number 1

he imp is the point where the meant nothing—or anything. It was pure devil, the jester, and the child humor, arbitrary to the point of inanity T all three meet—and where more and therefore hilarity. The gag-meister pointedly than in the comic book? of Mad, Harvey Kurtzman, gleefully used Comic books were intended for kids, the unknowable ejaculation to pop the meant to be comic, and despite many bubble of American childhoods’ sanity, well-meaning attempts sure that we would at homogenization, are The Editor keep the word, make still clearly the work of Speaks. it our own, make it the devil. Witness our the shibboleth I now first imp, Dan Clowes, invoke. Yuh hadda be and his fascination there, man. with satanism, sadism, I invoke the pass- sexism, racism, and word aware, as was the mass murder. Now immigrant Kurtzman, this is the kind of artist that I laughed out of The Imp likes—it takes ignorance. Ignorance comix seriously. That’s is a big part of humor the mission of The Imp…seriously. —that’s the devil of it. Laughing at a Comix, comics, whatever. The fact Pole for pronouncing his need isn’t too that I don’t know anything about comics far from laughing at Chinese for their can only help me to take them seriously. names, or at anybody for just being dif- We’ll discuss Jack Chick, not Jack Kirby. ferent. Ethnicity is an undeniable part of Even as a kid I knew Jack Kirby was a cartooning—check American caricatures blockhead. Horror, war, Mad, and Plop!— from long before that little yellow mick that’s where my wee heart lay. all the way up to today’s evil arabs, I admit that to be serious about comix brought to you by Disney—and it’s is to risk ruining them, like a good joke, tricky ground, ground our first imp has by explaining them to death. For exam- recently groped his way across. Spend- ple, I say that potrzebie is the mother of ing time with this foole’s work has been invention because I know now that it’s one of the great pleasures of my life. literally true: potrzebie is Polish for “ne- Ladies and gentlemen, the fallen world cessity.” But to me at age seven potrzebie of Daniel Clowes.

The Imp, number 1, was published eventually by Daniel K. Raeburn, 1454 W. Summerdale 2c, Chicago, IL 60640, and is © 1997 by Daniel K. Raeburn. Artwork on every page but this is © Daniel G. Clowes. All artwork used by permission. Thanks a ton, Dan’l. Thanks also to Fanta- graphics Books and Monte Beauchamp of Blab! for permission to reprint words and pictures from their fine publications. Thanks to Brian for use of the Blank Expression studio, my family and friends for support, and most of all to Tara. As Muddy siz, “You move me, dollin’.”

1 aniel Clowes is my kind of hope- by the Chicago River and machine-gun- less romantic. Like me, he’s a ning everybody would have made me D cynic. He doesn’t moon, he’s happy. I had fantasies like that. So when mean. He hates: that’s why he’s hopeless. I moved here I started to try to come to Daniel Clowes’ hopelessness would have grips with that. That’s the inner conflict probably overwhelmed him by now but for in my work.” Shy Dan stirs his tea and his own, invented defense against it: his addresses the swirl. “I’m trying to find romanticism. This iota of sweetness, his soft some sympathy for the mass of humani- spot, is what saves Clowes from himself and ty. I have great sympathy for the specifics his otherwise all-consuming despair. But the of humanity, for the individuals in their kernel of romanticism, like faith, was more struggles. But when I see humanity as a Dan’s alter ego, Lloyd Llewellyn, fulminates in “I Hate You Deeply.” of an idea than a reality at its conception. group it always repels me. I’m repulsed.” That’s how Clowes’ comic book, Eightball, Vexation creeps into his otherwise even tiently explains that his attraction is a began: as a cruel world. I instantly fell in voice: “Would I create all these charac- purely visual, aesthetic one, and that he love with it. ters and do this comic and do all this would never, ever actually use such Eightball was so funny, so unfair, so wrong work if I really didn’t care?” Although implements… . that it was right. It made me glad that the Clowes’ question is directed rhetorically Dan Clowes seems to be made of world was fucked up. Every single cretin at his critics, I feel that it’s still his ques- such contradictions, of opposites and meant more grist for the mill of Clowes’ tion, and it hangs in the air as though it their attractions. He works for The New pen; in this way I learned to be grateful for were in one of his own word balloons. Yorker and for Hustler. If not perverted, the world in all its essential ugliness. I The real-life Dan Clowes’ silvering he’s certainly perverse—animated by laughed at stupidity, then welcomed it. A hair accentuates his surprisingly quiet, what Poe called “the imp of the per- pretty backward psychology, I admit, but as perspicacious manner. His voice is kind, verse,” the nagging tug of the irrational Frederick Exley wrote, hate can redeem as softened by experience and understand- or intransigent. When I inform Clowes well as love. Most people don’t agree with ing. This gentle certainty, in combina- that I’ve gladly never been to Los Ange- this negative thinking: throughout his ca- tion with his button-down, sweater-and- les, he urges me: “You’ve gotta go. Got reer Clowes has been criticized for being blazer attire, makes Dan Clowes appear to. It’s the monoculture.” One hour later misanthropic and nihilistic. Of course he to be nothing so much as a tall, thin man he cries, “When I go to southern Cali- was—that’s why I loved him. But my ex- of the cloth. A dark, handsome priest. It’s