Jimmy Corrigan: The Dullest Kid In The World

Much like my struggles with Life A User’s Manual a while back, the only thing that’s keeping me reading Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (Chris Ware) is the paroxysms of joy it seems to inspire in its Amazon reviewers.

I remember picking the book up in Borders shortly after it won the Guardian First Book Award, and abandoning it soon after, stupefied, for The Wire. (Which, of course, can be stupefying in its own way eg. “Oh look, a critical re-appraisal of the Appalachian free jazz movement!”) I chanced upon it again in the Marine Parade library last week, so I decided to give it another try. So far, so blah. I’m finding the flow of the panels extremely non-intuitive, and I’m not getting the big deal about the quality of the drawing either. I’ll keep wading on though – Life A User’s Manual did pay off in the end. And at least it’s a good way to get me sleepy at night.