Building Stories #[b]

This oversized, boxed collection assembles Chris Ware's acclaimed narrative experiment in graphic storytelling, presenting the interconnected lives of residents in a Chicago apartment building through a variety of printed formats—including booklets, broadsheets, and a board game. Rather than a traditional sequential read, the unbound components invite readers to explore the story in any order, weaving together themes of memory, loneliness, and the passage of time across the lives of its characters, most notably a young woman navigating her past and present. Originally serialized in various forms, this 2012 Pantheon edition compiles the entirety of Ware's multi-year project into a single, tactile experience that challenges the conventions of the comic medium.