fornia I get so depressed. I can imagine cuse for liking him was my taking to heart an odd similarity which deepens when how the whole world could be like that. every hint of his inner humanitarian, prom- midway through our conversation he I’m not sure life would be worth living.” ising the grub would one day fly from its confesses his attraction for pictures of Then why go there? Does he have to chrysalis. The odd thing is that, as he’s ac- women in full bondage gear. Drops of position himself at the limit of our west- tually begun this emergence, Dan Clowes is sweat leak from his forehead as he pa- ward expansion, at the cerebral cortex of no longer our funniest cartoonist—he’s our the American consciousness, in order to most profound cartoonist. The joke’s not change its destructive thought patterns? funny anymore, but it’s on Dan, and Dan is No—nothing that grand. “I don’t know Lloyd telling it. lloves in that that I’m fighting it,” Clowes admits, “I Love You “but that’s where I get my inspiration. I hen I lived in Chicago I was not Tenderly.” feel like I could actually live in LA ‘‘W happy,” Clowes calmly explains and do good artwork—but I’d be to me at his house in Berkeley. “I was much really miserable.” Like the two more hard at that point. Setting up a tripod hands of Robert Mitchum’s preacher in Night of the Hunter, it’s an old battle between love and hate, and no telling which is which and who’s a-winnin’. 2 3 f the impending californication of the Clowes has embodied his hopes for s the title of Ghost World suggests, driftwood; teasing Josh, the loner and I world inspires Clowes, it’s because the future in the form of eighteen-year- A the girls live in a limbo between only boy she likes; and cruelly using an strip-malling is only part of an even larg- old Enid Coleslaw and her closest friend, childhood and adulthood, between the assumed personality to answer a lonely- er force: the future. “The whole idea of Rebecca Doppelmeyer: the heroines of past and the future. It’s a concrete hearts classified ad. It’s obvious that the future is just a constant nightmare to Ghost World. Born four years ago as a world defined literally by com- Enid hates everything only be- me,” Clowes says. “It’s really the most character sketch in the pages of Eightball, merce. Each episode to date re- cause she truly wants some- horrifying thing.” One can either run Enid and Becky walk and talk just like volves around places of busi- thing and hasn’t yet found from this future or face it; right now, real teenage girls: smart, bratty, funny, ness: diners, a supermarket, a it. The paradox of her in- Dan Clowes is doing both. With one foot cruel, romantic. They’re normal misfits. sex shop, record stores. It’s security is that she pri- he’s in flight, fleeing from the future into Enid reads books, Becky changes the the late–twentieth-century marily rejects people be- an imaginary past. This is nothing new; channels; Enid spies on satanists, Becky American quest for defini- cause she is so afraid of stares after every other guy she sees. Enid tion: you are what you their rejection. might go to college next year; Becky will buy. And what’s for sale? She’s obviously a lot not—that’s the wedge between them in Crap. Lame, tacky crap. like her creator, which the comix. “I wanted to create two like- Becky and Enid wallow in puts her creator in a bit able characters,” Clowes says. “Charac- crap, learn to live with crap of a spot. Despite all the ters that I liked, anyway. That was my —even love it—and yet ego obsessions of Eightball, sole intention.” Of course, according to they’re not really buying it. Clowes says that he’s not the inexorable law of the Clowesian uni- They instantly reject anything slick comfortable with the creating verse, irony happens: “I get so many let- or advertised. Hipness is unhip. The or reading of his comix in a high- ters saying, ‘You obviously hate these girls of Ghost World are today’s teen hea- ly personal manner. When a comix re- characters. They’re so awful. It’s great thens: they don’t believe in MTV. In the viewer criticized him for keeping an “icy that you’re parodying the modern teen- long tradition of all alienated teenagers, distance” between himself and his char- ager.’” But even though these fans got they hate phoniness—but in their ultra- acters, between himself and his readers, Clowes’ intentions wrong, they’re still ironic sensibility completely inept phoni- Clowes thought: “That’s great. I couldn’t right, in a way. If they think the girls are ness is good because it is transparent. The ask for more.” He emblazoned the crit- he’s still as nostalgic as he ever was, even awful it’s because Clowes is awful, as he worst recreation of a 1950s diner is there- ic’s phrase across the masthead of his very during his obsessions with JFK-era zip- himself admits: “Basically the girls have fore the best. The lamest stand-up co- next issue. Given this, doesn’t Dan’s per- a-tone iconography. But with his other all of my opinions,” he says.