A 13-digit ISBN, 978-3-16-148410-0, as represented by an EAN-13 bar code.

The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a unique^[1][2] numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin,^[3] for the booksellers and stationers W. H. Smith and others in 1966.^[4]

The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO 2108.^[4] (However, the 9-digit SBN code was used in the United Kingdom until 1974.) An SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prepending the digit '0'. Currently, the ISO's TC 46/SC 9 is responsible for the ISBN. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978.^[5]

Since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland EAN-13s.^[6]

Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure; however, this can be rectified later.^[7]

A similar numeric identifier, the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), identifies periodical publications such as magazines.

Overview[link]

An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation (except reprintings) of a book.^[8] The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned after January 1, 2007, and 10 digits long if assigned before 2007. An International Standard Book Number consists of 4 or 5 parts:

The parts of a 10-digit ISBN and the corresponding EAN‑13 and barcode. Note the different check digits in each. The part of the EAN‑13 labeled "EAN" is the Bookland country code.

1. for a 13-digit ISBN, a GS1 prefix: 978 or 979 (indicating the industry; in this case, 978 denotes book publishing)^[9]
2. the group identifier, (language-sharing country group)^[10]
3. the publisher code,^[11]
4. the item number (title of the book),^[11] and
5. a checksum character or check digit.^[11]

The ISBN separates its parts (group, publisher, title and check digit) with either a hyphen or a space. Other than the check digit, no part of the ISBN will have a fixed number of digits.^[12]

ISBN issuance[link]

International Standard Book Numbers issuance is country specific, and is tailored for each country's national goals. In Canada the stated purpose of issuing International Standard Book Numbers for no cost was to encourage Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom and United States apparently the issuing of International Standard Book Numbers has become a profit center for the companies involved. Whether or not any of the profits accrue to the taxpayers is not known.

Australia: In Australia ISBNs are issued by the commercial library services agency Thorpe-Bowker, and prices range from $A40 for a single ISBN (plus a $A55 registration fee for new publishers) through to $2,750 for a block of 1,000 ISBNs.^[13]

Canada: In Canada Library and Archives Canada, a government agency, is the responsible entity, and there is no cost.

United Kingdom and Ireland: In the United Kingdom and Ireland the privately held company, Nielsen Book Services, part of Nielsen Holdings N.V., is the responsible entity, and there is a charge. ISBNs are sold in lots of ten or more.

United States: In the United States the privately held company R. R. Bowker is the responsible entity, and there is a charge, which varies depending upon the number of ISBNs purchased, with prices ranging from $125.00 for a single number.^[14]

Publishers and authors in other countries need to obtain ISBNs from their local ISBN Agency. A directory of ISBN Agencies is available on the International ISBN Agency website.

Group identifier[link]

The group identifier is a 1 to 5 digit number. The single digit group identifiers are: 0 or 1 for English-speaking countries; 2 for French-speaking countries; 3 for German-speaking countries; 4 for Japan; 5 for Russian-speaking countries, 7 for People's Republic of China. An example 5 digit group identifier is 99936, for Bhutan. The allocated group IDs are: 0–5, 600–617, 7, 80–94, 950–989, 9927–9989, and 99901–99967.^[15] Some catalogs include books that were published with no ISBN but add a non-standard number with an as-yet unallocated 5-digit group such as 99985; this practice is not part of the standard. Books published in rare languages typically have longer group identifiers.^[9]

The original standard book number (SBN) had no group identifier, but affixing a zero (0) as prefix to a 9-digit SBN creates a valid 10-digit ISBN. Group identifiers form a prefix code; compare with country calling codes.

Publisher code[link]

The national ISBN agency assigns the publisher number (cf. the category:ISBN agencies); the publisher selects the item number. Generally, a book publisher is not required to assign an ISBN, nor is it necessary for a book to display its number (except in China; see below). However, most book stores only handle ISBN-bearing merchandise.

A listing of all the 628,000 assigned publisher codes is published, and can be ordered in book form (€558, US$915.46). The web site of the ISBN agency does not offer any free method of looking up publisher codes.^[16] Partial lists have been compiled (from library catalogs) for the English-language groups: identifier 0 and identifier 1.

Publishers receive blocks of ISBNs, with larger blocks allotted to publishers expecting to need them; a small publisher may receive ISBNs of one or more digits for the group identifier code, several digits for the publisher, and a single digit for the individual items. Once that block of ISBNs is used, the publisher may receive another block of ISBNs, with a different publisher number. Consequently, a publisher may have different allotted publisher numbers. There also may be more than one group identifier used in a country. This might occur if a popular identifier has used up all of its numbers. The cited list of identifiers shows this has happened in China and in more than a dozen other countries.

By using variable block lengths, a large publisher will have few digits allocated for the publisher number and many digits allocated for titles; likewise countries publishing much will have few allocated digits for the group identifier, and many for the publishers and titles.^[17] Here are some sample ISBN-10 codes, illustrating block length variations.

