Jimmy Corrigan's Art: Analysis with the Focus on the Images of Architecture and Detail
Many graphic novels rely on highly stylized, cartoonish images that are vivid, graphic, and bright to move the storyline along throughout the novel. Others use stark, black and white images that are one-dimensional and simple (Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi comes to mind). However, Ware's work is very different, because of the detail he pubs into many of the images, but because of their precision, as well. For example, most of the architectural details of this book, from small houses to the massive Exposition, are created in great detail, with siding, windows, and roof-lines depicted in perfectly measured precision, with no "cartoonish" curved lines or lines that do not meet. They are more like architectural blueprints, ready to guide a builder in creating the buildings themselves. He saves most of this detail for the grandest buildings in C
However, the buildings take on the greatest detail, and so, the greatest importance in this graphic novel. They are drawn to perfect scale, with minute architectural details like moldings, columns, statues, decorations and embellishments, and interiors that help show the real magnitude of the fair. The characters are all rounded; rather pillowy looking shapes that wear insignificant clothing and all tend to look alike. The building of the Exposition seem to jump off the pages of the book, and by using extremely small human figures in the illustrations, he captures the grandeur and immensity of the "White City," and why is was such a momentous undertaking at the time. hicago at the Exposition, but even in houses like Grandma's house, he offers precision and detail that makes it seem as if he had training in other disciplines besides the graphic arts. In the Expositions scenes, the characters' scenes are small, spaced out among the much larger scenes of the buildings themselves, and the details of the characters are minuscule compared to the details of the buildings themselves. There is far less detail in their faces than in their surroundings, and this says a lot about the novel and what the author sees as important elements of this novel. This comes out in other details of the book, as well, such as the trees in one section, and the Great Chicago Fire in another. The people are insignificant in these drawings, they are simply there to indicate the vast numbers of people who visited the far, and the impact it had on their lives, and particularly Jimmy's life, whose grandfather is abandoned at the fair by his father. The most important aspect of these drawings is not just the detail, or the influence the situation had on all the Corrigan's' lives. However, the most amazing element of these images is their precision and attention to detail. The details are in the buildings and surroundings, indicating that the characters' lives are insignificant in the annals of history, and they will not live on, but the architecture will, even if it is no longer standing. The real aspect of the detail of these buildings, and most of the architecture in the novel, is to underscore the insignificance of the characters and their lives.
Common topics in this essay:
White City,
Marjane Satrapi,
,
Chicago Fire,
Chicago Exposition,
buildings themselves,
details book,
details buildings,
architectural details,
images precision,
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Acceptance Essays