“I can get median is therefore the most revered. sonal affection for Becky and Enid make foot Clowes is making a stand. He’s try- away with it because it’s two teenage Becky and Enid can see ing to construct some kind of meaning girls. If I had some cranky old man say- right through to the come- in a country where nothing has mean- ing the same stuff it would just seem dy’s pathetic, human core, ing, where nothing is sacred except the awful. He’d be a horrible monster.” and in that sense they expe- free market, the freeway, and the head- rience something genuine. long pursuit of happiness. Is life worth That’s what they crave. living when there’s nothing but yam- They’re lonely, and they mering airwaves and strip malls? I won- want contact, fellow con- der if it is even possible to be original in spirators. For this reason the a hyper-accelerated Culture-culture story is ultimately Enid’s which simultaneously inspires and de- story. She’s driven impishly vours newness, devours even its own to initiate contact with the past. “That’s what Ghost World is about, other oddballs who inhabit really,” Clowes says. To make something their city. Besides spying on out of nothing; that is the question, and the neighborhood satanists, essentially what Clowes’ latest serialized Enid is chasing Bob Skeetes, comix and first feature film, Ghost World, the psychic astrologer who At the local grocery store, Becky Doppelmeyer discovers what is trying to do. looks like a piece of cosmic satan-worshippers eat for every meal. 4 5 Ghost World a little too close for comfort? I ask the man who has already drawn script? “They don’t want me. They have After all, Clowes has already inserted his the fictional Hollywood ruination of his no idea who I am. They’re all excited rumpled, eager self into the story as a car- comix if he has creative control of Ghost because they think, Oh, it’s a comic. toonist with one eye for teenage Enid— Comics are hip. But they’ve never who, it must be said, bears a remarkable looked at my comics.” They in this case resemblance to the real-life Mrs. Clowes. are Jersey Pictures, Danny DeVito’s film Is Dan worried his sympathy will cloud company, the company behind Pulp Fic- his artistry? “I’m almost too close to that tion and Get Shorty. Hence the hip. problem to answer,” he replies. “The in- Funding is being provided by Uni- terest to me lies in the conflict between versal Pictures. “The studio of Boris entering their world, becoming very Karloff,” Dan smiles with reverence—a close to them, and then viewing them at reverence made touching, not false, by a distance. You have to be sitting in the its germ of irony. That’s what this is re- room with them and also be the fly on ally all about: we’re dorks. Two shy guys the wall looking down at them.” Fortu- “We’re about two-thirds done with the who still like comix and monsters. It’s nately, in the story Enid dismisses her script.” Of writing the comix version of alive…! Gasp! (choke!) comic father and potential Humbert Ghost World and the film version of Ghost Clowes isn’t too worried about his Humbert: “He was like this old perv,” World at the same time: “It’s weird. comix being mangled by Hollywood she laments. Good eye. They’re different. They’re very different nincompoops, mainly because it’s a because the characters are the same but chance for him to do something that any ot only is Clowes juggling his not the same. They’re a shade off. It’s astute observer of his comix, especially N personal and his omniscient per- very confusing. I can’t remember if a line Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, can see spectives, he’s juggling them in the of dialogue appeared in the comic or in he’s always wanted to do: make a movie. comix and in the film, simultaneously. the movie.” “This movie is more of a technical exer- He’s working with Crumb director and Clowes isn’t giving any scoops re- World. Unfortunately not, Clowes says, cise for me than a way to really express American music documentarian Terry garding the script, at least partially be- because he and Zwigoff are dealing with myself,” he says. “I’m so uncomfortable Zwigoff. On the first day of 1997 he says, cause, as he claims, he doesn’t really what they call a “real” studio. He adds, and unfamiliar with what I’m doing that know what he’s doing. But he drops a “But we’ve got as good as deal as you few hints: mainly, it’s even more of a can get with a ‘real’ studio.” His discus- black comedy. “We made it more Hol- sion picks up speed; from this, I get the lywood-friendly,” he says. I listen, not impression that he and Zwigoff have without fear. “Adding some other char- thought through this from every angle. acters so there’s a beginning, a middle, “They can’t make it unless we agree. and an end. It’s not just a random, pi- They can suggest changes, and we can caresque kinda thing where they’re run- agree to make them, but if we don’t ning around having all kinds of adven- agree, then we just say, ‘Thank you very tures.” Enid’s decision about college is much,’ and walk. So, they can’t make it no longer the wedge between the girls. with another director unless we actually “But it has a substitute for that, which get started filming the script and they fire has the same dramatic function that has.” Terry and hire another director.” Uh, And the plot is…? “I don’t know. right. They can’t fire the director unless We don’t really know what we’re doing, they fire the director. “But nobody wants so I think that’s a benefit. We’re on page to do that,” Clowes says confidently. seventy-four and I don’t think we’ve “They really want Terry Zwigoff.” That done that yet.” He laughs. “We’ll get I can understand, and Clowes is right to around to it.” I get the idea: never talk trust Zwigoff—but what about the stu- about a work in progress. Next question. dio? What do they care about your 6 7 if I could just write a script that actually people, Dan Clowes is quite aware of just Before I can half-jokingly ask him to They hated that they were raised their works in this weird, algebraic way that it how little he really does know—and his clarify whether or not he’s describing whole lives with geometric possibilities has to work, I’d be happy.” The techni- universe seems to revolve around these himself, he continues: “They were usu- going off in every direction. All of a sud- cian in him