Rusty Brown no es solo un libro: es la conjugación, plenamente interactiva y a todo color, de las relaciones espacio-temporales que tres conciencias independientes mantienen, durante la primera parte de un día y en un pequeño municipio del Medio Oeste de los Estados Unidos de América, con el ínfimo y corajudo ser humano alrededor del cual pivotan involuntariamente.

En resumidas cuentas, Rusty Brown es un copo de nieve muy particular que, pese a flotar a la deriva, aglutina los momentos más grandes y más pequeños de la vida, un artefacto que aspira literaria y literalmente a nada menos que a fraguar la mitad de una existencia en una sola historia dibujada con una calidad digna de museo y dispuesta con mano experta para que nos represente la noción de la experiencia de la manera más inefable y empática posible tanto a los lectores ávidos de nuevas vivencias como a los incondicionales de la realidad más cotidiana.

De la infancia a la senectud, no hay trama vital en este volumen en la que el cálido manto del deshielo no se haya posado, pues veremos en él las entrelazadas andanzas de un niño que emprende sus jornadas sin superpoderes, un adolescente que al madurar se tornará un progenitor despótico, un padre que almacena sus capitulaciones emocionales en la superficie de Marte y una mujer que afronta los primeros síntomas de la vejez buscando el amor de alguien que puede estar en cualquier rincón del planeta Tierra.

First part of Rusty Brown by Chris Ware, full colour intricate drawings, tiny writing. Mainly about three children struggling with school life in a modern snowy American setting, and some description of the teachers and guardians. At the back is a short introduction to some other characters who seem to be living in the same apartment block. With nearly all the characters, the reader can see their inner thoughts. ( )

Another astonishing title from Chris Ware, one of the handful of real geniuses working in the medium of graphic novels today. While thematically similar to Jimmy Corrigan, Ware's earlier and longer work in the same medium, The ACME Novelty Library #16 is perhaps even more melancholy. Ware's technique is familiar to anyone who has read Jimmy Corrigan, in that he weaves together the separate story lines of several characters who are all living diminished lives, full of regret and loss. Nonetheless, as with Jimmy Corrigan, there is a note of hopefulness here, a sense that these unhappy lives can be salvaged if these wounded characters can just learn to acknowledge and communicate with each other. This sort of emotionally charged narrative can be fraught with mushiness, silliness, and simple mindedness, but Ware is talented enough and sure enough in his aim to hit the target without bringing along the detritus so familiar from similar tales born of lessor creators. Taken altogether, The ACME Novelty Library #16 is another triumph for the hugely talented Ware. ( )

Those of you who have been holding your breath waiting for Chris Ware’s next great graphic novel can release at least a tiny puff of oxygen. He’s back in fine fettle with a new volume of contemporary angst in the signature pen-and-pastel world he’s created over the years.

While The Acme Novelty Library No. 16 may not be as full and complete as Ware’s earlier masterpiece from 2000, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, it’s at least a satisfying hors d'oeuvre until the main meal arrives. If nothing else, it’s more tantalizing and thought-provoking than the majority of contemporary novels out there, graphic or otherwise.

In the time since Jimmy Corrigan came out, Ware hasn't released very much new material. Instead, Fantagraphics Books has been issuing collections of his "Acme Novelty Library" compendiums from the series of the 1990s, which include short vignettes about baby boomers mulling over their troubled childhoods, short gag strips, and complex, intricately-worded advertisements which graphically and textually resemble pages from the Sears and Roebuck catalogs of the early 20th century.

This is all well and good, but what die-hard fans really long for is something meaty like Jimmy Corrigan, a deep probe into worlds normally described by the likes of Raymond Carver or John Updike. In an earlier review, I wrote that the 380-page book contains vivid passages of "pain, desire, hope, humiliation and the sweet surprise of forgiveness and reconciliation."

Though smaller in scope and page-length, The Acme Novelty Library No. 16 follows similar suit. The graphic novel is more like a novella with a couple of short stories.

The main narrative follows Rusty Brown, a fat grade-schooler with a halo of orange hair, and his terminally-depressed father, Woody Brown, a schoolteacher who is "sleeping through his life" in Omaha, Nebraska.

On the surface, nothing much "happens" in "Rusty Brown"—the kid and his father go to school where they are separately picked on by bullies and plagued by suicidal thoughts. But scratch beneath the pastel exterior of Ware's world and you'll find a universe of raw emotion. This is literature in its finest hour. I just wish the hour weren't so short.

Running simultaneously with Rusty's story, along the bottom of the page we see Alice White and her little brother Chalky getting ready for their first day at a new school which turns out to be the one where Woody and Rusty are already having their bad days. Eventually, the lives of the characters intersect and nearly connect. The rest of their story will have to wait for the full-length version of "Rusty Brown," I suppose.

The Acme Novelty Library No. 16 also contains a one-page episode of a stick-figure version of Ware himself babysitting his daughter while fretting over whether or not readers will appreciate his metaphors and allusions.

And, oh yeah, there's a brief treatise on the life cycle of snowflakes. This is a mixed stew of ingredients, but Ware brings everything to a full, delicious simmer.

The final pages are further proof of Ware's talent as he illustrates the lives of tenants in an apartment building. The entire section is done with nothing more than cutaway diagrams and wordless panels showing the residents going about their daily routines. And yet, his pictures really are worth a thousand words. There are few better chroniclers of contemporary American life than Chris Ware. ( )