ISBN	Country or area	Publisher
99921-58-10-7	Qatar	NCCAH, Doha
9971-5-0210-0	Singapore	World Scientific
960-425-059-0	Greece	Sigma Publications
80-902734-1-6	Czech Republic; Slovakia	Taita Publishers
85-359-0277-5	Brazil	Companhia das Letras
1-84356-028-3	English-speaking area	Simon Wallenberg Press
0-684-84328-5	English-speaking area	Scribner
0-8044-2957-X	English-speaking area	Frederick Ungar
0-85131-041-9	English-speaking area	J. A. Allen & Co.
0-943396-04-2	English-speaking area	Willmann–Bell
0-9752298-0-X	English-speaking area	KT Publishing

Pattern[link]

English-language publisher codes follow a systematic pattern, which allows their length to be easily determined, as follows:^[18]

Check digits[link]

A check digit is a form of redundancy check used for error detection, the decimal equivalent of a binary checksum. It consists of a single digit computed from the other digits in the message.

ISBN-10[link]

The 2001 edition of the official manual of the International ISBN Agency says that the ISBN-10 check digit^[19] – which is the last digit of the ten-digit ISBN – must range from 0 to 10 (the symbol X is used instead of 10) and must be such that the sum of all the ten digits, each multiplied by the integer weight, descending from 10 to 1, is a multiple of the number 11. Modular arithmetic is convenient for calculating the check digit using modulus 11. Each of the first nine digits of the ten-digit ISBN – excluding the check digit, itself – is multiplied by a number in a sequence from 10 to 2, and the remainder of the sum, with respect to 11, is computed. The resulting remainder, plus the check digit, must equal 11; therefore, the check digit is 11 minus the remainder of the sum of the products.

For example, the check digit for an ISBN-10 of 0-306-40615-? is calculated as follows:

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \begin{align} s &= (0\times 10) + (3\times 9) + (0\times 8) + (6\times 7) + (4\times 6) + (0\times 5) + (6\times 4) + (1\times 3) + (5\times 2) \\ &= 0 + 27 + 0 + 42 + 24 + 0 + 24 + 3 + 10 \\ &= 130 = 11\times 11 + 9 \end{align}

Thus the remainder is 9, the check digit is 2, and the complete sequence is ISBN 0-306-40615-2.

Formally, the check digit calculation is:

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): (10x_1 + 9x_2 + 8x_3 + 7x_4 + 6x_5 + 5x_6 + 4x_7 + 3x_8 + 2x_9 + x_{10})\mod{11} \equiv 0.

The value Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): x_{10}

required to satisfy this condition might be 10; if so, an 'X' should be used.

The two most common errors in handling an ISBN (e.g., typing or writing it) are an altered digit or the transposition of adjacent digits. The ISBN check digit method ensures that these two errors will always be detected. However, if the error occurs in the publishing house and goes undetected, the book will be issued with an invalid ISBN.^[20]

Alternative calculation[link]

The simplest way to verify an ISBN is to compute a sum of the digits of the ISBN: <source lang="cpp"> // C++ bool is_isbn_valid(char digits[10]) {

   int i, a = 0, b = 0;
   for (i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
       a += digits[i];  // Assumed already converted from ASCII to 0..9
       b += a;
   }
   return b % 11 == 0;

} </source>

The ISBN-10 check-digit can also be calculated in a slightly easier way:

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): x_{10} = ( 1x_1 + 2x_2 + 3x_3 + 4x_4 + 5x_5 + 6x_6 + 7x_7 +8x_8 + 9x_9 )\, \bmod\;11.

This is simply replacing 11 with 0, and each subtraction with its complement: Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): -10 \equiv 1 \mod 11,

etc.

For example, the check digit for an ISBN-10 of 0-306-40615-? is calculated as follows:

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): (1 \times 0 + 2 \times 3 + 3 \times 0 + 4 \times 6 + 5 \times 4 + 6 \times 0 + 7 \times 6 + 8 \times 1 + 9 \times 5) \, \bmod\; 11 = 145 \, \bmod\; 11 = 2

ISBN-13[link]

The 2005 edition of the International ISBN Agency's official manual^[21] covering some ISBNs issued from January 2007, describes how the 13-digit ISBN check digit is calculated.

The calculation of an ISBN-13 check digit begins with the first 12 digits of the thirteen-digit ISBN (thus excluding the check digit itself). Each digit, from left to right, is alternately multiplied by 1 or 3, then those products are summed modulo 10 to give a value ranging from 0 to 9. Subtracted from 10, that leaves a result from 1 to 10. A zero (0) replaces a ten (10), so, in all cases, a single check digit results.

For example, the ISBN-13 check digit of 978-0-306-40615-? is calculated as follows:

s = 9×1 + 7×3 + 8×1 + 0×3 + 3×1 + 0×3 + 6×1 + 4×3 + 0×1 + 6×3 + 1×1 + 5×3
  =   9 +  21 +   8 +   0 +   3 +   0 +   6 +  12 +   0 +  18 +   1 +  15
  = 93
93 / 10 = 9 remainder 3
10 –  3 = 7

Thus, the check digit is 7, and the complete sequence is ISBN 978-0-306-40615-7.

Formally, the ISBN-13 check digit calculation is:

Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): x_{13} = \big(10 - \big(x_1 + 3x_2 + x_3 + 3x_4 + \cdots + x_{11} + 3x_{12}\big) \,\bmod\, 10\big) \,\bmod\, 10.

