Chris Ware- Building Stories

For my final investigation, I research one of Chris Ware’s most famous pieces ‘Building Stories’. This collection arrives in a big, exquisitely produced box, containing 14 different booklets, varying in sixed from around A2 sixed, to a single narrow strip of paper, and a concertina folded pieces, and a couple of mounted on a fabric bounded board. The beauty of this collection is that they can be read in any order, but still able to tell the same story, but from different angles. This collection alone took Ware a decade to complete, compiling of multilayered stories circulating around an unnamed female protagonist, with a missing leg, following her life living in a three story apartment in Chicago, and later follows her life as a mother. The feature female, views herself as a failing artist, who lost the lower half of her left leg in a childhood boating accident She occupies the third floor of a three-story apartment building, with a couple who constantly argue on the second floor and the elderly landlady on the first. Later the story reveals her life as a mother, and how she reflects on her first boyfriend who left her after and an abortion, and feeling frustrated with her current husband. 

Fig 2 Chris Ware Building Stories showing the ‘girl’ in red and the ‘married couple’ on the steps of the building. The top and right of the image show the ‘old lady’ who owns the building, both in the present and in her memories of her younger days.

Fig 3 Chris Ware Building Stories Model

Fig 4 Chris Ware Building Stories

So in response to my research I decided try and create my own paper building model. I found this rather challenging, as I didn’t simply want to create a building from a regular box, I wanted to create an interesting shape, which was difficult, as I still wanted to recreate Ware’s grid like structure, where there isn’t any space left on the page. 

Coloured using Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 

I decided to create a model of a chapel, with a tower in the center, I used black pen to outline the model, and then coloured it in using Photoshop, the colours inspired by one of Chris Ware’s models as shown above.

References 

1. "Building Stories By Chris Ware | Penguinrandomhouse.Com". PenguinRandomhouse.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.
2. Collecting Chris Ware. N.p., 2016. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.
3. Winslow-Yost, Gabriel. "A Triumph Of The Comic-Book Novel". The New York Review of Books. N.p., 2012. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.
4. Collecting Chris Ware. N.p., 2016. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

References

Books

Ware, Chris. Mcsweeney's Quarterly Concern. San Francisco: McSweeney's Quarterly, 2004. Print.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994. Print.

Raeburn, Daniel K. Chris Ware. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004. Print.

Oliveros, Chris. Drawn & Quarterly. Montréal, Quebec: Drawn & Quarterly, 2001. Print.

Websites

"Building Stories By Chris Ware | Penguinrandomhouse.Com". PenguinRandomhouse.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

"Cartoonist Chris Ware Talks About Tragedy And Comics To Aida Edemariam". the Guardian. N.p., 2005. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.

"Chris Ware". Drawn & Quarterly. N.p., 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.

Collecting Chris Ware. N.p., 2016. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

Jacobs, Dale. "Lettering: Visualizing Sound In Comics". Uwindsorcomics.blogspot.co.uk. N.p., 2009. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.

 "Rodolphe Töpffer". lambiek.net. N.p., 2016. Web. 7 Oct. 2016.

Winslow-Yost, Gabriel. "A Triumph Of The Comic-Book Novel". The New York Review of Books. N.p., 2012. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

Wivel, Matthias. "Interview With Chris Ware Part 1 Of 2 « The Comics Journal". Classic.tcj.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.