc. — at a level beyond the highly controlled layouts of Ware’s logically structured yet emotionally wistful comics.… (more)

I'll start with the artwork, because it's basically astounding. The scenes from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair would probably be enough to warrant giving this book 5 stars. The sense of scale and the utter smallness of the people, the drawings are strikingly beautiful.

Now the story. It's consumed with loneliness and grief and is deeply affecting. The whole clan of Corrigan men will stick with you like signposts for mistakes to avoid. There was a danger as I got close to the end that it would be too bleak for me, but there are hints of hope in it, which is maybe all you need.… (more)

A dense work which really deserves the 'graphic novel' moniker. It focuses on the lives of several lonely teachers and students at a small school in Omaha, Nebraska. Ware uses elaborate panel construction to show multifaceted stories. The one about school bully and slacker Jordan Lint showed his entire life. Other stories tackle a painfully shy man whose first sexual experience is shaped by a rather crazy woman, and a teacher who endures regular racism at the school. Just like a modern novel, the book ends(?) ambiguously. I felt it dived quite deeply into its protagonists. I was annoyed by the regular use of very small text, though I didn't mind the micro-panels.… (more)

A $50 box of longing, mortality, and regret, to quote Kevin Guilfoile's apt commentary in the Tournament of Books. It's a heavily visual collection of 14 pieces that make up this work which mostly shows us the life of a lonely, insecure, perpetually unsatisfied, slightly overweight woman. Other main characters are the unhappy married couple living below her, the unhappy elderly woman who owns the titular building they all live in, and bizarrely, a bee who just doesn't fit in.

I lack the patience/interest to spend a lot of time examining the artwork in the panels of graphic novels; I want to speed on ahead to the next chunk of text. I must have a bias for words. Thus my favorite graphic novel I've read (not that I've read all that many) is Persepolis, in which I think the artwork plays a much smaller second fiddle to the star turn of the text. In Building Stories, the visuals demand at least equal consideration, maybe greater.

I think I disagree with most when I say I did not find splitting the story into 14 pieces of varying size, from pamphlet to newspaper to novella, to be a charming feature. I would have preferred a single, standard sized bound book. What a hidebound traditionalist I turn out to be.… (more)