Chris Ware has a way of making you feel a person's entire life with so few words. I felt this way with "Jimmy Corrigan the Smartest Kid on Earth", but that was a thick read, this one can't be more than 100 pages and yet I still feel emotionally exhausted from that. (In a wonderful way).
In this story, Jordan Wellington Lint follows one man's life from birth to death with all of its twists, turns and predictable melancholy along the way. Nothing crazy really happens, Jordan/Jason goes to college, is in a frat, graduates, gets married, has children, has an affair, leaves his family, starts a new family, goes to work, etc, etc. Pretty similar life to a large percentage of the population. Pretty boring. So why would I read a story about a privileged white male who is probably a huge dick. Because of Chris Ware's approach to illustration and the way he handles narration, or I guess, doesn't.He's telling you a story, but instead of doing it with dialogue or chronological events, he uses the character's memories and emotions to portray feelings of certain things or feelings about certain things, and while many events aren't spelled out for you visually, you understand the characters mood and truth because you've gotten the story directly from them, not through a narrator. His approach is deeply exhausting, out of context and at times very unclear, but you feel a strong connection with these characters because you're in their head thinking with them.
Breaking down events to their very core, showing us their most simple form, Ware has a ware of speaking in a code of symbols but hitting the readers with some sort of unspeakable truth. It is really remarkable and GOSH DARN IT HE DOES IT SO WELL.
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