This check system – similar to the UPC check digit formula – does not catch all errors of adjacent digit transposition. Specifically, if the difference between two adjacent digits is 5, the check digit will not catch their transposition. For instance, the above example allows this situation with the 6 followed by a 1. The correct order contributes 3×6+1×1 = 19 to the sum; while, if the digits are transposed (1 followed by a 6), the contribution of those two digits will be 3×1+1×6 = 9. However, 19 and 9 are congruent modulo 10, and so produce the same, final result: both ISBNs will have a check digit of 7. The ISBN-10 formula uses the prime modulus 11 which avoids this blind spot, but requires more than the digits 0-9 to express the check digit.

Additionally, If you triple the sum of the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th digits and then add them to the remaining digits (1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th), the total will always be divisible by 10 (i.e., end in 0).

<source lang="java"> // Java public static boolean isISBN13Valid(String isbn) {

   int check = 0;
   for (int i = 0; i < 12; i += 2) {
       check += Integer.valueOf(isbn.substring(i, i + 1));
   }
   for (int i = 1; i < 12; i += 2) {
       check += Integer.valueOf(isbn.substring(i, i + 1)) * 3;
   }
   check += Integer.valueOf(isbn.substring(12));
   return check % 10 == 0;

} </source>

<source lang="php"> //PHP function is_isbn_13_valid($n){

   $check = 0;
   for ($i = 0; $i < 13; $i+=2) $check += substr($n, $i, 1);
   for ($i = 1; $i < 12; $i+=2) $check += 3 * substr($n, $i, 1);
   return $check % 10 == 0;

}</source> <source lang="ruby">

1. Ruby

def is_valid_isbn13?(isbn13)

 sum = 0
 13.times { |i| sum += i.modulo(2)==0 ? isbn13[i].to_i : isbn13[i].to_i*3 }
 0 == sum.modulo(10)

end

def isbn13_checksum(isbn12)

 sum = 0
 12.times { |i| sum += i.modulo(2)==0 ? isbn12[i].to_i : isbn12[i].to_i*3 }
 10 - sum.modulo(10)

end</source>

<source lang="python">

1. Python

def is_valid_isbn13(isbn13):

   total = sum([int(num)*weight for num, weight in zip(isbn13, (1,3)*6)])
   ck = 10-(total%10)
   return ck == int(isbn13[-1])

</source>

<source lang="cpp">

1. C/C++

bool is_valid_isbn13(char digits[13]) { int i, check=0; for (i=0; i<13; i+=2) check += digits[i]; for (i=1; i<12; i+=2) check += 3*digits[i]; return check%10==0; } </source>

Errors in usage[link]

Publishers and libraries have varied policies about the use of the ISBN check digit. Publishers sometimes fail to check the correspondence of a book title and its ISBN before publishing it; that failure causes book identification problems for libraries, booksellers, and readers.^[22]

Most libraries and booksellers display the book record for an invalid ISBN issued by the publisher. The Library of Congress catalogue contains books published with invalid ISBNs, which it usually tags with the phrase "Cancelled ISBN".^[23] However, book-ordering systems such as Amazon.com will not search for a book if an invalid ISBN is entered to its search engine.^{[citation needed]}

EAN format used in barcodes, and upgrading[link]

Currently the barcodes on a book's back cover (or inside a mass-market paperback book's front cover) are EAN-13; they may have a separate barcode encoding five digits for the currency and the recommended retail price.^[24] The number "978", the Bookland "country code", is prefixed to the ISBN in the barcode data, and the check digit is recalculated according to the EAN13 formula (modulo 10, 1x and 3x weighting on alternate digits).

Partly because of an expected shortage in certain ISBN categories, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) decided to migrate to a thirteen-digit ISBN (ISBN-13). The process began January 1, 2005 and was planned to conclude January 1, 2007.^[25] As of 2011, all the 13-digit ISBNs begin with 978. As the 978 ISBN supply is exhausted, the 979 prefix will be introduced. This is expected to occur more rapidly outside the United States. Originally, 979 was the Musicland code for musical scores with an ISMN. However, ISMN codes will differ visually as they begin with an "M" letter; the bar code represents the "M" as a zero (0), and for checksum purposes it will count as a 3.

Publisher identification code numbers are unlikely to be the same in the 978 and 979 ISBNs, likewise, there is no guarantee that language area code numbers will be the same. Moreover, the ten-digit ISBN check digit generally is not the same as the thirteen-digit ISBN check digit. Because the EAN/UCC-13 is part of the Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) system (that includes the EAN/UCC-14, the UPC-12, and the EAN-8), it is expected that ISBN-generating software should accommodate fourteen-digit ISBNs.^[26]

Barcode format compatibility is maintained, because (aside from the group breaks) the ISBN-13 barcode format is identical to the EAN barcode format of existing ISBN-10s. So, migration to an EAN-based system allows booksellers the use of a single numbering system for both books and non-book products that is compatible with existing ISBN-based data, with only minimal changes to information technology systems. Hence, many booksellers (e.g., Barnes & Noble) migrated to EAN barcodes as early as March 2005. Although many American and Canadian booksellers were able to read EAN-13 barcodes before 2005, most general retailers could not read them. The upgrading of the UPC barcode system to full EAN-13, in 2005, eased migration to the ISBN-13 in North America. Moreover, by January 2007, most large book publishers added ISBN-13 barcodes alongside the ten-digit ISBN barcodes of books published before January 2007.^[27]

