Between editing and uploading this video, I found the answer to the question I ask mathematicians in the intro. According to Seth T. Hahne over at Good Ok Bad: "The total possible number of different ways to approach Building Stories is 87,178,219,200 (or more than 87 billion, or 12 times the population of the earth)."
I remember my art professor in college bringing this in and letting everyone take a piece and sharing it around the classroom just to show off the sheer detail and variety. Chris ware truly is a one of a kind comic artist that fits his own category. Thanks for the video!
My favorite thing about Ware is that the majority of his work seems to be perpetually in print and not hard to find online. A huge pet peeve is when you find out about something and its out of print and crazy expensive.
That's definitely a wonderful thing about recommending Ware, at least his big four or five books. I guess that's a benefit of a 'big' publisher like Pantheon, not to detract from Wares appeal.
And endless comic. I kept thinking of that as you discussed the stories. With no beginning, no end, like studying an high rise and its inhabitants. A project that would take lifetimes to understand or possibly an eternity to understand. Wonderful presentation. Now, I want to re-watch Kieslowski's The Decalogue films or re-reading Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch, a novel that can me read like you advised we read Ware. You got me thinking about them.
I loved Hopscotch the one time i read it and this is indeed the closest thing I've found to that. To a lesser extent, Super Spy by Matt Kindt has a table 9f contents with the chronological listing of the otherwise nonlinear story, but i think the pieces can also be read in any order. But the endlessness Ware achieves, as you put it, is truly something quite remarkable. I'm so glad you enjoyed the presentation, thank you so very much, as always!
Chris Ware’s Building Stories in read in 2014 along with Jimmy Corrigan Smartest Kid in the World I read in 2012 are two total complete master works of what is means to be human and all the joy pain sorrow and nastiness and substance abuse that accompanies our brief life spans . Ware is in a completely different category of genius all is own right along side of Daniel Clowes. 👑👑
I completely agree that Clowes and Ware both create characters we really care for in spite of them not having overtly heroic or lovable qualities. What a difference in the presentation of the world as an expression of those people's view though!
I read and fell in love with Jimmy Corrigan this last year. Rusty Brown is waiting on my shelf and now I think I want to get my hands on this. Chris Ware has such an amazing way of displaying both the pain and unbelievable beauty of the world. Seeing his interviews it makes sense: he seems kind while having a deep well of melancholy.
I think you will find both Rs Brown and Building Stories to your liking, as they build impressively on the themes and styles of Jimmy Corrigan, while doing different and new things too, as you can no doubt tell.
A great breakdown of a really interesting formal experiment. It's exciting to see someone breaking comics out of the limitations of a singular book, of a sequential continuity or a rigid manner of absorbing the story.
I completely agree, and just for the formal experiment alone, it would have been worth the attention. But what really elevates it for me is the marriage of form and theme and emotion. The fact that it is as rich as it is, and affecting, and that it successfully uses not just the sequence of remembering/learning to manipulate that but also the format and production ...well, that just is wholly astonishing to me.
Its quite contemporaneous you release a revisit video, just after I recently finished my first read through of this masterpiece! A powerful piece of work. I'm not kidding when Chris Ware has opened up my mind to how I view the world now and my own life and perceptions.. He had that much of an affect on me. I daily think about the way "building stories" happens in my life between my daily conversations, and choices I make. Brilliant, brilliant piece of work but it does take work as a reader to take in. and it doesn't happen at once, it is slowly over time it "builds." I've accepted the fact I read it first time in the order I did, lol. Any approach would have been a different experience but my experience is mine. It's all very complex and layered stuff I could talk about and peel this onion for hours lol. My connection to the black haired protagonist has been building over time as well, a very unique experience with each character. For some reason I think her name is Wendy....see I just changed your built story around that character for a second or maybe forever. lol One of my all time fave set of "comics" too. A true top highlight of the true form of Cartoonism. I can't think of anything I've read that is as unique and personal of an experience than what is layed out for you as a reader inside of this prestigious box. It's not a "book" or a "novel". It's an experience and it deserves your attention. Chris Ware is in his own stratosphere. Thank you for this extra, wonderful and in depth review, can tell you had a very well researched experience with the piece. I was so joyed to see this as a recent post, always great content and conversation! I have yet to read Rusty Browne and can't wait to complete the full C. Ware experience. RIP BB.....
Thank you for this wonderful insight! I agree completely with everything you've said. Even my second and third readings differ so much because now the memory of these memories are differently etched into my brain, so when I re-read I remember (or don't) somethings differently, and that makes complete sense because now I am encountering them in a different way. It really is a topic that could be discussed for hours, haha! Thank you so much and I am so glad you enjoyed this video and are enjoying the channel. Do let me know what you think of the other Ware works as you read them! Cheers!
