Art Star: Chris Ware

BIOGRAPHY

Chris Ware was born in 1967 in Omaha, Nebraska, where he was first inspired by reading Peanuts paperbacks in his grandmother’s basement, unlimited access to 1970s television. Ware got his start in published comics, however, while attending the University of Texas in Austin. He drew comics every week, and sometimes on a daily basis, for The Daily Texan, still the country's largest university newspaper. It was here that Ware began developing such characters as Quimby the Mouse and an early version of Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. In 1987, Ware's work came to the attention of RAW editor Art Spiegelman (Maus), who invited him to contribute to the distinguished annual comics anthology.

In 1991 Ware moved to Chicago to pursue a Master’s degree in printmaking at the Art Institute of Chicago, which he did not complete, but the experience did instill in him a deep suspicion of all forms of theory and criticism about art and writing. While in his first year of school he was invited to draw a weekly strip for the alternative weekly New City in May 1992, in which he began the newer incarnation of his semi-autobiographical character, Jimmy Corrigan, and serialization of a story which would take seven years to complete. (from www.fantagraphics.com)

QUOTES:

"It's uncanny that someone so young would have such an apparent recollection of the history of comics, and the talent to expand upon it." – Art Spiegelman



"Stupendous." – Matt Groening



"Ware’s work is among the very best graphic, comic, illustrative, and fine artwork being produced in the world right now." – Mother Jones



"With a meticulous intricacy, [Ware's] work draws the viewer into a world of sadness, whimsy, nostalgia for a past that might never have been and, sometimes, redemption. The experience of reading panel to panel has rarely been so emotional." – Los Angeles Times

VIDEOS
Collaborations with Ira Glass--This American Life