The ACME Novelty Library #15: The Big Book Of Jokes II [Paperback]

Chris Ware (Author)

Book Description

Series: Acme Novelty Library, 15 | Publication Date: December 2001

Chris Ware's ACME Novelty Library has been the best-selling and most critically-acclaimed alternative comic book throughout the last decade, since its debut in 1993 from Fantagraphics. For the last several years, the series serialized the landmark graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan, collected last year by Pantheon and currently in a third hardcover printing. This new issue, #15, marks the first non-Jimmy Corrigan issue in years. A stand-alone, all-new collection of short humor strips featuring Ware's most popular characters, the issue serves as a perfect introduction to Ware's meticulous work as well as a welcomed follow-up to those craving more after Jimmy Corrigan. This is the first issue of the ACME series to be available to the book trade.

As Chris Ware puts it, "Our new chapbook promises the densest array of foolish quips, gags, and muddle yet. The 'Book of Jokes II' attempts to adhere the broken narratives of favorites like 'Rocket Sam,' 'Big Tex,' 'Quimby the Mouse,' and 'Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth' while introducing new favorites like 'Rusty Brown' and our scientific survey of the world of the future, 'The Tales of Tomorrow.' The volume is printed in full color with special pull-out bonuses, including a painfully complicated cut-out three-dimensional motion picture viewer, and two only slightly less cumbersome flip books. Taller than most bookshelves, this will be one of the first things you throw away the next time you move."

Editorial Reviews

Review

Another installment of the blackly comic wonder....ingenious and deliberately infuriating. -- The List, December 2001

Oh happy day, an all too rare ACME is upon us...without a doubt the single best comics series, probably ever. -- Comics International

Those who have never picked up a copy of Ware's "ACME Novelty Library owe it to themselves to do so. -- Time.com, Andrew D. Arnold, 27 November 2001

[W]ithout a doubt the most beautifully designed piece of comics literature available today....Grade: A+. -- Jim Johnson, Comics Buyer's Guide, 7 December 2001

About the Author

Chris Ware is the author of Jimmy Corrigan and the ongoing comic book series, The ACME Novelty Library, which have led to at least one Harvey, Eisner, Ignatz and Reuben Award each for the cartoonist, making Ware the only person in history to garner all four major cartoon art awards. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Marnie.

Product Details

• Paperback: 32 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (December 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560974753
• ISBN-13: 978-1560974758
• Product Dimensions: 18 x 10.5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,973,047 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, as always., December 11, 2001

By 

Yakov Hadash (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The ACME Novelty Library #15: The Big Book Of Jokes II (Paperback)

Chris Ware is brilliant in every way. Design! Story! Dialogue! Pacing! Layout! Composition! This huge 32-page book (intended to evoke the huge comics sections of yore), printed luxuriantly on yellow-tinted thick paper, includes the serialized exploits of Rusty Brown (collector), Tales From The Future (consumer), and Quimby the Mouse (who has one strip for each season of the year).

Like in Acme #7, the centerfold is a huge Jimmy story (this time it's about Christmas). But there is another centerfold (printed on thick white paper) inside of THAT centerfold, which has a stereoscopic motion picture viewer cutout on one side and a Rusty Brown calendar on the other side. The movie viewer is nearly impossible to put together, but the calendar would make a great wall hanging. As always, the themes are always loss and grief -- but executed through the most brilliant whole-package design comics has seen since Krazy Kat or Flash Gordon. Every element is controlled and used to Ware's advantage.

Appearing in cameo is God/Superman (cover, where he appears as the antithesis of Jimmy), Rocket Sam (2 strips), and Big Tex (one strip). There's also a serious article by Ware, an obituary for his art teacher who died (it's even relevant to the book because he collected like Rusty Brown) which is especially touching because it's not funny or ironic. The cover itself unfolds to become a huge diagram to which I still haven't figured out all the meanings. And the cover is colored by HAND. It's beautiful.

