I am not sure I "enjoyed" reading this terribly sad book but I do appreciate the quality of the work that went into it. It is an exceptional book.

Anyone who believes that comics are 'just for kids' and lack the emotional resonance of 'real' literature will be soundly proven wrong by this amazing work. I defy you not to well up at least once.

The art was precise; I liked it a lot a lot. Especially the Chicago Worlds Fair buildings. The book is beautiful.

The story confused me a bit at first: I had trouble differentiating what was reality and what was a dream and what was a fantasy. But then he gives a recap! This helped me to realize what the deal was with what I had already read, and gave me an idea of what was what going forward. So, hooray for the recap.

The story itself was . . . okay. I have a hard time caring about (fictional) people who are pathetic and cannot do things for themselves, even if they're nice. That said, I didn't HATE the guy or anything. And I liked the daughter.

One of the most surprising comics I've ever read: heartbreaking, deep, graphically expressive and clean as few others. A masterwork of literature, in my opinion.

There are some really captivating images and panels; but reading this felt like a chore and a mini-weights session given the size of the tome. The story is extremely dull and depressing; I don't know if I would call this a plot- or character-driven read because both were so blah. Many of the main characters were barely distinguishable from one another. The actual novel itself was also really hard to read in terms of how you're meant to follow the different images and the use of tiny cursive text.

I tried to read a few reviews to get why this it touted as such a big deal, and yeah, I'm just not quite there.

There's a scene in Broad City where a female coworker of Ilana's pulls her hair out due to frustration with Ilana's incompetence. Reading and watching Jimmy Corrigan navigate the gorgeous world Chris Ware creates in "Smartest Kid on Earth", is akin to that feeling. I started reading the book right as I caught quite possibly the worst flu of my life (luckily no vomiting). The "sickness depression" as I call it, kicked in really hard and reading Jimmy Corrigan was not much help.
This story is desperate, despicable and incorrigible. Jimmy never changes outside of his fantastical ideas of mechanical wizardry and sexual manifestations. He is meek, he is helpless and on the verge of suicide. Jimmy has no idea why he makes the decisions he makes, he always needs his mommy and let's be honest, by the end of the book, you want to resonate with him but the story itself flourishes so beautifully that we see where exactly Jimmy sits within the story.
Jimmy is us. He is every painful, almost privileged, emotion that humans experience. He is shame, guilt, fear, sheepishness, passively racist and downright mediocre. Oftentimes, he's worse. Yet, as I turned each page, my flu slowly subsiding, the artwork and creatively paced graphic novel carried me along.
I'd be remiss to not mention Ware's art in this book. It is absolutely phenomenal, sometimes breathtaking. His sense of scope and perspective are unparalleled. Having just read Nick Drnaso's excellent Sabrina, I imagine it would not exist as it does without Ware's impact caused by "Jimmy Corrigan". In fact, comics, especially indie comics, were forever changed by Jimmy and his story of normalcy cloaked in strikes of brilliance. I was disgusted and surprised how similar Jimmy is to the normal American (whatever that means) and even myself. His lack of backbone was spine-tingling in the worst way possible.
So, how can a book with a character that is mind-bogglingly annoying, function in a way that entices readers to finish the story, even return to it? There is a deep undercurrent of passionate connection in Ware's work, and here it functions in a statement that Jimmy utters many a times throughout his adventure: "I just want to be liked."

Smertefull å komme seg gjennom. Den er veldig godt laget og særlig historien til bestefaren er gripende, men fy flate så slitsom denne tegneserieboka er.

Litt fordi hovedkarakteren er verdens kjedeligste og mest sosialt dysfunksjonelle person. Mest fordi forfatteren dykker dypt (og da mener jeg dypt) ned i hver eneste fryktelig pinlige situasjon som kan oppstå når en sykelig sjenert og ukomfortabel sønn møter faren sin som stakk av da han var liten.

Det er heldigvis også gøy til tider, og tegningene og det omstendelige arbeidet med å gjøre alle situasjoner så virkelighetsnære som mulig er imponerende.

Gateway drug

For starters, this is not exactly light reading. Although in comic-form, it's an awful lot to wrap your head around. Each panel is incredibly detailed, and it's often a challenge to know in which order the panels are laid out. This, is often when people decide whether or not to continue reading it. But you will be rewarded. The colors can be described as muted, but again, it's all in the details. It's a story about a guy named Jimmy Corrigan, a guy in his 30s who is uncomfortable in his own skin and with a sort of social anxiety disorder. His imagination often takes him places in the middle of conversations--strange places.

Still reading; more to come I guess...

Graphically excellent, the story doesn’t seem to have a destination.
Still, it works in the end.
Very much worth reading.