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The Acme Novelty Library #21

by Chris Ware

Fragmentary comics with an American cultural frame

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AlbakiReads Editorial

Fragmentary comics with an American cultural frame

The 21st volume of The Acme Novelty Library brings together three separately bound comic books and a foldout newspaper section. Its stories appear here as excerpts from works in progress, including Alice White and The Last Saturday, alongside largely unnamed protagonists. The description connects this fragmentary presentation to questions about American identity, constitutional ideals, cultural decline, and the history of cartooning. The result is a collection whose form is part of its subject: discrete pieces set against a broader, unsettled picture of the country and its popular culture.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in literary comics and experimental collection formats
  • Those curious about Chris Ware’s ongoing Acme Novelty Library series
  • Readers drawn to comics engaging with American culture and cartooning

Themes

American identity and national idealsCultural declineCartooning and popular cultureFragmentary storytelling

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

Artist, writer and ink pundit F. C. Ware returns to the high-stakes, hard-hitting pageantry of the American comic book

This new, unasked-for number of the late 20th century experiment The ACME Novelty Library continues its winning run as the time-tested vehicle for delivering sheer disappointment, disgorging wedges of several in progress stories possibly cogent in their completed forms but here rendered disorienting and dissatisfying as fragmentary, incoherent excerpts. Mirroring the disintegrating nation which coddled both the artist's preadolescent delusions if not the very 20th century fashion for cartooning itself, the 21st volume of The ACME Novelty Library comes of age just in time to stress-test the 250th anniversary of America's ongoing indulgence of humanity's most venal appetites behind a threadbare scrim of lofty and perfidious constitutional ideals. A remedy for those weary of regular stage-four cultural botox injections and a last hurrah for sensitive bipeds who have fallen through the cracks of life and who would prefer to stay home with a booklet of cheerfully colored picture stories, it's what all the kids are talking about.

Three (3) securely bound and unaccountably legible 24-page saddle-stitched comic books accompany a large foldout comic strip newspaper section, the whole conveniently compacted into an attractively designed keepsake folio allowing for easy disposal and/or tindering in the event of sudden societal collapse. Alice White, The Last Saturday, and a cast of unnamed and almost completely unfamiliar protagonists are all here in little hand-drawn boxes to keep you company on that upcoming rainy afternoon when you watch your hopes, dreams and perhaps even your country go up in smoke.

Onboarding everything Mr. Ware and his team of vendors and their internationally-recognized brand have honed for years to esthetic lethality, The ACME Novelty Library 21 is certain to be this season's biggest hit, should the season last long enough.
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Customer reviews

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Malaika Taylor

I highly recommend to for anyone looking for inner clarity

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Thomas DiMassa

Great service and fast service

Great shopping experience! The book arrived quickly, was well packaged, and matched the description perfectly. I would definitely shop with you again

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Olivia

Smooth.