Jimmy Corrigan The Smartest Kid On Earth Analysis

Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware tells the story of a lonely man who meets his father, grandfather, and adoptive sister for the first time, while also flashing back to events in the grandfather’s youth. The stories of both modern day Jimmy and his grandfather are told less with words and more through the visual portrayal of their many dreams, fantasies, and subconscious responses to events. Non-verbal communication between the characters of the story, specifically Jimmy and his father, is seen throughout the entire narrative. The father-son relationship of Jimmy and his father is central to the narrative, and this relationship is filled with the failure to communicate. Through the interaction of body language and graphic design styles, non-verbal communication is promoted from a useful tool to a fully developed visual language.

Besides for the stolen car, there is very little in the way of exciting action: both Jimmy and his father are shown drinking from paper cups and stammering awkwardly through a boring conversation. There is a lot of attention paid to the realities of everyday language; there are discourse markers, repetition, trailed off sentences, faltering in Jimmy’s voice, coughs and pauses. Many of the panels have only one or two words in them, essentially silent consisting of no dialogue at all. These almost silent panels serve two purposes: first, these panels slow the story down, which compels the reader to experience the awkwardness of the situation, and second, they infer that language is not really about communicating. Trivial details are included in the panels before this sequence, including the sounds that accompany the cooking of bacon, the small talk between a cashier and a customer at a gas station, and the background noise of a radio changing stations. Chatter and sound are everywhere, however connection is nearly