See also[link]

• ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number)
• CODEN (serial publication identifier currently used by libraries; replaced by the ISSN for new works)
• DOI (Digital Object Identifier)
• ESTC (English Short Title Catalogue)
• ETTN (Electronic Textbook Track Number)
• ISAN (International Standard Audiovisual Number)
• ISMN (International Standard Music Number)
• ISWC (International Standard Musical Work Code)
• ISRC (International Standard Recording Code)
• ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)
• ISWN (International Standard Wine Number)
• LCCN (Library of Congress Control Number)
• List of group-0 ISBN publisher codes
• List of group-1 ISBN publisher codes
• OCLC number (Online Computer Library Center number [1])
• Registration authority
• SICI (Serial Item and Contribution Identifier)
• Special:Booksources, Wikipedia's ISBN search page
• VD 16 (Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachbereich erschienenen Drucke des 16. Jahrhunderts)(in English: Bibliography of Books Printed in the German Speaking Countries of the Sixteenth Century)
• VD 17 (Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 17. Jahrhunderts)(in English: Bibliography of Books Printed in the German Speaking Countries of the Seventeenth Century)

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• ISO 2108:2005 at www.iso.org
• ISBN to EAN EAS^{[disambiguation needed ]} EBS^{[disambiguation needed ]} transition at isbn.org
• Description of the ISBN to EAN upgrade process at bookweb.org
• International ISBN Agency—coordinates and supervises the worldwide use of the ISBN system.
• Numerical List of Group Identifiers List of language/region prefixes
• Free conversion tool: ISBN-10 to ISBN-13 & ISBN-13 to ISBN-10 from the ISBN agency. Also shows correct hyphenation & verifies if ISBNs are valid or not.
• RFC 3187 Using International Standard Book Numbers as Uniform Resource Names (URN)
• Implementation guidelinesPDF (51.0 KB) for the 13-digit ISBN code.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2008)

International standards are standards developed by international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use, worldwide. A prominent organisation is the International Organization for Standardization.

International standards may be used either by direct application or by a process of modifying an international standard to suit local conditions. The adoption of international standards results in the creation of equivalent, national standards that are substantially the same as international standards in technical content, but may have (i) editorial differences as to appearance, use of symbols and measurement units, substitution of a point for a comma as the decimal marker, and (ii) differences resulting from conflicts in governmental regulations or industry-specific requirements caused by fundamental climatic, geographical, technological, or infrastructural factors, or the stringency of safety requirements that a given standard authority considers appropriate.

International standards are one way of overcoming technical barriers in international commerce caused by differences among technical regulations and standards developed independently and separately by each nation, national standards organisation, or company. Technical barriers arise when different groups come together, each with a large user base, doing some well established thing that between them is mutually incompatible. Establishing international standards is one way of preventing or overcoming this problem.

See also[link]

• List of technical standard organisations

References[link]

Kakalios at CONvergence

James Kakalios is a physics professor at the University of Minnesota. Known within the scientific community for his work with amorphous semiconductors, granular materials, and 1/f noise, he is known to the general public as the author of the book The Physics of Superheroes, which considers comic book superheroes from the standpoint of fundamental physics.

Kakalios, who earned PhD from the University of Chicago in 1985, began his comic book collection as a graduate student as a way to relieve stress. At Minnesota, he taught a freshman seminar that focused on the physics of superheroes as a way to motivate students to think about physics. This course gained great popularity as an enticing alternative to the typical inclined planes and pulleys of physics.

The seminar was a great success, leading to articles in popular magazines including People, lectures on the subject, and publication of The Physics of Superheroes. In his talks, favorite examples are the death of Gwen Stacy (Spider-Man's girlfriend), "can Superman jump over tall buildings and what does this tell us about Krypton?", the high-velocity actions of The Flash, and the shrinking problem of the Atom.^[1] His analysis of Gwen Stacy's death eventually became integral to the plot of a new Spider-Man comic.^[2]

Kakalios is of the opinion that the most unrealistic aspect of the comic-book universe is often the sociology. He notes that pedestrians don't usually provide running monologues describing everything around them. There is one aspect of the story of the Atom that he does not question, however. The Atom begins as a physics professor, who encounters a chunk of white dwarf star and picks it up. "By a conservative estimate, he is lifting about 5000 metric tons. This is not unreasonable," Kakalios will say at the end of his talk, taking off his glasses before walking offstage. "We physics professors are just that strong."

He provides content on the DVD of the film Watchmen. Under extras, he is filmed discussing the physics of superheroes.