Earlier this month I read my first Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan. Certainly was an experience, the book itself being both eminently collectible and imminently have-able. I imagine this to be same, with single pages/panels/layouts you can spend hours on. One of the desires I had while reading that was so see the same pages in large painting sized avatars. Here, he takes pages, and almost zooms the size of the readers in and out w.r.t the existence of the panels, showing hou how truly physically scalable his creations are.
Absolutely! Building Stories takes the moments and memories that Jimmy Corrigan also has as part of the tapestry and manifests each using not just style and design, but also physical production and touch and association with those to colour the moments being depicted. Truly an astonishing achievement, and -yes- perhaps the most 'rewarding book to own' of all time! 😁
Haha, I would have loved to see that scene unfold. That's raises an interesting question - how would a library know if someone had just taken one or two of these pieces for themselves, or accidentally not returned them? Sounds like a nightmare!
Ah yes, Building Stories, this is one that I haven't picked up yet, but from your showcase it's quite clear that I'm a degenerate and should be getting on it sooner rather than later. It's very interesting with Chris Wares' books, I've yet to read more than Jimmy Corrigan, but from what I understand the tone of melancholy and heaviness runs throughout much of his other works as well? Fantastic video as always and wonderful to see you circle back to something you did quite a while back! Better late than never :D
Yes, I'd definitely say that sadness and melancholy (and loneliness, disconnection and isolation, even when being surrounded by people) are themes running through most of Wares collected work. In his other, shorter, and strip like pieces, you find a lot more sardonic commentary and biting wit, things that are more polished in Corrigan. Rusty Brown and Building Stories. But id say his defining feature is his humanity - how he looks at all people being worthy of attention, of empathy, and of commiseration. The fact you feel sad or pained at others lives, even though they may not be people you would want as friends, is what makes his work so moving. And I hear he's pretty good at drawing...
Lovely video thank you. I dismissed Ware as a kid, I guess it didn’t have enough noodling and explosions for me when I was 13. I reDiscovered him and Clowes recently and they’re just incredible
Glad you liked it! And yes, Monograph is a monster! I'll try and tackle it one day, hopefully! Do check out my Building Stories, Jimmy Corrigan, and Rusty Brown videos if interested! Cheers!
It was pretty easy to get here for the last ten years or so. But now copies seem to be drying up. I hope you can get your hands on a copy, it really is like nothing else out there!
Anyone knows what is the difference between the soft and hard back on Amazon? It's like 25$ difference and I prefer to pay less if I get the same experience
I've wondered the same thing myself and even gotten this question from a viewer. To my knowledge, there is only one edition of this book, the big box I show here. The softcover may be an Amazon mislabeling or seller misclassification, so you may get the same thing for cheaper. But I think it is more likely that it is a 'pamphlet' or comic, perhaps an issue of Acme, perhaps one of the newspapers or magazines that contained a chapter from this book. In truth, there is only one way to find out - to place an order and see what arrives, but it is fraught with risk! 😁 I will say, though, that I personally classify anything under USD 50 for what this is to be a steal!
@@ftloc I eventually bought the "soft cover" edition and it was indeed the same box you got there. The only difference I have noticed is that the box I got was 2nd edition. So maybe there was something that was unique to the first edition? And the price of course
Does anyone know what the differences between the hardcover and paperback versions are? With any other book it would be obvious, but since the work is already multiformat I don't know how the differing price points impact the experience.
That's an odd one and I can't quite make sense of it. In English, as far as I know, there is only one edition - the box, with both paperback and hardcover works inside it. The 'softcover' listing may be the UK (Johnathan Cape) instead of the US (Pantheon) edition, a foreign language edition, or even a misclassified issue of Acme Novelty Library! But if it is is Building Stories, it will be a box with exactly these formats within, no way around that for the work to stay the work it wants to be.
@@ftloc yeah you are doing great on Chris Wares videos. I believe it's the third video on Chris, correct me if I am wrong. I am still waiting for Jiro Tanaguchi video. I also requested for a video on Sarnath and Amruta😁. I have more names on my list😂.
Between editing and uploading this video, I found the answer to the question I ask mathematicians in the intro. According to Seth T. Hahne over at Good Ok Bad: "The total possible number of different ways to approach Building Stories is 87,178,219,200 (or more than 87 billion, or 12 times the population of the earth)."
Building Stories alternative title: The Never Ending Permutations
I remember my art professor in college bringing this in and letting everyone take a piece and sharing it around the classroom just to show off the sheer detail and variety. Chris ware truly is a one of a kind comic artist that fits his own category. Thanks for the video!
Thank you, so glad you enjoyed the video! And you're absolutely right, Chris Ware is now a sort of genre unto himself...
My favorite thing about Ware is that the majority of his work seems to be perpetually in print and not hard to find online. A huge pet peeve is when you find out about something and its out of print and crazy expensive.
