The graphic narrative Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, by Chris Ware, is a provocative and poignant commentary on the fallacies of the American dream and the failure of America as a collective consciousness.  This story is not heavily plot centric, but is a microcosm of the American reality and the historical implications that are fused into our present. It critiques ideological and moral complacency and neutrality and their contributions to the circularity of the past, present, and future. However, the book still is an introspective exploration into Jimmy Corrigan’s life, as readers are given as small entry into his origin story, as he reunites with his father, and then loses him. Ware’s meticulous decision to design a narrative that is independent of plot, suggests a lack of resolution within Jimmy and the general American narrative.

Originally serialized in the Chicago weekly newspaper Newcity and in Ware’s comic book Acme Novelty Library, Jimmy Corrigan received the American Book Award and the Guardian Prize in 2001 before being rereleased by Pantheon Graphic Novels in 2003.

You can purchase Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth on Amazon.

Image courtesy of Amazon. Cover illustrated by Chris Ware.

by Jasmine Kouyate