Dr. Kakalios has been nominated by the University of Minnesota to be one of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Nifty Fifty Speakers who will speak about his work and career to middle and high school students in October 2010.^[3]

References[link]

1. ^ "Jim Kakalios:Superhero Science". Inventing Tomorrow. University of Minnesota Institute of Technology. 2002. http://www.it.umn.edu/news/inventing/2002_Spring/superhero.html. Retrieved 2006-07-10. 
2. ^ "NPR: The Physics of Superheroes" (Windows Media). Talk of the Nation. National Public Radio. 2006-09-25. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4851397. Retrieved 2006-07-10. 
3. ^ http://www.usasciencefestival.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=74&Itemid=95 retrieved 2010-03-26

This article about an American physicist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Joe Sacco (born October 2, 1960)^[2] is a Maltese-American comics artist and journalist. He achieved international fame through the 1996 American Book Award-winning Palestine, and his graphic novel on the Bosnian War, Safe Area Goražde.

Biography[link]

Sacco was born in Malta on October 2, 1960. His father was an engineer and his mother was a teacher.^[3] At the age of one, he moved with his family to Australia,^[4] where he spent his childhood until 1972, when they moved to Los Angeles.^[2] He began his journalism career working on the Sunset High School newspaper in Beaverton, Oregon. While journalism was his primary focus, this was also the period of time in which he developed his penchant for humor and satire. He graduated from Sunset High in 1978.

Sacco earned his B.A. in journalism from the University of Oregon in 1981 in three years. He was greatly frustrated with the journalist work that he found at the time, later saying, "[I couldn't find] a job writing very hard-hitting, interesting pieces that would really make some sort of difference."^[4] After being briefly employed by the journal of the National Notary Association, a job which he found "exceedingly, exceedingly boring,"^[3] and several factories, he returned to Malta, his journalist hopes forgotten. "...I sort of decided to forget it and just go the other route, which was basically take my hobby, which has been cartooning, and see if I could make a living out of that," he later told the BBC.^[5]

He began working for a local publisher writing guidebooks.^[4] Returning to his fondness for comics, he wrote a Maltese romance comic named Imħabba Vera ("True Love"), one of the first art-comics in the Maltese language. "Because Malta has no history of comics, comics weren't considered something for kids," he told The Village Voice. "In one case, for example, the girl got pregnant and she went to Holland for an abortion. Malta is a Catholic country where not even divorce is allowed. It was unusual, but it's not like anyone raised a stink about it, because they had no way of judging whether this was appropriate material for comics or not."^[6]

Eventually returning to the United States, by 1985 Sacco had founded a satirical, alternative comics magazine called Portland Permanent Press in Portland, Oregon. When the magazine folded fifteen months later, he took a job at The Comics Journal as the staff news writer.^[7] This job provided the opportunity for him to create another satire: the comic Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy,^[8] a name he took from an overly-complicated children's toy in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

But Sacco was more interested in travelling. In 1988, he left the U.S. again to travel across Europe, a trip which he chronicled in his autobiographical comic Yahoo.^[8] The trip led him towards the ongoing Gulf War (his obsession with which he talks about in Yahoo #2), and in 1991 he found himself nearby to research the work he would eventually publish as Palestine.

The Gulf War segment of Yahoo drew Sacco into a study of Middle Eastern politics, and he traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories to research his first long work. Palestine was a collection of short and long pieces, some depicting Sacco's travels and encounters with Palestinians (and several Israelis), and some dramatizing the stories he was told. It was serialized as a comic book from 1993 to 1995 and then published in several collections, the first of which won an American Book Award in 1996 and sold more than 30,000 copies in the UK.^[9]

Sacco next travelled to Sarajevo and Goražde near the end of the Bosnian War, and produced a series of reports in the same style as Palestine: the comics Safe Area Goražde, The Fixer, and the stories collected in War's End; the financing for which was aided by his winning of the Guggenheim Fellowship in April 2001.^[8][10] Safe Area Goražde won the Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel in 2001.

He has also contributed short pieces of graphic reportage to a variety of magazines, on subjects ranging from war crimes to blues, and was a frequent illustrator of Harvey Pekar's American Splendor. In 2005 he wrote and drew two eight-page comics depicting events in Iraq published in The Guardian. He also contributed a 16-page piece in April 2007's issue of Harper's Magazine, entitled Down! Up! You're in the Iraqi army now. His most recent major journalistic work is Footnotes in Gaza, which investigates two forgotten massacres that took place in Khan Younis and Rafah in November 1956.^[11] Sacco is currently working on a book on poverty in the United States with journalist Chris Hedges.^[12]

Sacco currently lives in Portland, Oregon.^[8]

Bibliography[link]

Comics

• 1988–92: Yahoo #1–6. Collected and published in Notes from a Defeatist (2003), Fantagraphics Books, ISBN 1-56097-510-5.
• 1993–5: Palestine #1–9. Collected and published in Palestine (2001), Fantagraphics Books, ISBN 1-56097-432-X.
• 1994: Spotlight on the Genius that is Joe Sacco. Fantagraphics Books.
• 1997: Christmas with Karadzic, published in Zero Zero #15 (Fantagraphics Books) and later in the collection War's End (2005), Drawn and Quarterly, ISBN 1-56097-510-5.
• 1997: War Junkie, Fantagraphics Books, ISBN 1-56097-170-3.
• 1998: Soba, published in Stories from Bosnia #1 and later in the collection War's End (2005), Drawn and Quarterly, ISBN 1-56097-510-5.
• 1998: Stones, published in Zero Zero #25 (Fantagraphics Books).
• 2008: Oregon, published in State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, Ecco, ISBN 978-0-06-147090-5