That's definitely a wonderful thing about recommending Ware, at least his big four or five books. I guess that's a benefit of a 'big' publisher like Pantheon, not to detract from Wares appeal.
Have 4 book of him 👌
And endless comic. I kept thinking of that as you discussed the stories. With no beginning, no end, like studying an high rise and its inhabitants. A project that would take lifetimes to understand or possibly an eternity to understand. Wonderful presentation. Now, I want to re-watch Kieslowski's The Decalogue films or re-reading Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch, a novel that can me read like you advised we read Ware. You got me thinking about them.
I loved Hopscotch the one time i read it and this is indeed the closest thing I've found to that. To a lesser extent, Super Spy by Matt Kindt has a table 9f contents with the chronological listing of the otherwise nonlinear story, but i think the pieces can also be read in any order.
But the endlessness Ware achieves, as you put it, is truly something quite remarkable.
I'm so glad you enjoyed the presentation, thank you so very much, as always!
Chris Ware’s Building Stories in read in 2014 along with Jimmy Corrigan Smartest Kid in the World I read in 2012 are two total complete master works of what is means to be human and all the joy pain sorrow and nastiness and substance abuse that accompanies our brief life spans . Ware is in a completely different category of genius all is own right along side of Daniel Clowes. 👑👑
I completely agree that Clowes and Ware both create characters we really care for in spite of them not having overtly heroic or lovable qualities. What a difference in the presentation of the world as an expression of those people's view though!
I read and fell in love with Jimmy Corrigan this last year. Rusty Brown is waiting on my shelf and now I think I want to get my hands on this. Chris Ware has such an amazing way of displaying both the pain and unbelievable beauty of the world. Seeing his interviews it makes sense: he seems kind while having a deep well of melancholy.
I think you will find both Rs Brown and Building Stories to your liking, as they build impressively on the themes and styles of Jimmy Corrigan, while doing different and new things too, as you can no doubt tell.
A great breakdown of a really interesting formal experiment. It's exciting to see someone breaking comics out of the limitations of a singular book, of a sequential continuity or a rigid manner of absorbing the story.
I completely agree, and just for the formal experiment alone, it would have been worth the attention. But what really elevates it for me is the marriage of form and theme and emotion. The fact that it is as rich as it is, and affecting, and that it successfully uses not just the sequence of remembering/learning to manipulate that but also the format and production ...well, that just is wholly astonishing to me.
@@ftloc Very true, for all the formal experimentation. It's a very grounded, humane story.
When you make one book special video. it give us more information about the book. Great work 👍😃😀
Many thanks, so glad you enjoyed the video!
Its quite contemporaneous you release a revisit video, just after I recently finished my first read through of this masterpiece! A powerful piece of work. I'm not kidding when Chris Ware has opened up my mind to how I view the world now and my own life and perceptions.. He had that much of an affect on me. I daily think about the way "building stories" happens in my life between my daily conversations, and choices I make. Brilliant, brilliant piece of work but it does take work as a reader to take in. and it doesn't happen at once, it is slowly over time it "builds." I've accepted the fact I read it first time in the order I did, lol. Any approach would have been a different experience but my experience is mine. It's all very complex and layered stuff I could talk about and peel this onion for hours lol. My connection to the black haired protagonist has been building over time as well, a very unique experience with each character. For some reason I think her name is Wendy....see I just changed your built story around that character for a second or maybe forever. lol One of my all time fave set of "comics" too. A true top highlight of the true form of Cartoonism. I can't think of anything I've read that is as unique and personal of an experience than what is layed out for you as a reader inside of this prestigious box. It's not a "book" or a "novel". It's an experience and it deserves your attention. Chris Ware is in his own stratosphere.
Thank you for this extra, wonderful and in depth review, can tell you had a very well researched experience with the piece. I was so joyed to see this as a recent post, always great content and conversation! I have yet to read Rusty Browne and can't wait to complete the full C. Ware experience. RIP BB.....
Thank you for this wonderful insight! I agree completely with everything you've said. Even my second and third readings differ so much because now the memory of these memories are differently etched into my brain, so when I re-read I remember (or don't) somethings differently, and that makes complete sense because now I am encountering them in a different way. It really is a topic that could be discussed for hours, haha!
Thank you so much and I am so glad you enjoyed this video and are enjoying the channel. Do let me know what you think of the other Ware works as you read them! Cheers!
Earlier this month I read my first Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan. Certainly was an experience, the book itself being both eminently collectible and imminently have-able. I imagine this to be same, with single pages/panels/layouts you can spend hours on. One of the desires I had while reading that was so see the same pages in large painting sized avatars. Here, he takes pages, and almost zooms the size of the readers in and out w.r.t the existence of the panels, showing hou how truly physically scalable his creations are.