awakened, Clowes grows voids. ally brought up in really oppressive den it was too much: ‘What do I do?’ nearly animated, awed: “It’s really like They became very narrow.” solving a huge trigonometry project. This or years Dan has rejected religions Daniel speaks from experience. At affects this, and if you change this it af- F again and again. And again. And one point the circumstances of his life fects that, and so on and so on. It’s a again. The self-described Christian-hater narrowed such that he himself saw the huge equation. A huge, unwieldy set of and avowed atheist keeps coming back. light. The light was cast, appropriately variables.” “I’m not exactly sure why, either,” he enough, from the flames of the hellfire murmurs. “For someone who and brimstone comix booklets of Jack T. he same goes for was raised with no reli- Chick. Dan recalls “a really bad week- trying to figure gion and with no pres- end” when he was in art school: his T all of Dan’s vari- sure to believe in any Brooklyn apartment had no gas and no ables. It’s as though the kind of religion.” His electricity—in the winter. “For some real Dan Clowes were murmur disappears reason,” he begins, “I went into a Chris- surrounded by the fun- into a silent, private black tian bookstore. They had a spinner rack house mirrors of his life, hole of sorts whose gravity with all the Jack Chick comics for eight his work, and his opin- has drawn much of his think- cents each. So I bought sixty of them, ions, the reflections of ing and feeling and holds five dollars worth, a stack which is still each facet so distorted them tightly. He offers the From “Devil Doll,” Clowes’ parody of the core of my collection.” When he ar- and infinite in conjunc- obvious: “The idea of a belief Jack T. Chick’s religious tracts. rived back at his dark apartment, Clowes tion with the others that ultimately that is larger than our personal interac- bundled for warmth and read all sixty they’re all indistinguishable. There are tions on a day-to-day basis is interesting Christian homes, and they’re trying to hundreds of Dan Cloweses and many of to me,” he says. “I’m not sure I have a play that out. To me, they’re equally re- them, if not most, are laughing at you. fix on that.” I prod him: what about mote, and dull, and wrong-headed. Are Meeting Dan and talking to him con- your namesake, a seer of apocalypse? He they really any different than Christians fused me even more because, like the describes being taken as a child by his who, perhaps, also have beliefs that best artists, Clowes doesn’t know why grandparents to a performance of the would lead them to do us harm?” Good certain subjects keep coming up. You Book of Daniel by divinity students at point: more human lives have been taken can’t explain a joke, and Clowes often Rockefeller Chapel in Chicago. The in the name of God than have been can’t explain his work. “I’m so close to prophet’s vision of the multiheaded, taken in the name of Satan. “It’s always that question I can hardly even com- apocalyptic monster scared young Daniel occurred to me,” he concludes,“that if ment,” he says, or, “I dunno.” He says, so badly that he vomited. you’re going to believe that much, why “I dunno,” to me a lot. Like most smart I try to unwind not just go the whole route and become Clowes with the a Christian? If you actually do believe in most obvious deity one you should believe in the other.” To in his work: Old embellish Lloyd Llewellyn’s defense of Scratch. “Usually the proposition that haters make the best the people who lovers: it’s a yin-yang kinda thing-thang. Devil Doll sees the light. become Satanists Perhaps the attraction to religion is a have a real issue result of its very conspicuous absence in booklets in a row, by flashlight. “It was with the Christ- childhood. To a child like Daniel of too much for me,” he stresses. “I was re- ian religion,” he urban Marxists, religion is the forbidden ally convinced that I was fucked. I says. “It’s the flip fruit. “I have a bunch of friends who thought, Okay: he’s proven his point. I’d In “Why I Hate Christians,” Clowes’ side of the coin.” were raised just like me,” Clowes says, never been absolutely convinced by a devil’s advocate defends Christianity. “who became born-again Christians. comic book before in my life, but I was 8 9 sure that he was right and that I’d been throws a bolt of lightning in the first “That’s a lot of what this story was about: The dime- store god. crazy all along. It was so convincing. I panel. The lightning, says Clowes, is my worst-case thoughts. When I get as was in the right frame of mind, and to meant to evoke the sense of a frozen depressed as I can get, these are the read that many in a row, this over- moment: “When the world is il- thoughts that cross my mind.” We last whelming tidal wave of Chris- luminated,” he says, “and you see Epps on the rebound, described as a tianity coming at you—it’s an all of a sudden see every- pinball in a machine. Life, like the in- amazing experience. Here thing with perfect clarity vented comic, is mechanical. But, to was this comic dealing with for one second.” This paraphrase Clowes himself, there’s an in- life and death. The absolute beginning visual visible membrane of truth we fathom ly themselves, and in doing so they imi- most important thing. I epiphany echoes at the that connects these random and arbitrary tate those who’ve come before. The light mean, he was pulling out all climax of the story, machinations. A ghost in the machine: of Clowes’ story illuminates every cor- the stops, there was no soft- when our half-a-man our single interpretation. It may be fuzzy, ner of a world where everybody is at best pedaling, he