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McSweeney’s Does Comics

I’m increasingly growing disenchanted with McSweeney’s, but the latest issue, guest-edited by Chris Ware is the exception.

The result of Ware’s butt in the driver’s seat of the ‘Quarterly Concern’ is a gorgeous hardcover volume overflowing with work from the hottest names in depressing oft-autobiographical alternative comics (Ware, Seth, Joe Matt, Ivan Brunetti, Chester Brown, R. Crumb, Jeffrey Brown, Art Spiegelman, Lynda Barry… the list goes on...)

I haven’t had the chance to read it in its entirety yet, but just holding the book in one’s hands is an experience in itself.  The dustjacket folds out (much like the dustjacket to Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan) into a big old-timey comics page with gold foil stamping and a Ware’s-eye attention to detail.  Some of the included material is reprinted from other sources, but most seems to be new.  If anything it serves as a great primer to this school of graphic novels.

The real treats: close-ups of original artwork and sketches by Bud Fisher, George Herriman, and Charles Schulz.

Also worth noting are an essay on comics by John Updike, and an introduction by This American Life host Ira Glass.  And speaking of Ira Glass and Chris Ware: yesterday I stumpled upon an 80-page PDF of a transcription of an interview Glass conducted with Ware.  Download and give it a read to see why Chris Ware is the world’s most lovable sad sack since Charlie Brown (via Kempa.com)