3,5 ⭐

el formato y el estilo son !!! increíbles. la historia en sí sin más honestamente. el protagonista es tan increíblemente parado que resulta patético, pobrecito mío. culpa de los padres (como siempre)

When Jimmy Corrigan gets a letter and a plane ticket from his estranged father, he leaves town to meet him...

This was not exactly my cup of tea. It was well written and I liked the art style quite a bit. It's hard for me to get behind a character like Jimmy Corrigan, though. He lets people walk all over him and has no agency, pretty much just reacting to things.

I did like the parallels between Jimmy and his grandfather, though, both dealing with fathers estranged in different ways. Jimmy was sad and awkward and difficult to read about for long stretches.

Also, I'll take this time to mention my pet peeve of cursive writing in comics. It's hard to read and unnecessary. One shot of a character writing in a journal does a good enough job conveying that he's writing in a journal. I don't need forty pages in tiny cursive to tell me that.

I guess my problem with this is the same problem I have with a lot of modern literature. It's well written and the vocabulary, visual in this case, is expansive, but it's just not very much fun to read. I read to be entertained, not to work my ass off on something I'm not enjoying.

I guess I understand why people MIGHT consider this a masterpiece. I, myself not a wholehearted admirer of the graphic novel, am usually very surprised by the narrative techniques and posh styles used in famous graphic novels like "Watchmen", "Maus" &, most recently, "Ghost World". This one is said to "elevate the medium" to another level and it kinda sorta does: like witnessing Jim Carrey going from funnyman to dramatic actor! The story is so droll, boring, sad... did I really need this type of monotony (and even, ironically, with the more than 3000 illustrated scenes which change beautifully in scope, color, emotion, etc.)? It was like watching an Oscar-inclined indie drama with no end in sight...long, yes, beautiful, yes, poignant, well-put-together, even avant-garde. But James's face never changes; neither does the reader's interest peak or descend. Nothing here spoke to me in a blatant, colorful, or (graphic) novel way.

I read this because it's "been hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever to be published." Now, we could all fill a little shelf with the books and films and records that are generally accepted as terrific, but that don't do much for us. Jimmy Corrigan goes on my version of that shelf. I'm glad people like it!