Rusty Brown

Rusty Brown is a fully interactive, full-color articulation of the time-space interrelationships of three complete consciousnesses in the first half of a single Midwestern American day and the tiny piece of human grit about which they involuntarily orbit. A sprawling, special snowflake accumulation of the biggest themes and the smallest moments of life, Rusty Brown literately and literally aims at nothing less than the coalescence of one half of all of existence into a single museum-quality picture story. From childhood to old age, no frozen plotline is left unthawed in the entangled stories of a child who awakens without superpowers, a teen who matures into a paternal despot, a father who stores his emotional regrets on the surface of Mars and a late-middle-aged woman who seeks the love of only one other person on planet Earth.

“Remarkable. . . . Masterfully illustrated, brilliantly designed, and bursting with compassion. . . . This is without a doubt one of the most exciting releases of the year.” —Library Journal (starred review and Editor’s Pick)

“Chris Ware’s new work, Rusty Brown is being hailed as a graphic novel “event”—and rightfully so. This meticulously crafted, 18-years-in-the-making story tackles grand themes and everyday mundanity against the backdrop of an Omaha parochial school in the 1970s.” —Chicago Tribune

“Ware is well known for his expansive, introspective, depth-plumbing works of graphic fiction, and his latest, featuring a series of interconnected, decade-spanning narratives spiraling outward from an Omaha school, is no different. . . . There are only brief moments of warmth and affection, but the wider picture, depicting a complex matrix of aching loneliness; long-simmering, acidic resentment; and a desperation for human connection and fulfillment, is rich with pathos and powerfully stirring.” —Booklist (starred review)

“Ware delivers an astounding graphic novel about nothing less than the nature of life and time as it charts the intersecting lives of characters that revolve around an Omaha, Neb., parochial school in the 1970s. . . . Ware again displays his virtuosic ability to locate the extraordinary within the ordinary, elevating seemingly normal lives into something profound, unforgettable, and true.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Ware fans rejoice. . . . Curious and compelling. . . . As with Ware’s other works of graphic art, the narrative arc wobbles into backstory and tangent: Each page is a bustle of small and large frames, sometimes telling several stories at once in the way that things buzz around us all the time, demanding notice. . . . A beguiling masterwork of visual storytelling from the George Herriman of his time.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
 
“Nearly two decades in the making, Ware’s latest book, Rusty Brown . . . is shaping up to be Ware’s epic, a kind of comic-book Ulysses full of unreliable narrators and occasional forays into stream of consciousness. Take that, Stan Lee.” —Esquire