was just ramming “hero,” the artist may be only one of many interpretations, a copycat; at worst, a plagiarist: “I think it down your throat. named only Epps, but it’s God, for lack of a better word. that everybody, every artist is, to some Never before had I has a vision in his These are the conclusions that Clowes degree,” Dan says. “I have a lot of trou- been affected like that bathtub. Epps’ epi- literally drew: “I had these many ideas ble seeing where my style begins and by comics.” phany? Humans are that I’d sketched out,” he explains, “and where the styles of my influences end. “Of course,” Dan all animals, of no It’s something I want to figure adds, “a couple of more consequence out.” But the story, as anybody hours later I thought: than ants—but he’s who has read it knows, contains ‘What am I thinking?’” the exception, of no easy answers. “I’m not sure course. His life has that story helped me figure any- f Clowes rejects reli- meaning. That meaning, thing out,” Clowes admits, “but gious organizations, however, is whatever you it made for an interesting tension I Gawd. he’s just begun to explore make of it. Each and every to keep the story going.” Al- the religious questions he contrary interpretation is equally though he maintains that he’s not feels must be asked: “While I don’t ac- valid. Meaning in such abundance that necessarily accusing himself of cept organized religion,” Clowes says, “I it’s finally, perhaps, all meaningless. Art critics are tricked by Epps’ prankster friend, Peach, plagiarism, the story smells to me still think it deals with questions that have “That’s my view of the world at the into seeing pornography as fine art. like guilt. Here’s the catch-22: if to be dealt with. I think that’s sort of worst possible moment,” Clowes says. somehow I created a way to link them a conscience accuses itself of failing, isn’t what I’m looking for in my comics.” In all together that made sense, had some it then working? Or can people turn the first panel of Clowes’ recent story, meaning.” In this respect Clowes is like their conscience on and off like a light “Gynecology,” the voice of the omni- Joseph Conrad, whose Marlowe said that switch, as a gynecologist should turn off scient narrator asks the reader: Do you be- a story’s meaning is not inside the story his sexual impulse? lieve in God? but outside it, in the unseen. Cloudy With this question Clowes is point- meanings surround the story and render ing out that we do have to believe in a its meaning visible as haze illuminates the creator in order to experience a story. halo around the moon. We have to suspend disbelief, have faith But what is the halo surrounding the in the author-ity, to enter His invented story? From the first bolt, light is the world. “I am this dime-store god creat- most dominant visual metaphor. Epps ing this stuff,” Clowes explains. “To me, and the wife of the singing gynecologist these characters are real and the readers lie in adultery with all the lights on while are imaginary, rather than the other way the cuckold himself hums a familiar tune around. In the mind of the creator, these and peers deep into another dark maw of situations are reversed.“ Like a dime- In his vision Epps sees the Dr. Disguise human birth with his penlight. The char- dolls he collected as a child. Epps’ art appears in Peach’s porno magazine. store Zeus asserting his authority, Clowes acters are looking for something, main- 10 11 ur conscience in the story is trou- thing out of the past. You can just be in my life. Even art students whom you Obled by Epps’ use of racist stereo- nostalgic for the music of the 1920s, but would think of as liberal, you’d hear types and caricatures to earn big money then you sort of inherently have to ac- them say the most amazingly, outra- as a fine artist and a commercial artist. cept the way the culture was back then, geously racist stuff.” It’s clear to me from This idea came to Clowes both from and there are many things that were ob- Dan’s other comix and from talking to without and from within. From without, viously wrong with the culture. It’s a him that he is not a racist—but in from a society where advertisers have deep problem. It’s a conundrum.” Dan’s “Gynecology” there seems to be no dif- used photos of victims of aids and geno- understanding of the racism inherent in ference between living in a racist society cide to sell top-dollar fashions, fulfilling his nostalgia seems right, yet not entire- and supporting it. all Orwell’s prophecies of doublethink. ly justified. To me, it’s downright puri- It’s apparent that as Clowes digs deep- Advertising now goes as high as it can go tanical. I wonder, is his sympathy for hu- er and deeper within himself, he throws by going as low as it can go, albeit under manity supposed to come at his own ex- the stones he finds not at himself but at the guise of irony: “It sort of has this pense? Because this humor, if that’s what a dummy, a likeness. Like the nostalgic patina of pc-ness to it,” Clowes says. “I it is, is so—forgive me—black that I can brat who narrates “mcmlxvi,” Epps is think there’s a lot of stuff on teevee that’s find little to laugh at. It’s scary. “I try to only partly Clowes. It’s as though very borderline questionable in terms of be mean,” he agreed. “I try Clowes were both what it’s saying about groups of people. to be hard on myself.” I told claiming and dis- I think there’s stuff that’s not too far from him that he was indeed. claiming the sin, that; I was only simplifying it to an ex- “Good,” he nodded. Clowes showing sympathy tent.” Does he think such blatant stereo- has turned his unforgiving yet condemnation. typing would fly in real