by Chris Ware

Working directly in pen and ink, watercolor, and white-out, Ware has cannily edited out all legally sensitive and personally incriminating material from his private journals, carefully recomposing each page to simulate the appearance of an ordered mind and established aesthetic directive. Phone numbers, references to ex-girlfriends, 'false starts,' and embarrassing experiments with unfamiliar media have been generously excised to present the reader with the most pleasant and colorful sketchbook reading experience available. Ware's frustrated doodles for his book covers, angry personal assaults on friends, half-finished comic strips, lengthy and tiresome fulminations of personal disappointments, as well as his now-beloved drawings of the generally miserable inhabitants of the city of Chicago are found within. All in all, a necessary volume for fans of fine art, water-based media, and personal diatribe.