168 reviews for:

Rusty Brown

Chris Ware

4.25 AVERAGE

sizrobe's review against another edition

5.0

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Another masterpiece from Chris Ware. Not so much a single story as a bunch of interweaving stories of a handful of people over time. I'd already read the section starring Jordan Lint in a standalone, though.

faregus's review against another edition

3.0

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

stinkgoblin's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional funny sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Chris Ware is an absolute genius. This is such a touching and intimate look into the lives of a cast of characters that are so human and flawed and related that it’s impossible not to feel connected to them. It’s sad! It’s funny! It’s deeply life-affirming! His visual style is incredibly singular, and the way he handles narrative is so inventive and captivating. I couldn’t recommend this book enough.

dawnoftheread's review against another edition

5.0

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As always, Ware’s craftsmanship is exquisite. I don’t really enjoy the dark storylines about sad white dudes, as they are deliberately pitiful and uncomfortable to read. But the last story about the Black teacher Ms. Cole had me riveted...definitely want to see where her story is going.

muzzurullu's review against another edition

5.0

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

joel_buck's review against another edition

4.0

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It's been a decade almost to the day since I read Jimmy Corrigan, and its pervasive sense of sadness has stuck with me through those years, more or less undiminished. Which is just to say, I approached this book with caution and was glad I did so. It's another remarkably observed portrait of the kind of mundane loneliness I have to assume we're all familiar with. I was expecting it to be a quick read (a mistaken assumption I usually trot out when it's time to read a graphic novel) but it wound up taking me as long as any other novel. It'll likely be years before I seek out another of Chris Ware's works, he's so fantastic but good lord does he pack a wallop.

amelieks's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

chamblyman's review against another edition

5.0

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At 350 pages, one could be forgiven for wishing that Chris Ware's dense, macro/micro-scopic graphic novel take on 20th C. American life was... um, complete, but it ends with an "intermission". So there is more yet to come, however, more of Ware's work should always be welcomed, and Rusty Brown is only really incomplete in the way that Proust's Swann's Way is part of the larger In Search of Lost Time. And that comparison is not too elevated: Ware makes the richest, deepest, most humane, and visually beautiful work in comics. Rusty Brown makes the mundane milieu of suburban, mid-western, mid-size city, USA the site of universal struggles, wrenching pathos, and sweet-sad tragi-comedy, while Ware's absolute mastery of the comics form allows him to craft a structure so intricate and gorgeous that it eventually lifts the reader away from the edge of misery into a transcendent sense of human connection and perseverance. Solid gold literature.

lpdodds's review against another edition

5.0

emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

beatsbybeard's review against another edition

5.0

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Let's kick off 2020 with four depressing-as-HELL stories by my current favorite cartoonist! This hefty book collects about fifteen years' worth of comics, and it's just the first half. Our four protagonists are:

- Rusty Brown – nine years old, incessantly bullied, intellectually underdeveloped, imagined superpowers

- Woody Brown – father of Rusty, repressed, resentful, knife's-edge existential composure

- Jason Lint – bully, abused, cyclical perpetuator of same

- Joanne Cole – African American, classical banjo enthusiast, alone, underappreciated

Isolation is the thread that binds these characters. You have to pity them – some very little, some very much – although watching their self-laid consequences unfold delivers a kind of anti-catharsis. It's just so damn sad. The quiet, moment-by-moment painfulness of their experience is captured perfectly by Ware's clean, exact, minutely detailed art, equal parts emotion and geometry.

This and his other book I've read – Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth – are, to say the least, heavy. I don't recommend it if you're looking for escapism. But if you're like me and seem to have an infinite stomach for The Big Sad, dive in. Every page is gallery-worthy.