How Chris Ware's drawing technique In Building Stories Constructs a particular view or idea of how we understand the world
A Short Introduction
Building Stories is an exceptional graphic novel created by Chris Ware, an American Cartoonist. It comes in a box that contains 14 pieces of graphic novel in pamphlets, booklets, posters, etc. He intentionally made each booklet does not relate to each other. This game board like package is inspired by various artist from the past. One of them is Marcel Duchamp’s Museum in a Box. Ware was motivated to create a dream object that is possible in the real world or in other words a dream that is feasible in the real world which fits well with Building Stories. His books are all handmade since he thinks that drawing in a computer is not intuitive. He wanted to capture the feeling of holding a story in our hands and reading them over and over again.
Marcel Duchamp's Museum in a Box
His Techniques
His techniques involve drawing a building and the story that occurs in the building as a whole package together. The building are drawn using an architectural principle whereas the people are drawn as potato heads with dots as eyes. Besides how he drew the character, he manages to create a realistic scenes with his human subjects which depicts the real world. With its bright primary colors, it features simple cartoon style of drawing, repetitive geometrical shapes and motifs. He captures the environment he is drawing about in detail and drew it in a realistic way.
About The Story
He displayed the story of each tenants that are living in this three stories 98 years old building in Chicago. There is the couple in the second story of the building whose romance is totally dead and in the ground floor lives an elderly land lady which constantly dreams through her memories. The third floor lives a women who is a florist with prosthetic legs and a daughter. In each panel, he drew different activities that they are doing, living their daily life through days, weeks even through seasonal changes. Sometimes he drew a more personal and intimate scenes of the tenants especially of the unnamed women on the third floor who was the main character of Building Stories.
Social Perspective
In my opinion, he successfully shows us as humans transparently without any fabrications. I am keen on his realness through his way of delivering the story to his readers. He shows that life is not always sunshine and happiness but there are some days of storms and that is okay. Even his way of drawing the human figures without any exaggeration which I think is to show that we are just ordinary humans living in this world. Each character’s stories prove that life is like a rolling tire, it has its ups and downs. In people’s facade, they might show the world that they are fine and well but inside what they feel might be different. With how he drew the character’s personal scenes gives us the inside of the characters, their real self. Because people often said that we reveal our real feeling mostly when we are alone and I think Ware captures that statement really well. People have their own issues and struggles in life for example with their relationships with their significant other moreover they have their own way to cope with it.
Although the season changes as well as the people, the building stays the same. The walls still witness their owner’s life changes, ups and downs through time. He shows the relation between our past, our memories and our habits which correlate to each other and it restricts ourselves to what is possible in the present and present a new vision for the future.
Cultural Perspective
It reminds me of the Menzies era which was an era led by Prime Minister Robert Menzies in Australia particularly in the year 1949 until 1966. He believes that the home is a foundation of an Australian way of life, the heart of Australia which I quote “homes material, homes human, homes spiritual [were] the foundation of sanity and sobriety” from his speech titled “The Forgotten People”. I think this statement applies well to Ware’s Building Stories, where the building he drew was the base of his character’s life.
Conclusion
In conclusion, by understanding Chris Ware’s Building Stories we are able to see our world from view different perspectives. , his way of drawing depicts the real world and people. Socially, He gives an insight of the characters life inside their building wall and through that he shows that people have their own problems through their life.
References
Anonymous. (2012). Chris Ware's "Building Stories" Graphic Novel [Image]. Justapoz. https://www.juxtapoz.com/media/k2/galleries/43297/chris_ware_building_stories_13_20121129_1824067416.jpg
Haddad, V. (2016). Chris Ware's Building Stories as deleuzian fabulation, or how and why to read comics affectively. Image Text. http://imagetext.english.ufl.edu/archives/v8_4/haddad/
Hart, H. (2012, September 21). Chris Ware brilliantly bundles “Building Stories” as graphic novel boxed set. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/1681628/chris-ware-brilliantly-bundles-building-stories-as-graphic-novel-boxed-set#6
Kelly, S. (2013, October 11). Chris Ware: 'There is a magic when you read an image that moves in your mind'. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/11/chris-ware-graphic-novelist-interview
Leith, S. (2012, September 21). Building stories by Chris Ware. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/sep/21/building-stories-chris-ware-review
Leith, S. (2019, September 28). ‘I envy writers who suffer from no self‑doubts’: Inside the world of graphic novelist Chris Ware. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/28/i-envy-writers-who-suffer-from-no-self-doubts-inside-the-world-of-graphic-novelist-chris-ware.
Mercier, M. (n.d.). Museum in a box - De ou par Marcel Duchamp [Image]. Motto. http://www.mottodistribution.com/shop/publishers/verlag-der-buchhandlung-walther-konig/duchamp-museum-in-a-box-de-ou-par-marcel-duchamp.html
Stamp, J. (2012, October 18). Designing lives and Building Stories, Chris Ware’s comic book epic. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/designing-lives-and-building-stories-chris-wares-comic-book-epic-81172688/
Thielman, S. (2017, October 12). Chris Ware: Does the world really need another tome about an artist. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/12/chris-ware-does-the-world-really-need-another-tome-about-an-artist
Vitali, M. (2020, January 15). For 30 years, Chris Ware has chronicled the adventures of American misfits. Wttw News. https://news.wttw.com/2020/01/15/30-years-chris-ware-has-chronicled-adventures-american-misfits
Ware, C. (2012). Building Stories. Pantheon Books.
Wolk, D. (2012, October 12). Inside the box. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/books/review/building-stories-by-chris-ware.html
