The uncontested king of the genre in the United States, the 53-year-old was all but guaranteed to one day win the French award, which celebrates an entire career, having been runner-up for the past three years.
France is one of the most avid comic-consuming nations in the world, and the Angouleme International Comics Festival is widely seen as the industry’s most illustrious event.
It is usually held in January but was postponed due to the pandemic. With restrictions still in place for a few more weeks in France, the festival was unable to go ahead physically.
Ware, author of “Jimmy Corrigan: the Smartest Kid on Earth”, based on his own Midwestern upbringing, accepted his award from the US.
He joins a trio of past US winners – Art Spiegelman (“Maus”), Bill Watterson (“Calvin and Hobbes”) and Richard Corben (fantasy comics).
‘Tangled and knotted’
Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Ware is known for his meticulous attention to the tiny details of ordinary life, delivered with simple, clear lines and comforting, rounded figures.
Balancing melancholy with streaks of dark humour, they speak to the anxieties and solitude of modern life – themes that are not for every reader but have long impressed critics.
“The apparent meticulousness of my stuff only comes from trying to provide as clear as possible a reading experience out of the tangled and knotted experience of life as I’ve come to know it,” he told The Guardian in 2019.
Ware has previously won Best Comic Book at Angouleme in 2003 for the French translation of his breakout work “Jimmy Corrigan”, and the Special Jury Prize for the indefinable “Building Stories” in 2015.
It was the publication of “Rusty Brown” last year, his recreation of a single day in the world of his youth, that appears to have finally tipped the balance with voters for the Grand Prix.
The winner is selected by fellow writers and artists from the industry. There was some controversy this year when a group of French voters lodged invalid ballots in the first round as part of a protest over government support for the industry.
It was not clear how this affected the outcome, which saw Ware go into a second round against two French artists, Penelope Bagieu and Catherine Meurisse, before winning the final vote.
The organisers hope next year’s edition of the Angouleme festival will go ahead as usual in January.