Chris Ware Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“There is absolutely no single aspect of one's personality that is more important to develop than empathy, which is not a skill at which men typically are asked to excel. I believe empathy is not only the core of art, literature and music, but should also be at the core of society, from ethics to economics.”
-- Chris Ware -
“I'm only trying to present as honest a portrayal of the grimness of human ambition as I can. I'd hope it's rather uplifting, actually, since I find the sort of blind optimism and empty laughter of a great deal of "contemporary culture" to be more depressing than something that admits to a potential for disappointment and a gnawing sense of existential mockery.”
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“I don't think of myself as an illustrator. I think of myself as a cartoonist. I write the story with pictures - I don't illustrate the story with the pictures.”
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“The modern world seems to make fun of people in a lot of ways.”
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“Whereas in a memory you edit things out and sort of restructure the things to seem a little bit more heroic, or to focus on particular aspects that magnify or reduce certain things.”
-- Chris Ware -
“There's a rhythm to the words combined with the pictures [in a comic]. Whenever I'm working on a comic strip I re-read it, probably hundreds of times through to pay attention to how all of those things work. Sometimes even changing the angle of a character's eyebrow can really, seriously alter the effect and overall interpretation of a scene. And the insertion of a pause or a cough or a sniff, and all these things that we do in conversation, can bring it to life in a strange way.”
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“Comic strip is almost like music on a page that you perform in your mind. It's not just pictures. There's a particular rhythm and structure to it that is unlike anything else. It literally is like music. You hear it in your mind as you read it.”
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“There is something about the medium [in comics] that allows for a simulation of actual experience with the added benefit of actually reading. You're reading pictures, but you are also looking at them. It's a sort of combined activity that I can't really think of any other medium having, other than, say, a foreign film when you are reading and seeing. It allows for all sorts of associations that might not come up with just words or just pictures.”
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“Comics is different than writing because when you draw something you are trying to visualize it and you are trying to put yourself in that space. And when you're drawing something, all sorts of associations come up in my mind that I never would have thought of otherwise.”
-- Chris Ware -
“Fortunately, I'm able to make a living from comics, so I'm privileged enough to be quite choosy, though most cartoonists can't afford to be. It's really an uncomfortable situation, since I'm not an illustrator, though I do get calls from morally indefensible businesses offering me money to decorate their ambitions. It's extremely rare, almost unheard of, in fact, that I am asked to do a comic strip. Do writers get calls to pen Toyota advertisements? Do composers get asked to write chamber pieces about exercise machines?”
-- Chris Ware -
“I was used to being disliked as a kid. Not that I didn't deserve it: I was a pretty sad and unappealing creature, and still am, I guess. It's sort of simplistic to think that one tries to make stuff that accounts for one's repulsiveness as a person, but there's some truth to it. So, when I read something unfavorable, I always take it deeply personally. It's as if my efforts have been in vain, and I should just quit.”
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“I don't trust art that promises a 24-hour joyride. In fact, there seems to be a modern sense of entitlement for such constant "ups," which is a repugnant attitude any way one chooses to look at it. I definitely believe in the possibility of happiness, though; it's just something that I think, rightfully, is rare in its genuine form, and that it can't be counterfeited.”
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“"Real" drawing is about specifics. It's about describing an object as accurately as possible. In a comic strip you have to draw a picture of the idea of the object. You have to draw the word that you are picturing, then you have to mix in specifics with it for it to work as a story. But you are still working with drawn words.”
-- Chris Ware -
“I don't think there's any independent cartoonist whose stuff I don't like or respect in at least some way or another. We're all marginal laborers - we're practically medical oddities - so I don't see why we can't all be nice to each other.”
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“Drawing on a computer doesn't make any sense to me. It's not intuitive.”
-- Chris Ware -
“Cartoons are not real drawings, because they are drawings intended to be read.”
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“A book sometimes seems to impose a through-line to life that real life doesn't actually have.”
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“I believe that the development of language - of naming, categorization, conceptualization - destroys our ability to see as we age.”
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“Sometimes I get worried I'm getting too caught up in the nauseatingly oily smoothness of my own line, when all I'm trying to do is make it as clear as possible.”
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“No one blames themselves if they don't understand a cartoon, as they might with a painting or "real" art; they simply think it's a bad cartoon.”
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“I had a messy signature as a child, and my grandmother said this suggested I had no regard for other people. She was right.”
-- Chris Ware -
“My head looks like an uncooked ham with glasses.”
-- Chris Ware -
“My mother was always encouraging about my wanting to be an artist.”
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“One of the things that appealed to me most about comics was that you can pick the ones you like and build your own personal pantheon.”
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“The real power of comics is writing as you draw.”
-- Chris Ware -
“Well, there are better cartoonists now than there ever have been. I firmly believe that. There's some amazing work being done.”
-- Chris Ware -
“As children, as we learn what things are, we are slowly learning to dismiss them visually. As adults, entirely submerged in words and concepts, we spend almost all of our time thinking and worrying about the past and the future, hardly ever looking at or engaging with the world visually.”
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“I can definitely say that of all my friends who I consider to be really great cartoonists, we're all trying to aim at basically the same thing, which is an ever closer representation of what it feels like to be alive.”
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“I guess I just don't like being physically in front of people I don't know very well, because I expect to be "seen through," or, even worse, instantly hated.”
-- Chris Ware -
“The thing I like most about books is that anybody can afford them. They have an innate valuelessness.”
-- Chris Ware
