Chris Ware Response - PK

The comic book by Chris Ware seems interesting. It is supposed to show the lives of men: son, father and grandfather. Right away I have a sense of history, a feeling of nostalgia. It feels like the author is projecting himself onto the character, which is very interesting. I know from personal experience that whenever I tried to write a story or a comic, I’ve never been able to separate myself or not include some part of my identity into it.

The comment he made about loving your characters stuck out to me. I think it’s very true, you have to love what you are creating otherwise you will go crazy and just won’t care about what happens to the characters and eventually the comic itself. I think loving your characters makes them more real and more true to you, and that mirrors in the comic; a reader can often tell when the author just doesn’t care.

I’m very interested in the fact that he included a superhero in his comic, and actually had him fall to his death. That’s not what we portray superhero’s to be; we want the to save us from this world and from ourselves, and here it seems like the superhero can’t really save himself.

The audio interview with Chris Ware was very insightful. Ware was just another boy obsessed with superheroes, wearing a costume to school under his clothes. Flight vs. invisibility question was very funny. It’s true, I’ve been asked that many times, and there are pros and cons for both. At first I chose flight, the ability to go anywhere I want would be great, but I found that the lady with sweater stealing invisibility would be something I could see myself doing, stealing all the clothes I could use. It’s very interesting to hear the theory of choosing a power, the different stages people go through, usually ending up with the opposite of what they started with.

The picture is a strip from Ware’s Corrigan comic, I think what the character is doing is buying a keychain for him mom at the Union Station and then taking the Metra home. I like how it’s zoomed in and out in the different parts of the comic strip.