Chris Ware
An Extraordinary Building
Fanzine workshop with Sergi Puyol
Courses and workshops
An extraordinary event—the accidental death of the doorman—moves a community of residents. In this workshop, we’ll create a collective fanzine in which each page captures the train of thought that the incident sparks in each resident as they carry out a daily action. To do so, we draw on the way Chris Ware’s characters talk about human loneliness.
Something extraordinary has happened in a block of flats: the building’s doorman has died. He slipped while cleaning the stairs of a quiet community of 20 apartments. The fall was rather spectacular and had fatal consequences, highlighting the fragility of human beings and the fleeting nature of existence, which gives the residents a lot to think about.
In this workshop, we set out to represent all these interior monologues of the block’s inhabitants as they carry out a simple everyday task or action a week after the events. Snippets of thoughts or streams of consciousness are sparked by this extraordinary event but can branch out into other avenues. To do this, we will take as our basis the way Chris Ware’s characters talk about human loneliness, even though they live surrounded by people, be they family, friends or others. We’ll be analysing some of his pages, looking at examples of narrative techniques and trying to finish a page, albeit schematically. With the creations, we’ll make a fanzine that portrays the thoughts and reflections of all the characters on the same theme.
Participants: Sergi Puyol
This activity is part of Chris Ware, Thinking in Pictures
