by Rojas Oliva, managing editor

Cartoonist Chris Ware has teamed up with the Guardian to publish, in free weekly installments, a new graphic novella titled “The Last Saturday.” Currently in its first installment, the strip promises to “trace the life cycles of six (6) individual planetary bacilli (aka human beings) from the American resort community of Sandy Port, Michigan.”

This initial glimpse sees Ware continuing his established aesthetic with its intricate and complex diagrams and tiny, condensed script. It follows the “center of the universe,” Putnam Gray, as she ponders the literal physical enormity of the universe while two kids gleefully tackle her, destroy her lunch and leave her curled up on the sidewalk. The small vignette focuses on the tricks of subjective experience, loneliness and the passage of time — all favorites of Ware’s art.

Even in such a short comic Ware manages to conjure up, through the obliquely tangible relationship between text and visuals he’s been mining for decades, deeply felt poetic impressions. While more overhanded than his usual comics, which flower in complete stagnation, “The Last Saturday” still has Ware’s taste of quiet sadness.

Given Ware’s reputation for groundbreaking innovation, established with “Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth” — which made people take graphic novels seriously — and his decade-long project “Building Stories,” “The Last Saturday” will likely grow slowly into an intriguing, haunting piece of art.

Interested? Click here to read new installments of “The Last Saturday” every Friday.