Absolutely! Building Stories takes the moments and memories that Jimmy Corrigan also has as part of the tapestry and manifests each using not just style and design, but also physical production and touch and association with those to colour the moments being depicted. Truly an astonishing achievement, and -yes- perhaps the most 'rewarding book to own' of all time! 😁
I got this at my public library, and the librarian that day was so confused
Haha, I would have loved to see that scene unfold. That's raises an interesting question - how would a library know if someone had just taken one or two of these pieces for themselves, or accidentally not returned them? Sounds like a nightmare!
Ah yes, Building Stories, this is one that I haven't picked up yet, but from your showcase it's quite clear that I'm a degenerate and should be getting on it sooner rather than later.
It's very interesting with Chris Wares' books, I've yet to read more than Jimmy Corrigan, but from what I understand the tone of melancholy and heaviness runs throughout much of his other works as well?
Fantastic video as always and wonderful to see you circle back to something you did quite a while back! Better late than never :D
Yes, I'd definitely say that sadness and melancholy (and loneliness, disconnection and isolation, even when being surrounded by people) are themes running through most of Wares collected work. In his other, shorter, and strip like pieces, you find a lot more sardonic commentary and biting wit, things that are more polished in Corrigan. Rusty Brown and Building Stories.
But id say his defining feature is his humanity - how he looks at all people being worthy of attention, of empathy, and of commiseration. The fact you feel sad or pained at others lives, even though they may not be people you would want as friends, is what makes his work so moving.
And I hear he's pretty good at drawing...
It's a masterpiece.
No argument here! 😁
Lovely video thank you. I dismissed Ware as a kid, I guess it didn’t have enough noodling and explosions for me when I was 13. I reDiscovered him and Clowes recently and they’re just incredible
Thank you!
And wow, 13? I doubt I would have given Ware a second look at that age! 😁
I just hope we get the 2nd part from Rusty Brown, that was yet another master piece from Chris W
Have you had the chance to check out my Rusty Brown video? I do quickly wonder about that there!
The Ulysess of comics literature
I can see it!
As long as there's not a Finnegan's Wake, I think I can kee myself aboard the ride! 😁
Love his books have this and 2 more + His Mega Big Book with his sketches so like him a lot 👌 was you present him to me 👌
Glad you liked it! And yes, Monograph is a monster! I'll try and tackle it one day, hopefully! Do check out my Building Stories, Jimmy Corrigan, and Rusty Brown videos if interested! Cheers!
I read Chris ware's Jimmy Corrigan and Rusty Brown but couldn't find this one. I am searching it all over Pakistan.
It was pretty easy to get here for the last ten years or so. But now copies seem to be drying up. I hope you can get your hands on a copy, it really is like nothing else out there!
@@ftloc Yeah Chris Ware's each Graphic Novel is a masterpiece... ❤
Anyone knows what is the difference between the soft and hard back on Amazon? It's like 25$ difference and I prefer to pay less if I get the same experience
I've wondered the same thing myself and even gotten this question from a viewer. To my knowledge, there is only one edition of this book, the big box I show here. The softcover may be an Amazon mislabeling or seller misclassification, so you may get the same thing for cheaper. But I think it is more likely that it is a 'pamphlet' or comic, perhaps an issue of Acme, perhaps one of the newspapers or magazines that contained a chapter from this book. In truth, there is only one way to find out - to place an order and see what arrives, but it is fraught with risk! 😁
I will say, though, that I personally classify anything under USD 50 for what this is to be a steal!
@@ftloc I eventually bought the "soft cover" edition and it was indeed the same box you got there. The only difference I have noticed is that the box I got was 2nd edition. So maybe there was something that was unique to the first edition? And the price of course
Does anyone know what the differences between the hardcover and paperback versions are? With any other book it would be obvious, but since the work is already multiformat I don't know how the differing price points impact the experience.
That's an odd one and I can't quite make sense of it. In English, as far as I know, there is only one edition - the box, with both paperback and hardcover works inside it.
The 'softcover' listing may be the UK (Johnathan Cape) instead of the US (Pantheon) edition, a foreign language edition, or even a misclassified issue of Acme Novelty Library! But if it is is Building Stories, it will be a box with exactly these formats within, no way around that for the work to stay the work it wants to be.
This is the best comic review ever...
How excessively kind, and kindly excessive! ♥️
You gotta start working on those videos of where you talk about the creators. Numbers gonna pile up😂.
Haha, like Chris Ware? I'm doing well on Ware videos so far, right? 😁
@@ftloc yeah you are doing great on Chris Wares videos. I believe it's the third video on Chris, correct me if I am wrong. I am still waiting for Jiro Tanaguchi video. I also requested for a video on Sarnath and Amruta😁. I have more names on my list😂.
@@comicsdude3166haha yet nobody comes close to Tintin yet! I too have a long list of videos to make .. ah well, I'm not going anywhere 😁
@@ftloc yes take your sweet time👍