The Comics of Chris Ware: Drawing Is a Way of Thinking

I (David Ball) recently had the good fortune to hear a public lecture on the history of comics by Art Spiegelman, acclaimed author of Maus and in many ways the formative influence on the rise of the contemporary graphic narrative. Laying out the history of the medium and riffing through the luminaries of the comics world, Spiegelman paused over what he called the single greatest example of the vast possibilities for comics in the twenty-first century: Chris Ware's 2007 "Thanksgiving" serial covers for The New Yorker. It confirmed for me what I knew the first time I picked up Chris Ware's work, that here was an artist who had the potential to redefine our understanding of what this medium was capable, with consequences for a whole host of contiguous disciplines. To tell that story demands not a single voice but a chorus, and working with my co-editor (Martha Kuhlman), we assembled a group of contributors from the fields of English, comparative literature, history and art history with interests that reach out into architecture, urbanization, critical race theory, and disability among many others. Our goal was to put together a collection of essays that was as rich and varied as the comics Chris Ware draws, and while this might well have been an impossible task, the resulting volume provides a thoughtful and engaging introduction to Ware's accomplishments and aesthetics. We hope the essays collected here will interest scholars and enthusiasts alike, and that they are the beginning of a much longer conversation about the meaning and import of Chris Ware's comics.