Building Stories, Chris Ware, 2012, Complete Graphic Novel (Box w/14 Items), Fine

Ware, Chris. Building Stories (New York: Pantheon Books, 2012).

English, First Edition, Fine (14 Fine reading materials laid in a Fine box), various bindings laid in a box, 12" x 16 1/2" x 1 1/2" (box; see below for measurements of reading materials), 260 pp. (total pages of all materials contained in box), including illustrations.

ISBN: 9780375424335

Multicolored pictorial paper-covered box containing 14 reading materials, complete. Box has light to moderate rubbing and slight wear to extremities, else clean and intact. Covers, when applicable, of each of the reading materials have slight wear to extremities, else pristine and intact. Pages of each of the reading materials have slight wear to extremities, else pristine and intact. Principally color illustrations (comic panels) with dialogue printed in text bubbles. A unique graphic novel by American cartoonist Chris Ware (b. 1967) presented in the form of a "keepsake" box containing a collection of "14 distinctly discrete books, booklets, magazines, newspapers, and pamphlets" that chronicle the day-to-day happenings of an unnamed adult woman, the protagonist, and those of her neighbors and other characters in her life. As noted on the bottom of the box, readers can find within the collection "virtually any imaginable artistic or poetic taste, from the corrosive sarcasm of youth to the sickening earnestness of maturity--while discovering a protagonist wondering if she'll ever move from the rented close quarters of lonely young adulthood to the mortgaged expanse of love and marriage ... this book is sure to sympathize with the crushing sense of life wasted, opportunities missed and creative dreams dashed which afflict the middle- and upper-class literary public ...." The graphic novel is spread across 14 different reading materials, namely, one bee-themed booklet (7 3/4" x 5 1/2"), one book with pictorial paper-covered boards and backed with gilt paper (9 1/2" x 8 1/2"), one book with green-gray paper-covered boards and backed with beige cloth (12" x 9 1/2"), two oblong folding comic strips (3 3/4" x 7"), one oblong booklet (3" x 9 3/4"), three magazines (two 11" x 8 1/4" and one 12" x 9"), two folding newspapers (9 1/4" x 12 1/2"), one blue cloth-covered folio with illustrations (10 1/2" x 15 3/4"), and two oversize folding newspapers (10 3/4" x 15 3/4").