Rusty Brown

Rusty Brown is a comics series by American cartoonist Chris Ware. The work is an ongoing, multi-part narrative centered on a group of interconnected characters associated with a private school in Omaha, Nebraska, with storylines spanning from childhood into adulthood. Although named for its title character — a socially isolated boy with a fixation on collecting pop-cultural memorabilia — the series expands to follow a wider cast, including Rusty's family, classmates, and teachers, across several decades. The series addresses themes including memory, family relationships, and personal history. It is also noted for Ware's precise page layouts, muted color palettes, and typographic experimentation.^[1]

Rusty Brown began as a series of one-page installments in Chicago alternative weekly newspapers. Ware first introduced the character in Newcity around 1997, and continued the series in the Chicago Reader into the mid-2000s.^[2]

Beginning in the mid-2000s, Ware expanded the project in issues of his anthology comic Acme Novelty Library, including issues #16, #17, #19, and #20 (published between 2005 and 2010). These installments reworked and extended material from the earlier newspaper strips while introducing longer, self-contained narrative sections focused on individual characters.^[3]

The first book-length collection, Rusty Brown, was published by Pantheon Books on September 24, 2019. Marketed as “Part I,” the volume gathers material from Acme Novelty Library alongside newly created and revised sections, presenting the opening portion of a larger, ongoing narrative.

Rusty Brown is a long-form, ongoing narrative centered on a group of interconnected characters originally associated with a private school in Omaha, Nebraska. The story moves between childhood and adulthood, with different sections focusing on individual characters at various stages of their lives.

The opening material follows Rusty Brown as a third-grade student, alongside new arrivals Chalky and Alice White, with the events unfolding over the course of a single school day. From this starting point, the narrative expands to include additional characters connected to the school — Jordan Lint, Joanne Cole, W. K. "Woody" Brown, Mr. Ware — with later sections tracing their lives over extended periods of time.

Rather than following a single linear storyline, the narrative is structured as a series of character-focused episodes. Some sections take place over the course of a single day, while others span decades, covering entire lifetimes. These strands intersect through shared settings and relationships, with events in one character's story often reappearing from another's perspective.

The narrative remains ongoing, with material published across multiple formats and time periods.

• Rusty Brown: The central character. The opening section follows him as a third-grade student at a small private school in Nebraska, where he is frequently bullied by classmates. On a snowy morning, he imagines that he has developed a superpower — enhanced hearing — and adopts the fantasy identity "Ear Man" (though this has no actual effect on his real-world circumstances). He brings a Supergirl action figure to school, hiding it during class, and becomes fixated on it throughout the day. Rusty is repeatedly targeted by classmate Jordan Lint; he retreats into elaborate daydreams involving heroism and rescue scenarios. His friendship with Chalky White develops when the two boys bond awkwardly over their shared interest in toys. In later material from the Rusty Brown series (including earlier newspaper installments and Acme Novelty Library issues), Rusty is depicted as an embittered, socially isolated adult, preoccupied with collecting childhood memorabilia, including action figures, lunchboxes, and novelty drink cups. These episodes depict him seeking out rare collectibles, revisiting past relationships, and organizing his life around his possessions.

• Chalky White: Rusty’s friend from childhood. Chalky is introduced, arriving at the school for his first day, alongside his sister Alice. Much of the opening section follows his attempts to navigate this unfamiliar environment. Chalky observes Rusty’s behavior with curiosity and confusion, and their early interactions center on Rusty's Supergirl figure and their shared interests in toys. In material published outside the 2019 volume, Chalky is depicted in adulthood. He still shares Rusty's early enthusiasm for toys and collectibles (including G.I. Joe action figures) but establishes a conventional adult life, including marriage and parenthood. In one sequence, Chalky composes an annual Christmas letter describing his family life in positive terms; parallel scenes, however, depict his disaffected teen daughter, Brittany, writing in her diary about her dissatisfaction with her home life and relationships.^[4]

• Alice White: Chalky’s older sister, Alice is introduced as a teenage new student arriving at the school with him on their first day. Her storyline is intercut with those of Chalky and Rusty during the opening sequence. At school, she makes new friends but also mocks a biology lab partner in order to impress a cooler group of girls in art class. Jordan Lint also takes an interest in her. A flashback sequence returns to her earlier life in Michigan and to her friendship with Gretchen, whom she misses after the move; the same material suggests tension with Chalky and hints at upheaval in the White family before their arrival in Nebraska.

• W. K. "Woody" Brown: Rusty’s father and an English teacher at the school attended by Rusty and Chalky; the book chapter "William Brown" depicts both his past and present. As a young man, Woody writes a science fiction story, "The Seeing-Eye Dogs of Mars" — about two couples attempting to colonize Mars with the aid of dogs — which is presented in full within the narrative. The chapter then follows his early adulthood, including a failed romantic relationship and a later instance of voyeurism, alongside present-day scenes in which he reflects on his past and considers abandoning his family. A number of scenes include moments where Woody's understanding of events differs from what is shown. In the final scenes, Woody is shown as an older man living with his family. Having shaved his mustache, he removes his glasses and looks at himself in the mirror, seeing only a blurred field of colored dots.^[5]

• Jordan Lint (full name: Jordan Wellington Lint^[6] III):^[7] A classmate who bullies Rusty in childhood. A substantial section of the narrative follows his life from infancy to death. As a child, he witnesses his father physically abusing his mother and is taught racist attitudes by him; his mother later dies while he is still young. After her death and his father’s remarriage, he begins referring to himself as "Jason."^[7] As a teenager, he uses drugs, drops out of school, and pursues a short-lived music career while relying on his father's money. During this time, he is implicated in an incident that leads to the death of a friend — a trauma he returns to repeatedly later in life. As an adult, he works for his father’s business, marries, and has a child, but later becomes involved in religion and begins a series of affairs, leading to the collapse of his marriage. He is also shown engaging in financial misconduct, including embezzlement. As an adult, he encounters Rusty in a grocery store and approaches him as if they were close acquaintances, prompting Rusty to flee. ^[8][5]In later life, Lint continues to struggle with instability and declining health; he ultimately dies alone.^[7]

• Joanne Cole: A teacher at the school attended by Rusty and Chalky, Joanne is the focus of a chapter that follows her life over several decades; she later becomes the school's principal. As an adult, she teaches while living with and caring for her mother in a small apartment. Her routine includes commuting by bus, teaching, and conducting ongoing research in the school library, first using microfiche and later computers. Flashbacks depict her childhood in a poor household, where she helps care for her younger sister and works with her mother cleaning the Lint family home. She continues a long-term research project into a historical lynching in Omaha while participating in church activities and playing the banjo.^[5] In the course of her work, she deals with racism from the school's students, parents, and her colleagues. Her storyline also reveals that, as a teenager, she gave birth to a daughter and placed her for adoption. Near the end of the volume, her daughter, Janice Woods, reenters her life, and the two are reunited. The reunion is prompted by one of Janice’s co-workers, identified as Amy Corrigan, linking the narrative to Ware's Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth.^[7]

• "Mr. Ware": A fictionalized version of Chris Ware who appears as an art instructor at the school. Not presented as a successful, published cartoonist, Mr. Ware is depicted as an "aggressively creepy"^[7] and "pretentious art teacher"^[5] who interacts awkwardly with students. In one scene set during Jordan Lint's adolescence, Mr. Ware smokes marijuana with Jordan and some friends in a parking lot. He also discusses his artistic methods, including his use of hand-drawn dot patterns.