life? “No, that and sometimes unfair eye for It’s displaced guilt. was tweaked a little bit. I think some- satire on himself. But there is no thing that’s maybe not so cut and dried If Dan’s childhood im- dogma to Clowes’ as that would fly in a slightly different cli- mersion in urban, leftist, guilt—he even dis- mate. I could see something like that academic culture made him tances himself from happening and there not being that own up to any inner de- his own artistic pro- much of a response to it.” mons, it also made him more nouncements of guilt. But Clowes also sees the stereotypes than a little naïve. He says The black and white arise from within himself. Epps’ love of that, as a boy, “I realized The man who sells Epps his couple in the story, stereotypes is rooted in his nostalgia— that there was racism in the Sambo figurines. Bunny and Lieber- and nostalgia is one of Dan’s deepest world but I had never been man, who act as yearnings. It worries him. I asked Dan confronted with it directly. I’d had it di- mouthpieces for the moral perspective for his general understanding of what he’s rected toward me by black kids in the on nostalgia outlined above by Clowes, called the psychopathology of nostalgia. neighborhood, but white racists in a po- are themselves compromised by their “That title was based on an article I sition of power, exerting that racism and own plagiarism and hypocrisy. “I don’t found in an old psychoanalytic journal. that power for no real reason other than think there’s anybody else in that story As I read it I realized that this guy was to make themselves feel better? I’d never who’s held in a less harsh light,” Clowes basically talking about me. It made me seen an example of that.” Dan first be- says. “I sort of keep everybody in the very uncomfortable. The article said came aware that all was not well when same light.” The light doesn’t get turned specifically: ‘The nostalgic will go to old he moved to New York as an art-school off in the world of “Gynecology.” We’re movies and be unhappy because the au- student. “New York was the most racist all guilty. “There are few, if any, objectors,” says the dience laughs in the wrong places.’ place I have ever lived. I used to go to dime-store god. “After all, who wants to look foolish criticizing what is clearly an ironic state- Things like that. I thought, ‘Oh my god, the actual pizzeria that was in Spike Lee’s sked if he suffers from liberal guilt, ment….” But Epps says that the “innocence” I’m deeply troubled here.’ So I tried to Do the Right Thing. It’s right on Myrtle A Clowes hums a skeptical note that of stereotypes is what inspired him. He com- look at it in the harsh light of reality. Avenue. They really did have pictures of neither rises to assent nor descends to no. plains, “Everything today is so ‘ironic’ and There’s a lot of trouble to being nostal- Vic Damone on the wall. I’d hear these “I do have a certain amount of guilt that ‘self-conscious.’” gic because you can’t really edit every- guys say stuff that I’d never heard before keeps me somewhat in tune with what’s 12 13 going on,” he admits, “but what- hildhood is another conundrum of the nostalgia; hence the collecting and ever comes out in my work is C Dan’s. Childhood, or the lack of it, treasuring of artifacts; hence the kitsch. pretty much accidental, just some- is perhaps the root of an adult’s nostalgia, The very thing that made the past mis- thing in my personality that and in Clowes’ universe everyone, it erable—impermanence—makes it now comes through.” To Dan, politics seems, is trying to hang on to their child- seem preferable to the future. have no place in art, mainly be- hood. Enid clutches her Goofie Gus doll, Nostalgia isn’t rooted in happy mem- cause this is America and no- plays her kid records over and over when ories or relationships; for Clowes, it’s al- body’s listening anyway. “I would most the opposite: it’s rooted in poignant never think, ‘Affirmative action is memories and isolation. “You fetishize good, so I’m going to do a char- objects,” he said, “and objects take the acter that shows that in one of my place of people. So it’s more of a return stories.’ I can’t stand that kind of to the objects that I had to make into my writing,” he sighs. “I hate the Insignificant Shrimp and Willie Willions discuss what’s friends. That’s sort of a simplified way of Upton Sinclairs of the world. I so darn great about children’s comics. putting it, but it’s true. I put a lot more throw the book across the room. If you body of the work,” he shrugs. “If it stock in an old chair in my living room really want to do political things, don’t comes out in the inner life of the story, than a kid who has lots of friends or who be an artist, because nobody cares about that’s fine.” Perhaps the political signifi- had brothers and sisters would have what artists do. You’re only speaking to er in Clowes’ work is the absence of pol- done.” This lonely void is not only the other semi-intellectuals and other artists, itics. After all, his pen drips contempt for root of Clowes’ nostalgia but, perhaps, so it’s not going to change the world. Go Epps at several points in the story, par- his artistic impulse. Clowes thinks it’s the to Hollywood and make a blockbuster.” ticularly as Epps passes through a ghetto. root of most impulses, the driver of most But just because Clowes doesn’t “I think there’s a reason all the sort of, people’s lives: “I think everybody has the preach to the choir doesn’t mean that he naked characters I do about myself tend void they’re trying to fill with whatever doesn’t have a message. I refuse to be- to be very self-centered and apolitical,” they do, whether