Reddit reviews The Acme Novelty Library (Pantheon Graphic Library)

Chris Ware isn't for everybody, but he's certainly my favorite alt comic author. Of course Jimmy Corrigan is considered his most important title, but I feel his work has grown more ambitious with every title. You can go bankrupt collecting the ACME Novelty library, but this collects lots of the material as well.

I picked up Jimmy Corrigan years ago based solely on the recommendation of a seemingly like-minded bookseller. I wasn't much of a graphic novel reader, but this one was so different from everything I'd seen before I gave it a try. I was wholly converted by page 50, and it remains one of my favorite books of all time, so much so that I've given out a number of copies as gifts over the years. It also turned me into a total Chris Ware fangirl, compelled to search out every new release as soon as it's available. I even turned into that bookseller pitching Jimmy Corrigan to random customers, referring to him as "the Tolstoy of comics." I mean, Spiegelman is great and all, but IMHO he can't even touch Chris Ware.

And all the editions of Ware's books are so beautiful! So much attention to detail, so many amazing little touches, like the entirely independent strip on the edges of the cover of Acme Novelty Library -- a whole life, complete with pathos, in an almost unnoticeable, teeny-tiny series of panels on an obscure surface of a densely-designed book? Fucking amazing.

Chris Ware's ACME Novelty Library