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Quimby the Mouse is a large-format (11" x 14") collection of tiny, tiny comic strips (the average panel size is about a half-inch square), many of which star Ware's Mickey-esque mouse, Quimby, or a pair of unnamed siamese twin mice. Most of the strips are wordless pantomimes drawn in a cartoony style, but the cartoony style belies the sad, angst-ridden nature of the stories. Also, as usual, Ware experiments with form in this book, and the layout of many of the strips are more complex than the standard left-to-right, top-to-bottom way of reading. Jimmy Corrigan also shows up in a few strips (but he's not necessarily the same Jimmy Corrigan from the eponymous book).

Of Ware's ACME Novelty Library collections, Quimby is probably my least favorite. The pantomime stories can be startlingly effective one at a time, but a book full of them lessens their impact. Still, for the stalwart Chris Ware fan, Quimby is well worth a look.

Amazing. Some of Chris Ware's best work. Watch his modern take on "Krazy Kat" evolve before your eyes.

A miscellany of loneliness and misery. It is PERFECT.

There's plenty of weird cartoony goofs and gags in this book. But if you read all of Ware's introduction (in all its ridiculously tiny font glory), the Quimby strips will hit different. In the middle of all the goofs and gaffes there's an unmistakable and tragic existential wrestle in this book with the loss of the past, with the death of Ware's beloved grandmother. It's stunning to see the medium of comics put to this use.

Its visual aesthetic is brilliant, but the content is pretty hit-or-miss.

This comic strip is ingenious and worth savoring and revisiting like melancholy poetry. I appreciate the content which reflects a lot of adult angst about death, sex, and finding meaning. And then the design of each comic is so rich with frames blossoming from the center or narratives intersecting each other like crossword puzzles- absolutely fascinating. In one of the comics Ware draws the history of some of the background objects in the frame surrounding the subject.

In my exploration of graphic design and information display I have been really inspired by Chris Ware's sense for symbolic language as many comics don't have much text but are absolutely comprehensible and generally rather sad.

Take my cat head—please.

this review first appeared on [http://intraspace.blogspot.com]

as you can see, the library had more than just one chris ware book - i found this one on a different floor to the graphic novels in amongst the books on illustration (i found 'in the shadow of no towers' by Spiegelman up there once too), so i got it as well.

so now, if you have already read the review of 'the acme novelty library' i just did, then you'll be asking yourself, "hang on, i thought he found ware a little bit too depressing." and you'd have a point, but i am so attracted by his artwork and book design that i can't help it, and i'm happy to annouce that quimby the mouse didn't leave me feeling quite so depressed. but it still has sadness in shovel-loads and my earlier comments still stand.

nonetheless, to reinforce my main opinion on ware - overall this is an astonishing piece of work. not least of all if you are just wanting to check out brilliant artwork - ware has an amazing ability to use both minimalism and pain-staking detail to striking effect.

this volume is a kind of survey of his early work (early 90s). the book looks back on two levels - 1. because it is a retrospective, and 2. because so much of ware's work seems to be dealing with his own childhood and past. but despite being a retrospective, it doesn't seem 'juvenile' at all, which shows that ware's been brilliant for ages.

I liked it for the graphics. But I must confesse I expected more of this. This book is a collection of diferente soties which the main character is a mouse, Quimby the mouse, which I belive the author identifies with through the book. I'm not sure if it's a real compillation or something made up to simulate it. Anyway, besides most stories are not so funny as they assume to be, the themes too are not very relevant or interesting except perhaps the one that accompanies most of the book and tells the story of the relashionship of the author with his grand-mother and reflects a kind of nostalgic of the past and the authors infancy.
The Big flaw of the book in my opinion is that even if this book format is uge, some of the stories graphics and text are so tiny that I just couldn't read them!

Everything I have read of Chris Ware before this has had almost my full admiration and attention (5* every time).

If I hadn't read Ware before this, I probably would have disliked this.

At the time of writing these, I think he was too close emotionally to the life incident he mentions in the introduction to make balanced cartoons. To me they seem more of a rage at death, than a tribute to the life it took. They all just seem so frustrated and cynical. Quimby's head falls off every time. And the narrative is closed off from exploring these emotions through illustrations. It's like when someone tells you 'I just am' when you ask them to explain how and why they are feeling a certain way.

A few strips were trickier than his recent work to follow, and clearly the roots of his current style are here, with less coherence and human feeling.

I got enjoyment by seeing this as the development of a writer whose work I adore, but as for the work itself, not so much.

I'm kindof over Chris Ware's stories, but the art, as usual is excellent and humbling to a fellow man of the pen.

I wish he could bring himself to publish his stuff in softcover everything. And to be honest, he doesn't need the unique size/format to be creative. But damn, there is some great stuff in here.