Building Stories
Building Stories is a 2012 graphic novel by American cartoonist Chris Ware, published by Pantheon Books as a boxed collection of fourteen distinct printed objects—including hardcover and paperback books, pamphlets, a newspaper broadsheet, and a board game—that together comprise a single, non-linear narrative.[1] The work centers on the life of an unnamed protagonist, a woman in her thirties, tracing her experiences from childhood through adulthood and into later years, intertwined with vignettes about the other inhabitants of a three-story Chicago apartment building, such as an elderly landlady, a troubled couple, and even a trapped bee.[2] Ware's narrative explores profound themes of isolation, unfulfilled aspirations, romantic and familial relationships, and the inexorable passage of time, often through everyday domestic scenes rendered with poignant melancholy.[3] His signature style features precise, grid-like panel layouts and intricate architectural details that mirror the characters' constrained lives, emphasizing the medium's potential for innovative storytelling.[4] There is no prescribed reading order, allowing readers to assemble the fragmented pieces like memories, which enhances the work's immersive and reflective quality.[3] Upon its release on October 2, 2012, Building Stories garnered widespread critical acclaim for its ambition and artistry, becoming a landmark in contemporary comics.[1] It won four 2013 Eisner Awards—Best New Graphic Novel, Best Writer/Artist, Best Publication Design, and Best Lettering—often referred to as the "Oscars of comics."[5] The book was also selected as one of The New York Times' top ten books of the year and praised by outlets like The Guardian for its empathetic portrayal of ordinary struggles.[6]Background and Publication
Development and Influences
Chris Ware conceived the initial idea for Building Stories in the early 2000s, drawing from his observations of everyday urban life in Chicago apartment buildings, where he explored how architecture influences personal memories and isolation. The project stemmed from his fascination with the mundane routines and emotional undercurrents of residents in aging structures, evolving from earlier sketches and experiments dating back to art school in the late 1980s but taking shape as a cohesive narrative around the turn of the millennium.[7][8] Key artistic influences shaped the work's fragmented, multi-format structure. Ware cited Marcel Duchamp's Boîte-en-Valise (Box in a Valise, 1935–1941) as a primary inspiration for the boxed presentation, envisioning it as a portable "museum" of stories that invites readers to assemble their own experience, much like Duchamp's miniature replicas of his oeuvre. Similarly, Joseph Cornell's shadow boxes and assemblages informed the thematic fragmentation, with their organized chaos of found objects mirroring the non-linear assembly of memories and lives within an apartment building; Ware has described Cornell's work, such as Ann—In Memory (1954), as capturing the jumbled recall of the past. For the detailed interiors, Ware drew from Richard Scarry's children's books, particularly the cutaway views in The Best Word Book Ever (1963), which depict bustling domestic spaces with labeled elements, influencing his own architectural diagrams that annotate emotional and physical clutter, like "29 broken hearts" or "231 drain clogs."[8][9][10][11][12] The project evolved through serialization in Ware's Acme Novelty Library series, beginning with initial pieces in Nest magazine from 2001 to 2004, followed by issue #16 in 2005, where early installments experimented with non-linear storytelling to reflect the disjointed nature of memory and daily life in a Chicago apartment building set around the year 2000. These pieces, published sporadically through subsequent issues like #18 in 2007, allowed Ware to refine the narrative's experimental grimness, shifting from linear plots to mnemonic complexity that parallels how fragmented recollections build a sense of self. In interviews, Ware has discussed themes of isolation intertwined with personal experiences of depression and strained relationships, portraying the unnamed protagonist's loneliness as a young woman navigating emotional voids in her marriage and motherhood.[13][14][15][7][16]Publishing History
The development of Building Stories spanned a decade from 2002 to 2012, during which Chris Ware worked intermittently on the project alongside other commitments, such as his ongoing Rusty Brown series.[17][18] In 2006, Pantheon Books editor Dan Frank signed Ware to a two-book contract that included Building Stories, following initial sketches and partial story developments.[18] Elements of the work began appearing in serialized form across various publications starting in the early 2000s, with initial pieces in Nest magazine from 2001 to 2004. Further installments appeared in Acme Novelty Library #16 in 2005 and #18 in 2007, which focused on narratives set in a Chicago apartment building and marked a shift from Ware's Rusty Brown serialization.[19][13] Additional contributions appeared in The New Yorker from 2005 to 2011, as well as in The New York Times Magazine during the mid-2000s, allowing Ware to test and refine interconnected story fragments over time.[17][20] A further installment, including the piece "Actual Size," was published in Kramers Ergot #7 in 2008.[21] Prior to the full print release, Ware explored digital formats with the interactive iPad comic Touch Sensitive, released as an in-app purchase through McSweeney's iOS app in September 2011. This 14-page work, co-developed with game studio Spaces of Play, served as a testing ground for touch-based interactive elements and animation in storytelling, influencing aspects of the final project's multimedia approach.[22][23] The complete edition was published by Pantheon Books in October 2012 as a boxed collection of 14 distinct printed items, including books, broadsheets, newspapers, and pamphlets. Final production presented significant challenges due to the diverse formats, requiring careful coordination of printing processes and box assembly to maintain quality and affordability; production manager Andy Hughes managed these demands, including balancing costs for specialized elements like cloth-bound volumes and fold-out sections.[24][1]Format and Contents
Physical Components
Building Stories is packaged as a large cardboard box, approximately 16 by 12 by 2 inches in size, housing 14 unbound printed pieces of varying dimensions and formats, eschewing conventional book binding to emphasize its modular nature. Released in 2012 by Pantheon Books at a list price of $100, the set totals around 260 pages across its components and invites readers to explore the contents in any order, with a pictographic diagram on the box lid suggesting potential placement spots for the items.[1] The 14 distinct items consist of the following:- A 52-page wordless landscape-format booklet depicting panoramic scenes.
- Two double-sided accordion foldouts, each expandable to multiple panels.
- A 24-page comic book titled Branford the Best Bee in the World, styled as a children's tale.[25]
- A 32-page book parodying the Little Golden Books format, titled September 23rd, 2000.
- Two 16-page comic booklets: one centered on the second-floor couple and another on the first-floor landlady.
- A 20-page comic titled Disconnect, presented in a stapled booklet.
- A 52-page cloth-bound hardcover volume replicating the style of Acme Novelty Library #18.
- A foldout newspaper titled The Daily Bee.
- A single large folded poster.
- A four-panel accordion-style board.
- A 20-page broadsheet newspaper.
- A 4-page broadsheet titled Actual Size.