The perfect gift for book lovers and design geeks… beautiful testimony to the still-untapped potential of print and paper. Teddy Jamieson, HeraldĪ heartbreaking work of staggering genius. One of the most remarkable, thrilling and possibly important books of the year. ShortlistĢ012’s strongest case for setting aside your kindle. Building Stories is a stunning piece of work, proving yet again why Ware is so frequently included in lists of the greatest living cartoonists. The number of narrative techniques Ware uses in the novel is giddying. This is the first book which I have finished and immediately started again, wanting to experience each of the stories with full knowledge of what happens in the rest. Widely hailed as one of the foremost practitioners working in the medium today, his new book, if one can call it that without being reductionist, is a work of such startling genius that it is difficult to know where to begin. Chris Ware, the 45-year-old American comics artist, is one of these. Just occasionally, a writer or artist – or both in one – emerges who is so astoundingly original that everything else suddenly seems like a facsimile of what has come before. The book-length comic strip, with one or two exceptions, has never been taken very seriously in literary circles. Sam Leith, GuardianĪ major moment in British cultural history. Astonishment is an entirely appropriate response. There's nobody else doing anything in this medium that remotely approaches Ware for originality, plangency, complexity and exactitude.

Building Stories by Chris Ware