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A review by cheye13
Rusty Brown by Chris Ware
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
My immediate takeaway upon finishing this behemoth of a graphic novel was that I must be missing something. Certainly this disparate lumping of stories featuring mostly average cishet white boys/men in midwest US circa 1980s wasn't the same book that was supposed to be a "coalescence of one half of all existence [...] expertly arranged to present the most convincingly ineffable and empathetic illusion of experience"(goodreads synopsis). Certainly this reductive and repetitive cartoon block art style wasn't by the same artist who's considered "among the best currently working in the medium"(author's wiki page).
After doing some digging, I came to the conclusion: I must be missing something. Since this is a bind-up, perhaps some more evocative "filler" panels or issues were cut. I can see how breaking this down into a monthly or weekly release would add more gravitas to certain arcs, or perhaps pad them out. While I found the art style childish at the best of times and repulsive at the worst, I can maybe see how its experimental nature could be lauded when first published in the early 00s. But on its own as a cohesive graphic novel published in 2019? It's woefully behind the times.
After doing some digging, I came to the conclusion: I must be missing something. Since this is a bind-up, perhaps some more evocative "filler" panels or issues were cut. I can see how breaking this down into a monthly or weekly release would add more gravitas to certain arcs, or perhaps pad them out. While I found the art style childish at the best of times and repulsive at the worst, I can maybe see how its experimental nature could be lauded when first published in the early 00s. But on its own as a cohesive graphic novel published in 2019? It's woefully behind the times.