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    Exploring Ghost Worlds: A Review of The Daniel Clowes Reader

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    The Daniel Clowes Reader, Ken Parille, Softcover: 360 pages, Colour and black & white, Fantagraphics, 2013, ISBN: 9781606995891. Daniel Clowes is undoubtedly one of the most influen- tial and prolific cartoonists working today, with a career spanning many decades. The Daniel Clowes Reader (Parille 2013) comes at the perfect time – when interest in Clowes from scholars and critics is at a high, but in which he is still perhaps given less critical attention than his peers Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, and Marjane Satrapi, all of whom are cited twice as often as Clowes despite his large canon of significant works in comics. With recent books being published on Chris Ware by The University Press of Mississippi and the forthcoming Art Spiegelman collec- tion from Drawn and Quarterly, more significant focused, monographic books are emerging in comics and comics criticism, and The Daniel Clowes Reader is a more than wel- come addition to this emergence.

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    Exploring Ghost Worlds: A Review of The Daniel Clowes Reader

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    Helen
    49 views5 pages
    The Daniel Clowes Reader, Ken Parille, Softcover: 360 pages, Colour and black & white, Fantagraphics, 2013, ISBN: 9781606995891. Daniel Clowes is undoubtedly one of the most influen- tial and prolific cartoonists working today, with a career spanning many decades. The Daniel Clowes Reader (Parille 2013) comes at the perfect time – when interest in Clowes from scholars and critics is at a high, but in which he is still perhaps given less critical attention than his peers Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, and Marjane Satrapi, all of whom are cited twice as often as Clowes despite his large canon of significant works in comics. With recent books being published on Chris Ware by The University Press of Mississippi and the forthcoming Art Spiegelman collec- tion from Drawn and Quarterly, more significant focused, monographic books are emerging in comics and comics criticism, and The Daniel Clowes Reader is a more than wel- come addition to this emergence.

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    Exploring Ghost Worlds: Johnston, P 2013 Exploring Ghost Worlds: A Review of The Daniel Clowes Reader. The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship, 3(1): 7, pp. 1-5, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/cg.ag A Review of The Daniel Clowes Reader

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    The Daniel Clowes Reader, Ken Parille, Softcover: 360 pages, Colour and black & white, Fantagraphics, 2013, ISBN: 9781606995891. Daniel Clowes is undoubtedly one of the most influen- tial and prolific cartoonists working today, with a career spanning many decades. The Daniel Clowes Reader (Parille 2013) comes at the perfect time – when interest in Clowes from scholars and critics is at a high, but in which he is still perhaps given less critical attention than his peers Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, and Marjane Satrapi, all of whom are cited twice as often as Clowes despite his large canon of significant works in comics. With recent books being published on Chris Ware by The University Press of Mississippi and the forthcoming Art Spiegelman collec- tion from Drawn and Quarterly, more significant focused, monographic books are emerging in comics and comics criticism, and The Daniel Clowes Reader is a more than wel- come addition to this emergence.

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    49 views5 pages

    Exploring Ghost Worlds: A Review of The Daniel Clowes Reader

    Uploaded by

    Helen
    The Daniel Clowes Reader, Ken Parille, Softcover: 360 pages, Colour and black & white, Fantagraphics, 2013, ISBN: 9781606995891. Daniel Clowes is undoubtedly one of the most influen- tial and prolific cartoonists working today, with a career spanning many decades. The Daniel Clowes Reader (Parille 2013) comes at the perfect time – when interest in Clowes from scholars and critics is at a high, but in which he is still perhaps given less critical attention than his peers Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, and Marjane Satrapi, all of whom are cited twice as often as Clowes despite his large canon of significant works in comics. With recent books being published on Chris Ware by The University Press of Mississippi and the forthcoming Art Spiegelman collec- tion from Drawn and Quarterly, more significant focused, monographic books are emerging in comics and comics criticism, and The Daniel Clowes Reader is a more than wel- come addition to this emergence.

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    of 5

    THE COMICS GRID

    Journal of comics scholarship

    Johnston, P 2013 Exploring Ghost Worlds: A Review of The Daniel Clowes


    Reader. The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship, 3(1): 7, pp.1-5,
    DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/cg.ag

    REVIEW

    Exploring Ghost Worlds:


