Jimmy Corrigan Essay Example

Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid On Earth, by Chris Ware, is about a meek and lonely man in his mid-thirties who meets his father for the first time in a Michigan town over Thanksgiving weekend. Jimmy is an awkward and cheerless character with an overbearing mother and a very limited social life. Jimmy attempts to escape his unhappiness via an active imagination that sometimes gets him into awkward situations. The book deals with loneliness, familial dysfunction, inadequacy, bullying, generational conflict, masculinity, sexual frustration, social embarrassment and depression. Ware wrote and illustrated the book. He is best known for a series of comics called the Acme Novelty Library, and incidentally, this graphic novel.
First and foremost, Jimmy Corrigan has a very unique style. The first thing you notice is the thick line weight, the very geometric design of the illustrations, and the thick, opaque colors used. The illustrations do not contain any fine detail. What Ware uses is subtle shifts in line weight. What Ware also does well is capturing the different shapes of the figures as they walk, talk, move their head, turn around, etc. This, along with adding slight blocks of color for shadows, really gives the illustrations depth and distance when there seemingly couldn't be. People, objects, buildings, the sky, the weather, etc. are all drawn in a very minimalist nature. Everything is given the simplest shape possible yet you know exactly what you are looking at, just by where certain lines bend and curve.
The colors used for illustrations are relatively drab. Every color is a sort of soft, pastel like color, which gives the illustrations a very unobtrusive feel. This color palette fits the story nicely considering the story is rather drab and depressing. The colors do a good job of setting the mood and bringing you into Jimmy Corrigan's life as well as mind state. With that said, what I found rather interesting was how Ware used the color red.