A review by edzee_lcnm
Rusty Brown by Chris Ware

4.0

I bought "Rusty Brown" as a Christmas gift to myself … and as a fairly typical (??) book buyer with a problem, it took me until April (and a global pandemic to boot) to finally get around to it. I had been a huge fan of/or at least had mad props for Chris Ware's "Building Stories" -- which I know see I read back in 2013 (time flies!) -- a 14-piece multi-media graphic "novel" where it was up to the reader to select the order of each item read. It somehow worked, and so when I saw Ware had a new book out I decided to treat myself to it.

This one was a bit different. Well, more than a bit. More of a compilation of his works over the past 16 years with some new material added in. In a hardcover book format, it was more a traditional and sequential experience - tho with Ware, I am surmising there is always a randomness to his works -- and while everything is linked, it takes some work on the readers' part. In "Building Stories" it was just a given that randomness was built into the project -- so here I struggled more with it. And again, given the timing of this read (during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020) certainly not the best time for the need to be focused and have a clear mind. Thus "Rusty" gets a bit of rating ding for that - but again I am willing to lay some (most?) of the blame on myself.

One thing that is a valid ding here is the size of the artwork and more so the often miniscule text. Part of Ware's genius is he knows exactly when he wants on the same the page -- but given how small it had to go at times was ridiculous. This hardcover edition is already bulky and an irregular size. I would guess that it would have to be at least twice as big to make everything fit/readable - which I'm guessing would be virtually impossible without custom printing equipment. I utterly respect Ware's vision, but it certainly felt compromised with the size limitations.

With these mental point deductions for some stories working and some stories not along with the challenges of actually being able to read the text at times - it feels like my rating should drop to about 3 stars. But I just can not do it. I'll say it again: Ware is genius. The storytelling that worked for me was incredibly moving, sometimes spanning an entire lifetime of a character in a few dozen pages. The artwork is amazing - sometimes funny, often tragic and sad. The emotions truly come off the page. 5 stars in many ways - but again some mental and physical (eyesight!) issues on my part bring it in at 4 stars with continued respect and aware for Ware.