Building Stories by Chris Ware

It's a graphic novel in a box!

Ware, C. (2012) Building Stories. 1^st edn. London & USA: Jonathan Cape/Random House.

Box front

Box back

Building Stories by Chris Ware is a graphic novel. As stated in the photo, there are 14 varying formats of the comic medium inside that are all part of the same collected graphic novel. This is an unusual approach to the presentation of the medium as it's usually within a book or zine format. Building Stories encompasses a range of formats from strips, zines, magazines, newspapers and hardback books. All of which I've tried to photograph below.

This was a quote sticker attached to the packaging which nicely sums up the brilliance of Building Stories.

"Chris Ware's Building Stories is the rarest kind of brilliance; it is simultaneously heartbreaking, hilarious, shockingly intimate and deeply insightful. There isn't a graphic artist alive or dead who has used the form this wonderfully to convey the passage of time, loneliness, longing, frustration or bliss.

It is the reader's choice where and how to begin this monumental work - the only regret you will have in starting it is knowing that it will end." - J. J.Abrams

I will be analysing this graphic novel for my essay, in regards to Ware experimenting with the form of the medium. From first impressions it's more of an unconventional use of physical format as opposed the approach to the composition of the page. However I'll have more to say once I've read the entirety of the material.