Comic Book Club December Meeting: Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth

We’re already at the end of the decade, the 2010s are coming to an end as the Ash Ave Comic Book Club soldiers on!  We are concluding 2019 with one of the most acclaimed works of comics released in the 21st century, Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth a collection of stories from his series Acme Novelty Library (which to be fair was published serially in the last century), and is the winner of The American Book Award, 2001; The Guardian First Book Award, 2001; The Harvey Awards’ Special Award for Excellence in Presentation and Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work, 2001; The Eisner Awards’ Best Publication Design and Best Graphic Album: Reprint, 2001; and The Angoulême Festival’s Prize for Best Comic Book and Prix de la critique, 2003. We’ll begin 2020 with the acclaimed miniseries Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles from Mark Russell and Mike Feehan.

Our meetings begin at 6 PM, and we recommend attendees BYOB (be it beer, beverage, or brisket).  Our reading group selections are available in the shop, so drop by to purchase a copy of Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth for our December meetup. Listed below are our next two months of readings, and a photo and summary of the December selection:

Sunday, December 1: Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth

Sunday, January 5: Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles

This first book from Chicago author Chris Ware is a pleasantly-decorated view at a lonely and emotionally-impaired “everyman” (Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth), who is provided, at age 36, the opportunity to meet his father for the first time. An improvisatory romance which gingerly deports itself between 1890’s Chicago and 1980’s small town Michigan, the reader is helped along by thousands of colored illustrations and diagrams, which, when read rapidly in sequence, provide a convincing illusion of life and movement. The bulk of the work is supported by fold-out instructions, an index, paper cut-outs, and a brief apology, all of which concrete to form a rich portrait of a man stunted by a paralyzing fear of being disliked.