Collections

• 2000: Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992–1995. Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 1-56097-470-2
• 2001: Palestine. Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 1-56097-432-X^[13]
• 2003: The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo. Drawn and Quarterly Books. ISBN 1-896597-60-2
• 2003: Notes from a Defeatist. Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 1-56097-510-5
• 2005: War's End: Profiles from Bosnia 1995–96. Drawn and Quarterly. ISBN 1-896597-92-0
• 2006: But I Like It. Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 1-56097-729-9
• 2009: Footnotes in Gaza. Metropolitan Books, ISBN 0-8050-7347-7. Jonathan Cape, ISBN 0-224-07109-2
• 2012: Journalism. Metropolitan Books, ISBN 978-0-8050-9486-2.

Awards[link]

In addition to his 1996 American Book Award, 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship, and 2001 Eisner Award, Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza was nominated for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Graphic Novel award.^[14] Sacco was awarded the 2010 Ridenhour Book Prize for Footnotes in Gaza.^[15]

See also[link]

• New Journalism
• Alternative comics
• List of Eye magazine issues
• @earth

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Fantagraphics Books: Joe Sacco
• Joe Sacco Biography From Fantagraphics
• PDF of first Guardian piece
• PDF of second Guardian piece
• Harpers magazine piece
• An Evening With Joe Sacco in Los Angeles

Interviews[link]

This section includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (November 2009)

• Joe Sacco on Footnotes in Gaza - Interview on the 7th Avenue Project radio show
• Joe Sacco on Palestine - Interview by Al Jazeera English
• Brueghel in Bosnia Interview in L.A. Weekly.
• The Art Of War Interview in Mother Jones.
• Joe Sacco, Man of the World Audio interview on mp3 from The Crown Commission.
• Interview with Joe Sacco - interview on Weekend America
• Interview with Joe Sacco on bdtheque.com for the release of Footnotes in Gaza.
• Eyeglass in Gaza Interview in "The Guardian".

Chris Ware
Born	(1967-12-28) December 28, 1967 (age 44)
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Cartoonist, Letterer, Colorist
Notable works	Acme Novelty Library Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth
Awards	Eisner Award, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2008 Harvey Award, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006 National Cartoonists Society Award, 1999 Guardian First Book Award, 2001 USA Hoi Fellow grant, 2006

Franklin Christenson Ware (born December 28, 1967),^[1] known professionally as Chris Ware, is an American comic book artist and cartoonist, notable for his Acme Novelty Library series and the graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. His works explore themes of social isolation, emotional torment and depression.

Career[link]

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Ware resides in the Chicago area of Illinois.^[2] His earliest published strips appeared in the late 1980s on the comics page of The Daily Texan, the student newspaper of the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to numerous daily strips under different titles, Ware also had a weekly satirical science fiction serial in the paper titled Floyd Farland: Citizen of the Future. This was eventually published in 1988 as a prestige format comic book from Eclipse Publishing, and its publication even led to a brief correspondence between Ware and Timothy Leary. Now embarrassed by the book, which he considers amateurish and naive, Ware is reportedly purchasing and destroying all remaining copies.

While still a sophomore at UT, Ware came to the attention of Art Spiegelman, who invited Ware to contribute to RAW, the influential anthology magazine Spiegelman was co-editing with Françoise Mouly. Ware has acknowledged that being included in the prestigious RAW gave him confidence and inspired him to explore printing techniques and self-publishing. His Fantagraphics series Acme Novelty Library defied comics publishing conventions with every issue. The series featured a combination of new material as well as reprints of work Ware had done for the Texan (such as Quimby the Mouse) and the Chicago weekly paper Newcity. Ware's work appeared originally in Newcity before he moved on to his current "home", the Chicago Reader. Beginning with the 16th issue of the Acme Novelty Library, Ware is self-publishing his work, while maintaining a relationship with Fantagraphics for distribution and storage. This is an interesting return to Ware's early career, when he self-published such books as Lonely Comics and Stories as well as miniature digests of stories based on Quimby the Mouse and an unnamed potato-like creature.

In recent years he has also been involved in editing (and designing) several books and book series, including the new reprint series of Gasoline Alley from Drawn and Quarterly; Walt and Skeezix, the on-going reprint of Krazy Kat by Fantagraphics; and the 13th volume of Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, which is devoted to comics. He was the editor of The Best American Comics 2007, the second installment devoted to comics in the Best American series.

In 2007, Ware curated an exhibition for the Phoenix Art Museum focused on the non-comic work of five contemporary cartoonists. The exhibition, titled "UnInked: Paintings, Sculpture and Graphic Works by Five Cartoonists," ran from April 21 through August 19.^[3] Ware also edited and designed the catalog for the exhibition.