they’re workaholics or lieve that, in this era of identity politics, Dan says, “because that’s something I a drug addict or an alcoholic or a wom- a story about an artist who makes his for- worry about in myself. I feel like I’m she’s low. The narrator of “mcmlxvi” anizer or whatever. I think art is just one tune painting Sambo dolls, buck-toothed very narcissistic and solipsistic and not in- hangs on to his ray gun and Batmask. In of those things. So certainly the roots are chinamen, and hook-nosed Shylocks is volved in a community at all—and not his moment of truth, Epps sees the Dr. in a miserable childhood.” not a political story. “Any subject matter really interested in it. On a very real Disguise dolls he collected as a child. is good if it’s part of the psychological level, I can’t say I’d be upset if ninety Clowes clearly misses his childhood—or percent of humanity was just does he? “That’s a big paradox,” he says. wiped out. On a very real level, “I would never, ever, want to relive my I’d be extremely happy if it was childhood. I was miserable.” the right ninety percent.” He Maybe that’s why Clowes is obsessed chuckles. “It’s hard for me to rec- with it. Being raised by his grandparents, oncile that.” Then why does he both of whom took ill and needed little claim that he only feels comfort- Daniel to take care of them, instilled in able in an urban environment? Daniel an almost overwhelming sense of Why hasn’t he moved into a cabin mortality. “I could see them dying. I felt in Wisconsin—a fantasy he admits like everything was in total flux and to? “Yeah,” Clowes concedes. changing, and they were going to die be- “I’d feel guilty, like I was giving fore I got out of high school. There was up. I’d feel like I was escaping. I really this fear of things changing. I still think I’d feel really guilty. I feel have this dread of the future that I’m try- guilty for how nicely I live now.” ing to conquer. I have this very strong The Clowesian protagonist of “The Gold Mommy” Dan Clowes feels guilty about not urge to make things last, just to give my- This page: from “Why I Hate Christians.” gets his head checked. feeling guilty. self some kind of solidity in life.” Hence 14 15 he birth of Daniel Gillespie drove an automobile again, Daniel’s zine, and Playboy and all that stuff.” That this guy draw these lines?’ And having Clowes was a miracle—sort of. mother became a mechanic herself and stuff also included “a million” of the un- no idea how someone could draw per- T His parents had been forced to continued to run the shop. However, she derground comix of the 1960s. Every- fect smooth lines like that. I remember get married ten years earlier by the acci- wasn’t able to handle all of her responsi- thing was permitted: “We just had it all wanting to be able to do that very badly. dental conception of Daniel’s older bilities alone. Daniel’s mother—whom lying around in this communal room that This is before I was able to read, so I brother. By the time of Daniel’s con- Clowes describes as “more like a way- we had,” Daniel remembered, “and no- must have been three or four.” Daniel ception their already-shotgun marriage ward sister” than a traditional mother— body ever tried to keep me from any of it.” began copying superheroes onto sheets had greatly deteriorated. “I don’t think and her University of Chicago academ- Daniel’s earliest memories were im- of stationery, trying to match his lines to they liked each other very much at the ic parents formed a committee-family of pressions made in this communal room, those in the fictions that surrounded him. time I was conceived, so it’s a miracle sorts to jointly raise Daniel. “I grew up as a preliterate child sorting through Relatives and his parents were enthusi- that I exist,” Daniel said in one of two in an almost socialist atmosphere,” Daniel every branch of our popular culture, astic when presented with his efforts. previous interviews covering his child- remembered, “…a very intensely pc, lib- puzzling over the bizarre fruits of so They told him that he was very talented, eral atmosphere. It was the many imaginations. “I can remember and that his drawings were great. Of kind of neighborhood looking at a lot of old dc comics before course, Clowes said, “They would have where all the parents listen I could read,” he said, “and reading them said that if I’d drawn the worst piece of to folk songs and talk about like hieroglyphics; there’d be a panel shit. But at that time I really took it as Eugene Debs.” Clowes’ where people are kissing, and I’d think, encouragement.” This misunderstanding, publisher, Gary Groth, ‘He’s trying to bite her face off.’ I would- he maintained, was perhaps the prime quipped: “Perhaps Dan n’t really know what they were doing.” factor in his continuing effort and even- Quayle would understand Within these larger misunderstandings, tual successes: “I think that had a lot to Eightball now.” Daniel developed a confounded under- do with it.” standing of sorts. One image s Daniel Gillespie’s in particular made a deep A bop namesake implies, impression on him: the the Cloweses were lovers cover to an issue of Strange of popular culture. Daniel Adventures. The illustration grew up listening to Tom showed a typical family try- Lehrer records on the fam- ing to drink from a fountain ily phonograph. “My par- underneath a gigantic hot In “Like A Weed, Joe,” a pubescent Rodger Young scratches out ents were book collectors,” sun. “The family is sweat- his message to the girl in the Christ family next door. Daniel said, “and they were ing,” Daniel recalled, “but hood in Chicago. These interviews—in obsessive about never throwing anything for some reason all