Mad Graphic Novel group review post for July

[Arun Hackett]

Mad Graphic Novel Group : Review of The Smartest Boy on Earth

And so we come to the end of another graphic novel group discussion
and again, it was fantastic. It was lovely to see the return of the
Mad Lab Grand Poobah herself, Hwa Young, who also hosted this group.
In her own words “I started the group in order to discuss this book”.

The book of which she spoke was ‘Jimmy Corrigan – The Smartest Boy on
Earth’, a beautifully designed but extremely dire told story written
by Chris Ware. The book was for the most part appreciated although
some thought the book was “Bobbins” as they found the main character
himself, Jimmy Corrigan, an irritating personality who should just
stand up for himself. This brought up discussion to do with if he
could actually stand up for himself and the role of Jimmy’s mother in
that problem.

Even though some might have disagreed over the story’s subject matter,
there was unanimous agreement that the artwork was stunning. There was
much love expressed for the book cover sleeve, multiple scenes within
the book (which was tricky considering this book has no page numbers
and is somewhat large). This book could be thought of as
architecturally gorgeous as, with Chris Ware’s other books (see the
Acme Novelty Libraries), multiple pages are intricately designed.

The book did have a shorter discussion time that was expected but it
didn’t stop the group from discussing multiple other Mad Graphic Novel
Group subject matters such as agreeing on the film we are going to
watch in a future, more details coming soon….

Tags: Mad_GnG, The Smartest Boy on Earth