Style[link]

Ware's art reflects early 20th-century American styles of cartooning and graphic design, shifting through formats from traditional comic panels to faux advertisements and cut-out toys. Stylistic influences include advertising graphics from that same era; newspaper strip cartoonists Winsor McCay (Little Nemo in Slumberland) and Frank King (Gasoline Alley);^[4] Charles Schulz's post-WWII strip Peanuts and the cover designs of ragtime-era sheet music. Ware has spoken about finding inspiration in the work of artist Joseph Cornell^[5] and cites Richard McGuire's strip Here as a major influence on his use of non-linear narratives.^[6] Ware has said of his own style:

I arrived at my way of "working" as a way of visually approximating what I feel the tone of fiction to be in prose versus the tone one might use to write biography; I would never do a biographical story using the deliberately synthetic way of cartooning I use to write fiction. I try to use the rules of typography to govern the way that I "draw", which keeps me at a sensible distance from the story as well as being a visual analog to the way we remember and conceptualize the world. I figured out this way of working by learning from and looking at artists I admired and whom I thought came closest to getting at what seemed to me to be the "essence" of comics, which is fundamentally the weird process of reading pictures, not just looking at them. I see the black outlines of cartoons as visual approximations of the way we remember general ideas, and I try to use naturalistic color underneath them to simultaneously suggest a perceptual experience, which I think is more or less the way we actually experience the world as adults; we don't really "see" anymore after a certain age, we spend our time naming and categorizing and identifying and figuring how everything all fits together. Unfortunately, as a result, I guess sometimes readers get a chilled or antiseptic sensation from it, which is certainly not intentional, and is something I admit as a failure, but is also something I can't completely change at the moment.^[7]

Although his precise, geometrical layouts may appear to some to be computer-generated, Ware works almost exclusively with manual drawing tools such as paper and ink, rulers and T-squares. He does, however, sometimes use photocopies and transparencies, and he employs a computer to color his strips.

Recurring characters and stories[link]

Quimby the Mouse[link]

Quimby the Mouse was an early character for Ware and something of a breakthrough. Rendered in the style of an early animation character like Felix the Cat, Quimby the Mouse is perhaps Ware's most autobiographical character. Quimby's relationship with a cat head named Sparky is by turns conflict-ridden and loving, and thus intended to reflect all human relationships. While Quimby exhibits mobility, Sparky remains immobile and helpless, subject to all the indignities Quimby visits upon him. Quimby also acts as a narrator for Ware's reminiscences of his youth, in particular his relationship with his grandmother. Quimby was presented in a series of smaller panels than most comics, almost providing the illusion of motion à la a zoetrope. In fact, Ware once designed a zoetrope to be cut out and constructed by the reader in order to watch a Quimby "silent movie". Ware's ingenuity is neatly shown in this willingness to break from the confines of the page. Quimby the Mouse appears in the logo of a Chicago-based bookstore "Quimby's", although their shared name was originally a coincidence.^[8]

Rusty Brown[link]

Ware's Rusty Brown is ostensibly about an action-figure-collecting manchild and his somewhat-troubled childhood, but which, in Ware's fashion, diverges into multiple storylines about Brown's father's early life in the 1950s as a science fiction writer (Acme Novelty Library #19) and his best friend Chalky White's adult home life.

Building Stories[link]

Ware's Building Stories first appeared as a monthly strip in Nest Magazine. Installments later appeared in a number of publications, including The New Yorker, Kramer's Ergot, and most notably, the Sunday New York Times Magazine. Building Stories appeared weekly in the New York Times Magazine from September 18, 2005 until April 16, 2006. A full chapter was published in Acme Novelty Library, number 18. The entire story will be published as a book by Pantheon in fall 2012.^[9]

The Super-Man[link]

The Super-Man is an antihero who wears a similar caped costume to Superman but also has a domino mask and receding hairline. Ware has said in interviews^{[citation needed]} that he imagines that if the fictional superhero Superman were real, he would be much like Ware's Super-Man.

The Super-Man originally appeared as God in Ware's early work, wreaking vengeance on people who annoyed him. The Super-Man later turned up in Ware's Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth. In one scene, Jimmy sees the Super-Man standing on the cornice of a skyscraper. Seeing Jimmy, he waves, to Jimmy's delight. The Super-Man then crouches as if to take off flying but instead falls to his death.

In a series of strips appearing in the Chicago Reader, the Super-Man is seen walking about naked, eating a live deer, stealing money, killing people who annoy him, gambling, and kidnapping a young girl and living with her in the wild until she grows up, whereupon he impregnates her, grows bored with her and the child, then flies off. He then spends the next several million years in one spot, pondering it all even as the Earth falls away about him. His last thought remains of the girl and his child.

These strips have been compiled and published in 2005 as part of a book, The Acme Novelty Library Final Report to Shareholders and Saturday Afternoon Rainy Day Fun Book. However, they are not listed in the table of contents.

Non-comics work[link]

Ware is an ardent collector of ragtime paraphernalia and occasionally publishes a journal devoted to the music titled The Ragtime Ephemeralist.^[10] He also plays the banjo and piano. The influence of the music and the graphics of its era can be seen in Ware's work, especially in regard to logos and layout. Ware has designed album covers and posters for such ragtime performers as the Et Cetera String Band, Virginia Tichenor, Reginald R. Robinson, the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra and Guido Nielsen.

He has also designed covers and posters for non-ragtime performers such as Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire and 5ive Style. [1] In October 2005 Ware designed the elaborate cover art for Penguin Books' new edition of Voltaire's Candide.

