Empathy is no nonsense, says Chris Ware.
Barcelona"Best, best, best"This is what she said, excitedly, a fan of writer and artist Chris Ware, while he was signing one of his books at the Barcelona Comic Festival. His emotion was captured in a report on the program Martians from TV3 (get it back!) about the visit to Barcelona, a few weeks ago, of the American comic book artist, on the occasion of the opening of the retrospective exhibition about him that can be seen at the CCCB, Drawing is thinkingThis article is, above all, to convey this message: don't miss it. Well, actually, there are two messages: let me add that Chris Ware is a genius.
I write that Ware is a reference in contemporary comics, a renovator of its language, and I feel that's not how I should explain it. I'm not lying: he is, indeed, a reference and a renovator, but these words lack the impact he has on his readers, the closeness he creates with them, and the fascination this provokes in them (in us). Ware has often explained that art and books have been his salvation in times of despair, and one of his wishes is that his books will also be for readers. His first stories were told to him by his grandmother, and, listening to her, he noticed the amount of detail she always included. His books are so full that sometimes I've needed a magnifying glass to make sure I didn't miss any. Ware is so impressively meticulous that it takes him years to finish each comic. When he listened to his grandmother recalling stories, he felt like he was traveling through time. Memories, says Ware, are the only thing that always accompanies us.
He too, as the exhibition curator, Jordi Costa, says, Martians, "He doesn't write autofiction, but the fact that his father abandoned him when he was a baby is the driving force behind it. Jimmy Corrigan, the smartest boy in the world (Reservoir Books), and that he was a child who suffered bullying at the institute, he is obviously behind Rusty Brown (Reservoir Books)". Ware's books challenge us, often through solitary characters, full of humanity. For Ware, empathy is the greatest thing we human beings have. Caring for one another is essential, she told me in an interview I was able to do for All the time in the world (Channel 33). He explained it to me by insisting that saying this shouldn't sound naive or like nonsense. He's absolutely right: claiming that we can be there for each other, that it's better to live connected than disconnected, can't be corny. In the United States, he believes, the lack of empathy is causing real disasters for society, with terrible consequences.
He learned it, empathy, by reading the comic strips of Peanuts, by Charles Schulz. Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and Lucy seemed real to him; he considered them his friends. Once, sad because Charlie Brown never received a Valentine's Day card, he drew one for him and asked his mother to send it to him. What moves me most is that he explained it to me, implying that he, in reality, knew Charlie Brown didn't really exist, but still sent it to him. I think it's a good summary of Chris Ware, this tall man with small, round glasses, who impressed all of us who were able to speak with him with his kindness, humility, and sense of humor. I even started to stutter while interviewing him: all the humanity of his books was sitting right in front of me.
