Meanwhile, let me note that in the past two days, I got a couple of books that promise to keep me busy in any spare minutes I might have between now and the spring semester. One is The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
, which I got on Amazon for a ridiculously low price (something like $58 instead of its $150 cover price); the other is the new second volume of the Acme Novelty Datebook, which is a powerful reminder of the value of keeping a notebook. Chris Ware draws and thinks like an utter genius, even in his moments of self-loathing or idle time. It's hard to think of a more impressive record of a cartoonist's working process, or a more impressive book of incidental drawings.Like the volume before it (and like the final paragraphs of Gulliver's Travels
which I happened to re-read this morning), this installment of Acme Novelty Datebook is a stern rebuke against pride.
If Chris Ware tells himself, every day, many times a day, that he sucks, then what can the rest of us think of ourselves?
"If Chris Ware tells himself, every day, many times a day, that he sucks, then what can the rest of us think of ourselves?"
ReplyDeleteEasy: we can keep thinking what we already think of ourselves, which isn't pretty. Especially since our own moments of self-loathing and down time are far less productive, let alone impressive.
(Mind you, I'm a little sympathetic to the idea that some of Ware's public self-loathing is shtick; but that sense is tempered with utmost respect and indeed awe at what he has accomplished.)