indefinite articles

I begin this entry of my travelogue with the realization that two things must be true about Chris Ware.

1. He loves the ladies.
2. The ladies don’t love him.

These observations are not meant to be condescending or funny – well okay, maybe just a little funny – but are meant to provide some ounce of rationale that would explain the constant torment endured by the protagonists in Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth!

The title of this graphic novel is a bit misleading: ‘Jimmy’ is actually three characters – a boy growing up during the reconstruction era in Chicago, his eventual son who abandoned his wife and child, and the abandoned grandson, who, until his mid-thirties, never knew his father. Binding one to another, aside from the obvious genetic connection and namesake, are their misfortunes with the fairer sex, which culminate and reach their most disastrous consequences with the junior of this trio.

Ware records odd details of bra and panty lines repeatedly in Jimmy Corrigan, almost sinister when compared to the usual sexist depictions of women in comics.

Jimmy the third is emotionally stunted. His social ineptitude flares up like a wildfire when in the presence of a woman, paralyzing him with anxiety. If possible, Jimmy has become the receptacle for all the emotional trash of his lovelorn elders. The product of which is a fear-based avoidance of and stuttering interactions with the opposite sex. Jimmy calculates his moves carefully for fear of being caught, knowing that with his salacious emotions he is violating someone’s privacy. Jimmy is a voyeur - at every turn, he sees the subtle outline of a woman’s bra or panties as they tug slightly on her skin, the fabric of her blouse or skirt fall into the tiny, yet significant recesses.

Even the slightest indication of a woman’s sexuality paralyzes the youngest Jimmy Corrigan.”

It is within these spaces, between the fabric and the linear depressions, that Jimmy allows himself to be happy. He talks to the woman. He makes the woman laugh. He beds the woman. He marries the woman. He has kids with the woman. He loves the woman. But just as quickly as his mind takes him to this fantastical storybook ending, his reality catches him in his masturbatory act. Embarrassed and rattled, Jimmy tries his best to simulate a genuine reaction to his surroundings or company, never really hitting the mark. Only with one woman is Jimmy able to interact with a semblance of his true personality: his mother, who is mostly absent from novel.

Jimmy is both burdened and dependent on his mother. He has become a martyr in his own mind, sacrificing his happiness and chance at love in order to “take care” of his aging matriarch. But what is construed as a loyal and noble act is actually a self-serving means of protection, leading Jimmy to deceive his mother when he goes to meet his biological father for the first time, fearing retribution for his act of betrayal. At the same time, his mom is the only womanly love Jimmy has ever known. To distance himself from her would be to forsake the only validation in his life.

Well, as many hopeless romantics know, relationships are a two-way street, and as Jimmy finds out, moms are no exception. What will Jimmy do when he finds out that his mother has found love in her retirement home and will be getting married? His entire life, he has felt responsible for her happiness — what does he do now that he is utterly insignificant? Who will call him? Who will he talk to? Well, there really is only one person (or persons) that can validate Jimmy, and that’s a woman.

Women are the source of joy, anxiety, fear, humiliation, frustration, and anger in this story, and sometimes in that order. It is for this reason that I take Jimmy as a warning sign – like ‘Slippery When Wet’ or ‘Falling Rocks’ – rather than a compass when navigating through the mysterious back road that is Woman.

Next Week: Quimby the Mouse, Ware’s metaphysical parody of cat-and-mouse comics.