Chris Ware - Jimmy Corrigan

This is the title page of "Jimmy Corrigan" with the "indicia" which are adapted for every edition.

Chris Ware added the "Mister Jones" doll as an acknowledgment to Dan Clowes: someone who had "cut the weeds" of the "trail" before me. (Ware: Conversations p.77).
https://www.tumblr.com/danielclowesreader/62160316113/mr-jones-and-daniel-clowes

Chris Ware talks about this page in an interview with Ira Glass: There's a part in here from the very beginning of the book, that is not necessarily exemplary of the tone of the book. In fact, it's basically sort of a dumb joke. It has some foul language in it, so I'll apologize here. I'll read it really quickly. The main character, Jimmy Corrigan, is in his mid-thirties, he's just gotten off the phone with his mom, and he's also just gotten a letter in the mail from his dad whom he's never met or talked to before, suggesting that they meet.

"I knew it, I knew it! Corrigan, you know what your problem is?"
"What?"
"You're too nice to 'em, you know that? You're too goddamn nice to 'em."
"Too nice?"
"Exactly, Jimbo. Listen, man: chicks don't dig guys that are nice."
"They don't?"

Chris Ware: "This is embarrassing to read. Actually, somebody said this to me once, when I had a job. (Ware: Conversations p.125-126)

The Jimmy Corrigan book has appeared in three different incarnations. Originally, it was a weekly newspaper serial in NewCity, a free Chicago arts weekly. Years later, Ware serialized it in the form of chapter-sized pamphlets in The Acme Novelty Library, and almost a decade after that he compiled it as one book between hard covers. (in Monographics Chris Ware by Daniel Raeburn, Yale University Press 2004).

Chris Ware: "I thought this story would only last maybe about three months or so, just a few episodes. Because I had absolutely no idea what I was doing at all and I am a terrible writer, it got completely out of hand. It ended up lasting for seven years, wihich is why when you read the book, the first 100 pages or so are completely insensate. It's very poorly written, which i apologize for - I didn't really think of a way to try and fix that, but that's just the way it is. Then I serialized it in a comic book called The Acme Novelty Library in the 1990s, and it was eventually published in hardcover form in 2000 by Random House and Pantheon Books." (Chris Ware: Conversations p.156).