heb 10

Nikki B.
3-30-05
Heb 10

Research Narrative
So here I am before I have even started researching. Honestly, I am not too excited about this Heb. It is going to be very hard for me to make this interesting.
I guess that I am going to start with researching Chris Ware on Google. It would be pointless to sift through all of the people trying to sell me one of Chris Ware’s books so I am going to search under “Chris Ware critics” and hope for the best.
Well I can say that I hoped, turns out that a few promising links to Yale and the BBC turned out to be useless, and my best result came from a blogger type review called “Poopsheet: Reviews.” The most interesting thing that he had to say about Ware is that he loved his attention to detail, but that is fairly useless. I also found an interview with another comic, Tymothi Godek, that praised Ware and interestingly enough brought up Scott McCloud.
So I just realized that I really have to do this at the library. Maybe I should read directions twice when I start. I probably should select all and delete, but this is a journey right? I like to think of it as a bump in my journey. A bump that I am not really all that enthused about, if I’m not going to lie. So off to the library I go.
Lucky enough for all of those of you who are bored enough to read this, my experience at the library played out more like an Indiana Jones movie than anything else (at least in the beginning). So you can call me Georgia Jones (still a state, but a little more feminine--wow I am a dork).
It started with the long treacherous journey to Memorial Library. I braved my way through the crowds of people and descended Bascom Hill where I was almost backed over by a dump truck. Close call, but that wouldn’t stop me.
Upon entering the mysterious library, which I hoped held my grail of information on Chris Ware, I was questioned by the guardsmen. One must be very careful with these sorts of people, they are unstable and can be easily agitated.
After sneaking past the guard I faced “the gate.” It swung with such a force that it threatened to amputate both of my legs from the thigh down. Don’t worry, I didn’t let such a gate or my clumsiness deter me from my goal.
Now for the real challenge. I faced the computer, which would make or break my mission. I had to decode the system and find out where the information about Chris Ware was hidden. My first combination was to type Chris Ware into the key words search. No luck. I should have know that it couldn’t be that simple. Next I tried “Chris Ware.” This presented a few leads. It looked like I had found exactly what I was looking for with a book by Daniel Raeburn, but then there it was: “Checked out—due back the 12th.” Damn them. I knew that I couldn’t be the only one on this mission. I knew I had to work fast.
After numerous failed attempts, I tried to go back and find something through the databases. Lexus Nexus provided nothing as did everything else that I tried through the databases. I found a few leads that looked promising, but left me disappointed and frustrated.
Finally I lost the ego and asked for a little assistance. Turns out this so called specialist wasn’t so good at her job. I think she was new. She gave me nothing to work with, thus frustrating me more. That meant that I would have to brave it alone.
I’m not going to lie, I thought maybe I could find a shortcut by looking up critics of Chris Ware on Google. Bingo—kind of. I found an amateur website (http://www.pitt.edu/~ync8/i-like-reviews/ware.htm) which had some good links.
One of the links was an awesome info on Chris Ware on CNN.com. It was an article about Ware and his books, including an interview. Beth Nissen provided some interesting information with this article. She talked about how Ware met his father half way through writing “Jimmy Corrigan” and how Jimmy is based off Chris himself. I found it quite interesting. (For the record: http://archives.cnn.com/2000/books/news/10/03/chris-ware/index.html.)
I tried to look up the article up in the journal magazine search, but found nothing. Next I looked at more of the links that I had previously found. I found an article by Fiachra Gibbons wrote another article on Ware. This one was about him winning the Guardian First Book Award. Apparently it is pretty prestigious and comes with £10,000 . (http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,614821,00.html). Once again I thought that maybe I could find a paper copy. It seemed to me that it was a fairly real possibility considering that “The Guardian” is a newspaper, but nope. Once again I was left frustrated.
I looked at my watch. My time had more than run out because this was not my only mission that I was running. Two hours at the library and I had in sight what I was looking for, but it was out of reach. Maybe I’m just not cut out to play Georgia Jones. Somehow I don’t think that she would have left frustrated, annoyed, disheartened, irritated, and empty-handed. But make certain that I may have left empty handed, but not due to a lack of effort.