    A Review of The Daniel Clowes Reader
    The Daniel Clowes Reader, Ken Parille, Softcover: 360 pages, Colour and black & white,
    Fantagraphics, 2013, ISBN: 9781606995891
    Paddy Johnston*
    Daniel Clowes is undoubtedly one of the most influential and prolific cartoonists working today, with a career
    spanning many decades. The Daniel Clowes Reader (Parille
    2013) comes at the perfect time when interest in Clowes
    from scholars and critics is at a high, but in which he is
    still perhaps given less critical attention than his peers
    Chris Ware, Art Spiegelman, and Marjane Satrapi, all of
    whom are cited twice as often as Clowes despite his large
    canon of significant works in comics. With recent books
    being published on Chris Ware by The University Press of
    Mississippi and the forthcoming Art Spiegelman collection from Drawn and Quarterly, more significant focused,
    monographic books are emerging in comics and comics
    criticism, and The Daniel Clowes Reader is a more than welcome addition to this emergence.
    Rather than providing an exhaustive chronological retrospective, as it would be tempting to do with such a volume, the book is organised into three sections based on
    distinct areas of discussion which provide thematic arcs:
    section one explores Girls and Adolescence, focusing on
    Clowes landmark graphic novel Ghost World; section two
    explores Boys and Post-Adolescence using some of Clowes
    short stories from Eightball; and section three explores
    the broader and more fluid areas of Comics, Artists and
    Audiences, including Clowes illustrated manifesto, Modern Cartoonist, which originally accompanied Eightball
    #18 as an attached pamphlet in 1997.
    The books editor, Ken Parille, has curated the book
    meticulously, which is unsurprising given he is a columnist for The Comics Journal and an expert on Clowes
    he was central to both of the other significant books
    on Clowes, as a contributor to The Art of Daniel Clowes:
    Modern Cartoonist (Buenaventura 2012), and the interview collection Daniel Clowes: Conversations (Cates and
    Parille 2010), part of the University Press of Mississippis
    Conversations with Comics Artists series which incudes
    collected interviews with Carl Barks, Will Eisner, and Art
    Spiegelman, among others. The Daniel Clowes Reader is,
    of course, a Clowes collection first and foremost, but it
    strikes the balance between inviting the reader to enjoy

    * University of Sussex, United Kingdom


    [email protected]

    Parille, K. ed. (2013) The Daniel Clowes Reader (Seattle, WA:


    Fantagraphics, cover)
    and experience Clowes best comics and providing commentary, reflection and enlightening annotation, as well
    as some scholarly essays and revealing interviews with
    Clowes himself.
    The books emphasis is on its inclusion of on Ghost
    World, which is reproduced in full (with the introduction
    from the 2008 special edition) and makes for a welcome
    centerpiece, being Clowes most significant and influential work. I found the most useful and stimulating essays
    in the collection to be those which immediately follow
    Ghost World, most significantly Pamela Thurschwells discussion of adolescence as a ghost world and Ken Parilles

    Art.7, page2 of 5

    Johnston: Exploring Ghost Worlds

    Parille, K. ed. (2013) The Daniel Clowes Reader (Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics, 118, 17)
    close-reading of Ghost Worlds dialogue. Thurschwells
    essay will no doubt be of use to literary critics and comics scholars who wish to discuss comics as literature, as
    she reads Ghost World in relation to postmodernism and
    capitalism, exploring how these create the ghost world of
    the protagonists, Enid and Rebecca. Parilles close reading
    of Ghost Worlds dialogue focuses on the final line, Youve
    grown into a very beautiful young woman, said by Enid

    to Rebecca, who cannot hear her as she is behind the glass


    window of one of the many dilapidated diners that populate their suburban town.
    By focusing on this line, Parille reminds us that Clowes
    has a gift for dialogue and is a talented writer as well as a
    cartoonist, having collaborated with Terry Zwigoff closely
    on the script for the film adaptations of Ghost World and
    Art School Confidential, which is the centerpiece of

    Johnston: Exploring Ghost Worlds

    Art.7, page3 of 5

    Parille, K. ed. (2013) The Daniel Clowes Reader (Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics, 291, 14)
    section three. It might perhaps have been interesting to
    include some of Clowes script work or further notes on
    his work on film to further examine his skill as a writer, as
    this is only really explored in the interviews with Clowes,
    who talks of working in film as an enjoyable collaboration,
    distanced from the solitary occupation of cartooning.
    There is certainly very little feeling of omission from section one, though. The annotations, in particular, provide

    more than adequate detail to historicise Clowes comics


    and place them in the context of the various cultural movements which they explore and portray. The many pages
    of annotations accompanying Ghost World, for example,
    are largely a catalogue of the music, literature and kitschy
    objects Enid uses to find and create her identity, from
    Sonic Youth to Bruce Lee to zines, poetry collections, and
    extremely outdated childrens records. Too much atten-

