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Posts tagged "chris ware"
Aug 17, 2010
“ Writing and drawing are thinking. We’re told in school that they are skills but that’s wrong. Drawing is a way of thinking. It’s a way of seeing.
— Chris Ware, quoted in The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing is a Way of Thinking, a book of critical essays on his work. (via)
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Jul 09, 2010
“ [A] book design should be inevitable — a book demands its own shape just as an oak sprouts from an acorn and a pine from a cone. A book is a body in which a story lives and breathes, and, like a body, it has a spine, is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, and it isn’t going to go on many dates unless it can hold up its end of the conversation. If it does find its way into our life, a book can also be a companion, and sometimes a life-changing one.
— Chris Ware on the art of book covers [via] cf: John Updike, who claimed he could not begin writing a book until he first imagined its spine, “You can, possibly, tell a book by its cover, but the cover isn’t the contents.” (via bobulate)
Jul 06, 2010
Robert Crumb, “A Short History of America”, 1979
Chris Ware on the strip, quoted in Todd Hignite’s In the Studio: Visits with Contemporary Cartoonists:
I’m obviously prone to hyperbole, but “A Short History of America” has got to be one of the greatest comic strips ever drawn; I find myself thinking about it, looking at it, and stealing from it probably more than any other single page. Even if this was all Robert Crumb ever drew, that’d be enough…
Jun 07, 2010
May 06, 2010
Chris Ware’s mural designed for 826 Valencia
It depicts the parallel development of humans and their efforts at and motivations for communication, spoken and written. It’s a very complex mural, and requires its most devoted viewers to study it for about an hour, from the middle of Valenica Street, by far the best vantage point.
The mural was applied by skilled artisans according to Ware’s specifications. The bottom half of the building, which has been painted black, features gold lettering that states the name of the place. Over the window is a nice burgundy awning.
The mural’s intricate causal diagrams depict the development of the human race, along with its efforts at, and motivations for, communication. The theme is sympathetic with the centre’s philanthropic function to encourage and tutor young writers. ‘I didn’t want it to make anyone “feel good”, especially in that typically muralistic “hands across the water” sort of way,’ explains Ware, ‘I especially wanted it to be something that people living in the neighbourhood could look at day after day and hopefully not tire of too quickly. I really hoped whomever might happen to come across it would find something that showed a respect for their intelligence, and didn’t force-feed them any “message”.’
Ware cracks me up. God forbid he ever makes anyone “feel good.” Still, this is amazing.
Apr 29, 2010
“ But there is that thing with those guys. I was at Angoulême and Adrian Tomine, Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, all lined up, signing books, and I would sometimes see what they drew, and it would always be a two-inch tall face of one of their characters, looking sad. And Chris Ware had one that was him at the drawing board, crying. Someone showed that to me, and I thought, why are you doing this? [Laughter.] That just killed me! Because you know he’s not like that.
— This quote is Dash Shaw, from his interview with David Mazzuchelli in the 300th issue of The Comics Journal. The whole interview is great, but this point is really sticking with me. Why is that generation of cartoonists always so obsessed with being sad? Is it supposed to be more authentic somehow? Anyway: I love all those cartoonists Shaw mentions, but I’m really glad that there’s something new on the way. (via paulconstant)
Apr 23, 2010
Chris Ware’s rejected Fortune cover
See kids? Even Chris Ware The Genius © gets rejections.
See also: a breakdown of the cover with commentary.
Mar 05, 2010
“ That’s how art history and literary history gets made: by living artists connecting with the past.
Feb 03, 2010
» Dash Shaw on Chris Ware originals
Ware’s exhibit at the Whitney Biennial was a life-changing experience for me. The under drawing, measuring… It’s shocking how raw the drawing is. His drawings look so clean when they’re shrunk and colored in print. In the originals they look so labored over, sometimes even crude. You can see the struggle, his thinking on the page. The Quimby original at Angoulême was such an object; the cut zipatone, the scale, the juxtaposition between the interior panels and the more illustrative background landscape. It was engaging by itself, beyond just being preparatory work for a print book.
Jan 31, 2010
“ …whereas Chris Ware talks about cartooning as typography, I think of it as calligraphy. I like the panel borders, lettering, brush or pen lines to all read as the author’s handwriting.
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