If you find yourself depressed yet oddly hopeful reading the New York Times Magazine "Funny Pages" you're probably reading/looking at the work of Chris Ware, the most non-knee-slapping funny-page writer ever. So far, there have been four Ware installments, with alternating themes of loneliness, loss and general pathos for the sweetly sorry human condition. Last week's installment (pictured above) was drawn along an "if these walls could talk" sort of idea, with his neat cursive logging the history of a building by the numbers: 61 broken dinner plates, 886 screams, 217 punches, 28,224 hugs (aw) and 3,312 dreams of dismemberment (ew)(btw the tenants of the top front room seemed to have had the best luck, though I don't know what "21 horses" could mean, exactly); this week's featured one of those sad dreams we've all had where someone gone makes an unexpected reappearance, and for a brief sleepy moment we think we have them again. This one featured fingers clipped off with pliers and stored neatly in a teacup. Hilarious stuff! Yet despite being utterly depressing and evocative of general feelings of woe, Ware's work is still tinged with an odd sense of hope; he and his building (a recurring character unto itself) obviously genuinely love their human inhabitants despite their foibles and failings. I still don't know if I would ever call them "funny" but the pages are unquestionably an inspired addition to the NYT.

The Funny Pages [NYT]
Chris Ware Podcast, with weird opening organ music [NYT]

Update: That podcast is a hilarious bit of weirdness unto itself. Host/NYT contributor John Hodgman is clearly relishing the opportunity to have some fun, including being accompanied on the organ by an obscure dead organist (well, not obscure to people who know about organs). It's definitely a separate person who identifies himself as "I'm Jonathan Colton playing the organ" but I couldn't find a Jonathan Colton at the New York Times and anyhow the coincidence would be a little creepy. So it's obvious that Hodgman is just having some fun, as is further evidenced by his darkly goth take on the NYT HQ:

John H: You've found me once again here in my sanctuary amidst the high attics above the New York Times bulding, above the newsroom, the magazine offices above the bocci courts and the squash courts, the morgue - figuratively, and the morgue, literally is where I dwell... Come with me, won't you as I rise from my wicker armchair and make my way through these passageways and antechambers to the roof of the New York Times building. (beat) Uh, you can come too, John.

John C: Oh -- if that's all right. Thank you.

John H: Yes - just, leave the organ. We won't need it where we're going.

John C: Good, I'm glad. It's heavy.

It's so much more enjoyable because you know they're having fun, even if it is weird goth creepy fun. I would like to know who this "Jonathan Colton" is though; if you know, please do share. In any case, from the podcast we learn that Chris is on deck for 26 installments and that these first few installments were just introduction; going forward, the comic will feature one hour in the life of the building, "24"-style (except that Ware didn't know about "24" when he came up with it: "I guess an idea that has been used in a TV show for years, which I just found out about, though mine won't be anywhere near as interesting or compelling.")

Upshot: 22 more installments at the very least, hour by happy hour in the life of Chris Ware's cheerful, relentlessly optimistic building through his equally upbeat eyes.

Update to the Update, if not the Upshot: We were Googling COLTON not COULTON - there IS a Jonathan Coulton, hip hip hooray! And he has a namesake in the now-deceased co-inventer of the modern opera-house organ! He is also, apparently, hilarious (I now recall reading this about him) and apparently plays guitar and sings at Hodgman's "Little Gray Books" lectures (which I've never attended) and both were apparently at the FishbowlNY launch party (which I would have attended if I'd been writing the blog at the time. Unless there have been other, secret parties since to which I've not been invited). Anyhow, Jonathan Coulton, congratulations on existing, and also on apparently being a talented and funny person!