“The graphic memoir (as epitomised by not only Art Spiegelman’s Maus but also Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?) is the most conspicuously mature side of the cartoonists’ art,” says Chris Ware, who has created this cover for the Observer New Review, “an art which is not a genre but a living, ever-expanding language of pictures meant for reading, approximating (I think) how we see and remember ourselves from the inside out.”
Chris Ware is best known for the award-winning Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, believed by many to be the masterpiece of the graphic novel medium. For 18 years he has been a regular contributor of covers and cartoons to the New Yorker. His latest book, Monograph, chronicling his career to date, is out now (Rizzoli £45).