One thing to watch out for is that the front cover has some spots in the white areas -- this was true for every copy at my local comics shop. I think they're all like that. So don't yell at Amazon if your copy is speckled. It's not a big deal, only in one area of the cover.

Notice Ware's cameos: he appears buying the edison rolls from Chalky White, his early book "Floyd Farland" is at Captain Kid's Treasure Trove, and his 6' display is in the small "Putty Gray" comic strip below the movie viewer cutouts.

His next book will be the first chapter in a full-length Rusty Brown novel. In a few years we should see a Chris Ware sketchbook from Germany (Fanta will import it). If you like this one, be sure to seek out Ware's other issues of the Acme Novelty Library at your local quality comics shop or Fantagraphics's web site.

Hint on storing this book: I keep my Acme 15 and 7 sandwiched in between my computer tower and the wall, and it works very well.

-Yakov.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars new collection from the master, December 11, 2001

By 

dan acton (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The ACME Novelty Library #15: The Big Book Of Jokes II (Paperback)

The Jimmy Corrigan saga having culminated in Mr. Ware's gorgeous, haunting, touching graphic novel of last year, the Acme universe expands in this new issue to include the horrid Rusty Brown, and it's wonderful. Unlike most of the other numbers in this series, the unprecedentedly huge #15 is a collection of mostly one or two page comics, comprised of Tales of Tomorrow, Quimby the Mouse, Big Tex, the aforementioned Rusty Brown (an as of yet unsympathetic, spiteful collector of 1970s ephemera), and even a welcome look in on Jimmy Corrigan. It's a given that Ware's books will be endlessly fun to look at from a design standpoint, but there's more to it than even that sizable accomplishment. I always feel alot happier about life in general after reading an Acme. In #15, Mr. Ware is no longer under the more serious demands of the Jimmy Corrigan story, and the comics here have more thematic freedom than the last few issues. The Jimmy Corrigan graphic novel made alot of friends of the format, and I hope that many of these carry over to this new book, to see how wonderful comics can be today.

11 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Treading water? In a turbulent ocean perhaps, January 25, 2002

By 

C. Bijalba "rouge on azgalor" (chicago, il United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The ACME Novelty Library #15: The Big Book Of Jokes II (Paperback)

It's a pity that the first review is one which slights what is simply a continuation of one of the greatest canons of art and literature of the past century.

It bristles me to see it be referred to as heavy-handed. This is much like saying some synphonic music is "too loud" or "too quiet."

Personal tastes aside, there are other errors in that review which cannot benefit anyone. . . comparing Rusty Brown to Jimmy Corrigan because they are both "comic book geeks" is ridiculous. The Jimmy Corrigan serial spanned generations in the same way, but the similarities end there.

How was J. Corrigan a comic book geek? The only thing in that surreal tale which related to a comic book was a bizarre version of a super man. Having read the entirety of C. Ware's work, I can assure you as an unfamiliar reader, that the characters have little or nothing in common.

So, as you should be able to gather on your own, anyone purporting "who needs this" and "its heavy handed" is just displaying their own tastes on their sleeve.

This book is fabulous. The larger format is always better and welcomed. Just that alone puts it way above most "drawn big and reduced" comics, as you are seeing it nearly 1 to 1.

The drawings are perfection. The stories are sentimental and endearing, no matter the protagonist.

The baffling aspect of the first review (o how painful to see such a review of chaff up front) is that it then says "if you'd like to see 'better' go to Dan Clowes' Eightball." Not only is it juvenile, as though there is a magical pyramid somewhere where all comic book writers compete to be the best and to adhere to someone's rather sketchily undefined tastes, but it detracts from one to serve another.

I am aping the first review by stating:
"If you like good things, you'll like this!"

But I will one up it by stating that if you are a fan of the series this is essential because it draws from every character, and if you're not it's a great primer because of the variety.