Chris Ware, Quimby the Mouse

It didn’t quite rival the fever-pitch anticipation of Order of the Phoenix, but fans of Chris Ware’s work (Jimmy Corrigan, Acme Novelty Library) have been waiting since the original release date of November 2002 for Quimby the Mouse. Quimby chronicles the life of a long-suffering mouse, drawn in the style of 1920s and 1930s comic strips, like George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, which Ware recently helped bring back to life by redesigning bound reprints. Quimby, like Jimmy Corrigan, is packed full of amazingly complicated graphics, cut-and-paste paper projects, and nostalgic-looking fake advertisements and newspaper columns that should take you the rest of the year to read. And you’ll enjoy every single minute of it.