    Art.7, page4 of 5

    tion, however, is paid to Enids bookshelf, with the discussion of Ghost World being interrupted by reproductions
    of Russell Edsons poems and Ann Roys cartoons. These
    inclusions do allow the reader to enter Enids world on a
    more personal level, but this isnt strictly necessary, as the
    annotations are detailed enough to provide this, and the
    reader could discover Ann Roy for themselves if there was
    sufficient interest in her work after reading through the
    annotations.
    The same could perhaps have be said of the inclusion
    of excerpts from Gilmore Tamnys zine, Wiglet, although
    these are more closely related to Clowes comics and are
    more significant as they follow an intriguing brief history
    of the rise of the zine by Kaya Oakes. Clowes relationship
    with the zine culture of the late eighties and nineties and
    its expressions of artistic freedom and independence is
    explored throughout the Reader, and offers significant
    detail and insight into the cultures and countercultures
    which Clowes has depicted and engaged with on many
    levels throughout his career.
    Joshua Glenns essay, Against Groovy, picks this up in
    section two, following a number of Clowes short stories
    which depict the apathy and often misplaced irony of
    Generation X. Glenn draws the distinction between Original Generation X (those born 19541963, following the
    Boomers) and the Generation X label applied to the
    slacker culture of the eighties, placing Clowes in the former camp whilst discussing how Clowes satirises both the
    original and the second Generation X. The short stories
    Blue Italian Shit and Like A Weed, Joe depict the earlier
    generation, with their post-punk nihilist Roger Young as a
    fitting microcosm, while the later comics The Party and
    Buddy Bradley in Who Would You Rather Fuck: Ginger
    or Mary Ann? depict the grunge-influenced check-shirted
    slackers of the late eighties-early nineties as similarly
    failed ironists. Clowes has a wealth of comics with antihipster sentiment and depictions of the flaws and foibles
    of countercultures and Gen X, so once again the choice of
    the comics in section two reveals Ken Parilles careful curatorial eye, which provides a coherent and comprehensive
    body of content in section two.
    Section threes examination of comics, artists and audiences is a timely contribution to the growing scholarly
    discussion of the aesthetics and cultural status of comics,
    and will likely help to bring Daniel Clowes into a more
    prominent position in this discussion. The inclusion of
    Clowes manifesto Modern Cartoonist feels relevant and
    resonant, particularly considering his predictions of comics in the digital age such as that new technology promises a structural shiftin the readers favour, giving him an
    exaggerated role in the give-and-take between artist and
    audience (2013: 333). Section three also includes Art
    School Confidential, the oft-quoted four-page Eightball
    strip, which was turned into a film (Zwigoff 2006). Considering the significance of Art School Confidential to
    comics artists and the fact that it is perennially Xeroxed

    Johnston: Exploring Ghost Worlds

    and put on art school notice boards, (2013: 290) I would


    have liked to have seen an essay or two follow the comic
    in a similar fashion to those which follow Ghost World in
    section one instead, we are given only a single page of
    short annotations.
    In fact, the lack of essays makes section three feel somewhat short and stunted. I would have liked to have read
    Ken Parille, Joshua Glenns or any of the other contributors thoughts on Clowes relationship with his audience
    and his portrayal of art school. The one essay in section
    three, by Anne Mallory and Ken Parille, is a significant one;
    however, and a welcome discussion of the Ugly aesthetic
    which pervades throughout Clowes comics and which is
    a significant part of his unique style. My feelings towards
    this section, however, are likely due to the high quality of
    the essays and discussion of Ghost World in section one,
    which I would have liked to have seen replicated in sections two and three. I realise, of course, that this would
    have made for a much lengthier book and tipped it into
    the realm of impenetrability, and that the books tagline
    (A critical edition of Ghost World and other stories, with
    essays, interviews and annotations) is quite clear about
    its focus on Ghost World, so my wish for a greater section three is no indication of failure on the editors part
    rather, a desire for more discussion and scholarship
    around Clowes, spurred by the quality of section one.
    The Daniel Clowes Reader is enjoyable and stimulating
    from beginning to end, and collects Clowes most significant works with careful curation. The interviews, essays
    and annotations are more than relevant, and provide a
    level of detail unparalleled in any other available book on
    Daniel Clowes, aside from the aforementioned Conversations and The Art of Daniel Clowes, without overwhelming
    the inclusion of Clowes comics. Ken Parilles curation and
    editing is first-rate, and his love of Clowes work is clear,
    but despite this he manages to retain a careful critical eye,
    as evidenced in his essays and commentary. For anyone
    studying Clowes at any level, or including his comics in
    any academic study, I would not hesitate to say that The
    Daniel Clowes Reader is an essential text. However, due
    to the its comprehensive nature (especially regarding its
    annotations), it would also serve as a neat introduction
    to Daniel Clowes for anyone still to read his comics, and
    certainly would be of interest to anyone with a passing
    interest in Clowes, adolescence, aesthetics and cartooning
    in general.
    References
    Buenaventura, A. ed. 2012. The Art of Daniel Clowes:
    Modern Cartoonist. New York, NY: Abrams ComicArts.
    Cates, I. and Parille, K. eds. 2010. Daniel Clowes: Conversations. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.
    Parille, K. ed. 2013. The Daniel Clowes Reader. Seattle, WA:
    Fantagraphics.
    Zwigoff, T. (Director). 2006. Art School Confidential. [Motion picture]. United States: Sony Classics.

    Johnston: Exploring Ghost Worlds

    Art.7, page5 of 5

    How to cite this article: Johnston, P 2013 Exploring Ghost Worlds: A Review of The Daniel Clowes Reader. The Comics Grid:
    Journal of Comics Scholarship, 3(1): 7, pp.1-5, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/cg.ag
    Published: 24 September 2013
    Copyright: 2013 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
    Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
    provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

    The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship is a peer-reviewed open access journal
    published by Ubiquity Press.

    OPEN ACCESS

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