The Acme Novelty Library Vol. 20: Lint

by Chris Ware

It's pretty easy to understand why this latest entry in Ware's Acme Novelty series would end up on so many reviewers' "Best of 2010" lists, as it's an absolutely brilliant piece of work, but it's also a brutally sad read.

Lint tells the story of Jordan (Jason) Lint, from his birth to his death, in one page installments.  Jordan's mom died when he was young.  He was a pain in the ass at school.  He didn't get along with his dad.  He cheated on girlfriends and wives.  He failed at entering the music industry.  He got involved in some shady business practices at his father's company.  He cheated some more.  He got old.  With almost every new chapter, we start to think of this guy as more and more of a creep, but I found myself also hoping that he might finally turn himself around and become a nicer person.

What makes the book so interesting is the way in which Ware keeps surprising us in the selectivity of what he chooses to reveal.  We think that we are seeing Lint's whole story, but then something happens to make us realize that while we've seen some of his most intimate moments, we have no idea what this guy is capable of.  The scene where he starts to read from his son's memoir where it describes an incident when his son was small was a shock.

As usual with a piece of Ware's work, the page design in this book is stunning.  He has an ability to break pages into sections that, while they defy the usual flow and format of a comics page, are intuitively easy to follow.  I love the dissonance he sets up in this book, caused by portraying a person who is spiritually bereft and ugly with such beautiful art and design.  This is an amazing piece of work - go read it.