In 2003-04, Ware worked with Ira Glass of This American Life and Chicago historian Tim Samuelson to illustrate and design Lost Buildings about Samuelson and the preservation of Chicago's old buildings, particularly Louis Sullivan's buildings.^[11][12] Originally produced for a live "Lost in America" stage show in 2003, Lost Buildings was later published as a book and DVD.^[13] In 2007-08, he produced animations for the This American Life television series on Showtime^[11] and also contributed to the show as a color consultant. Ware created poster art for Tamara Jenkins' film The Savages (2007).

Mural for 826 Valencia[link]

Dave Eggers commissioned Ware to design the mural for the facade of San Francisco literacy project 826 Valencia.^[14] The mural depicts "the parallel development of humans and their efforts at and motivations for communication, spoken and written."^[15] The 3.9m x 6m mural was applied by artisans to Ware’s specifications.^[14] Describing the work, Ware said "I didn’t want it to make anyone 'feel good', especially in that typically muralistic 'hands across the water' sort of way,"..."I especially wanted it to be something that people living in the neighbourhood could look at day after day and hopefully not tire of too quickly. I really hoped whomever might happen to come across it would find something that showed a respect for their intelligence, and didn’t force-feed them any 'message'."^[14]

Fortune 500 cover[link]

In 2010, Ware designed the cover for Fortune magazine's "Fortune 500" issue, but it was rejected.^[16] Ware had mentioned the work at a panel at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo on April 16, as first noted in an April 20 blog post by Matthew J. Brady.^[17] The cover, featuring the circle-shaped humans common in Ware's more broadly socially satirical comic-strips, turned the numbers 500 into skyscrapers looming over the continental United States. On the roofs, corporate bosses drink, dance, and sun themselves as a helicopter drops a shovelful of money down for them. Below, among signs reading "Credit Default Swap Flea Market," "Greenspan Lube Pro," and "401K Cemetery," a helicopter scoops money out of the US Treasury with a shovel, cars pile up in Detroit, and flag-waving citizens party around a boiling tea kettle in the shape of an elephant. In the Gulf of Mexico, homes are sinking, while hooded prisoners sit in Guantanamo, a "Factory of Exploitation" keeps going in Mexico, China is tossing American dollars into the Pacific, and the roof of bankrupted Greece's Treasury has blown off. A spokesperson for the magazine only said that, as is their practice, they had commissioned a number of possible covers from different artists, including Ware.^[18] Brady wrote in his blog that Ware said at the panel he "accepted the job because it would be like doing the [cover for the] 1929 issue of the magazine".^[17]

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives[link]

In 2011, Ware created the poster for the U.S. release of the 2010 Palme d'Or winning film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul.^[19] Describing the poster, Ware said "I wanted to get at both the transcendent solemnity of the film while keeping some sense of its loose, very unpretentious accessibility... This being a poster, however—and even worse, me not really being a designer—I realized it also had to be somewhat punchy and strange, so as to draw viewers in and pique their curiosity without, hopefully, insulting their intelligence."^[20]

Awards and honors[link]

Over the years his work garnered several awards, including the 1999 National Cartoonists Society's Award for Best Comic Book for Acme Novelty Library.

In addition, Acme Novelty Library won the 1996 and 2000 Eisner Awards for Best Continuing Series, as well as the 2000 Eisner for Best New Graphic Album. Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth won the 2001 Eisner for Best Reprint Graphic Album. In 2008, Ware won the Best Writer/Artist: Drama Eisner for Acme Novelty Library 18. Ware has won the Best Colorist Eisner four times, in 1996, 1998, 2001, and 2006. His publication design has been awarded the Eisner six times, in 1995–1997, 2001–2002, and 2006.

Ware has won the Harvey Award for Best Letterer four times, in 1996, 2000, 2002, and 2006. He has won the Best Colorist Harvey Award in 1996–1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004. He also won the Best Cover Artist Harvey Award in 2000. Ware won the Harvey Award for Excellence in Production/Presentation five consecutive years, from 1995–2000. In addition, Acme Novelty Library won the Best Continuing Series Harvey Award in 1995, and the Best Continuing or Limited Series in 1995–1996. Acme Novelty Library also won the Best Single Issue or Story Harvey Award in 1997 and 2000. The Jimmy Corrigan book won the 2001 Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work. In 2006, Ware was awarded the Harvey for Best Cartoonist.

In 2002, Ware became the first comics artist to be invited to exhibit at Whitney Museum of American Art biennial exhibition.^[21] With Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman, Robert Crumb and Gary Panter, Ware was among the artists honored in the exhibition "Masters of American Comics" at the Jewish Museum in New York City, New York, from September 16, 2006 to January 28, 2007.^[22][23] His work was the subject of solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in 2006 and at the University of Nebraska's Sheldon Museum of Art, in 2007.^[21]

Ware's graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth won the 2001 Guardian First Book Award, the first time a graphic novel has won a major United Kingdom book award.^[24] It also won the prize for best album at the 2003 Angoulême International Comics Festival in France.

In 2006, Ware received a USA Hoi Fellow grant from United States Artists.^[25]

References[link]