the 1988 with Monte Beauchamp in Blab! away.” Daniel’s older brother had by water is frozen, and the kids magazine and in 1992 with Gary Groth then grown into what Daniel describes are trying to drink this in The Comics Journal—are particularly re- as “a frighteningly smart guy,” who, like frozen water out of a foun- vealing because of the way Clowes sum- most teens, was caught up in the spirit of tain. I can remember seeing marizes his life, performs the necessary the late 1960s. In this spirit, Daniel’s that cover and then starting re-presentation of the facts to form a co- brother left the household and went to to cry and bashing my head herent life story. His comedy has, as al- California, where he eventually became against the wall…. I thought, The Christ girl writes back. ways, its beginning in tragedy. the inmate with the highest tested IQ in ‘How can this be? It’s so hot Daniel’s parents divorced after his the history of the California penal sys- and yet the water is frozen.’” Dan The goal that young Daniel was birth and his mother then married the tem. But before he left, he amassed a laughed at the memory. “These images drawing toward was Mad magazine. owner of a south side garage and auto- gigantic book and magazine collection. had real power over me.” “The first day I saw Mad, it changed my parts store. But infant Daniel’s stepfather “[He] was a media junkie,” Daniel said. These images made Daniel want to life.” Daniel asserted. “I remember I was was crushed to death only two years later “He bought probably every dc comic draw them himself. “I remember look- in first grade; I could barely read, but I when the stock car he was racing rolled and every Marvel comic, and Famous ing at a Superboy or Jimmy Olsen comic was obsessed with it.” Daniel’s prehen- over on top of him. Although she never Monsters of Filmland, and Hot Rod maga- book for hours and thinking, ‘How did sile mind seized upon the image of Alfred 17 16 E. Neuman’s leering face. “The covers,” early undergrounds seemed really alien somewhere and read them when nobody pease them by playing the funny man; Daniel remembered, “the Norman to me, and I didn’t relate to them at all. was around.” Although he treasured un- not the class clown, but the quiet, nerdy Mingo covers used to really get to I still don’t completely.” Not that this derground comics, Daniel didn’t exactly subversive. “I would draw pictures of me….This was before I could really read, feeling of alienation stopped him from love them. “They were pretty outlandish teachers picking their noses and stuff like enjoying them—or treasuring them. In when I was eight years old,” he said. that,” he recalled. “I’d always go farther addition to his brother’s comix, Daniel “Even now it’s pretty heavy.” than the other artists in school. I had no had a pile of undergrounds all his own. taboos.” By the time he was in the third His aunt had mistaken a pile of Zap and grade and under the sway of Mad and Wonder Warthog comix at her house for Zap, Daniel knew everybody in his young Daniel’s superhero comics; she school and they knew him. “I had done mailed the comix to Daniel’s house with something to offend everybody in the a note explaining that he must have for- school at that point,” Daniel said, “and gotten them at her house. “It was the then I had to go another ten years with greatest day of my life,” Clowes told these same kids. By the time I was in Monte Beauchamp. “I still have some of high school I just hated everybody, and them.” Daniel and one of his rare child- they hated me, and everybody hated hood friends were so impressed by each other.” Robert Crumb that they drew their own Teenage Daniel masked the inner issue of Big Ass comix. In the third grade, sting of rejection by adopting the pose of Daniel explained, “We thought it was arbitrary contrariness: he marched about absolutely the funniest name in the determinedly to 78 r.p.m. John Philip world.” Sousa records rather than move to the But another part of Daniel looked at what he was doing, and was ashamed. This page: from Clowes’ take on Fredric Despite his family’s open and accepting Wertham’s infamous 1953 indictment of comic attitude toward the ephemera layering books, The Seduction of the Innocent. the end tables and bookshelves of their This page: an episode in Clowes’ semi-auto- household, Daniel of his own free will biographical satire of the comics industry and so it had nothing to do with what they felt guilty about reading this pornogra- all its dorks, Dan Pussey. were parodying. It was just the look of phy. “I’d sneak them over to a corner eanwhile, Daniel had entered the it.” His grandmother held an issue up to M University of Chicago Laboratory Daniel. “Why do you want to read this?” School, a school for the children of fac- she demanded, pointing at Neuman’s ulty members. Like him, the 75 or so face. “Look at this boy—he’s an idiot!” children in Daniel’s class were “children Despite this pressure, or perhaps because of really smart Jewish intellectual liberal of it, Daniel’s conviction was firm: “I types,” Daniel recalled. “There was this wanted to work for Mad,” he said. “That intense sameness about the kinds of kids was my goal at age six. I had no goal that went there.” Although Daniel got other than that.” good grades, he had no talent for popu- And what of the underground comix larity. “I never got along with anyone laying around his brother’s haunt? Iron- there except the losers, outcasts, and mis- ically—but not surprisingly—one of fits,” he said. “I was definitely a loner.” omnipresent, long-playing grooves of today’s best underground cartoonists had Like many who later go into art, he Yes and Zep. Doing most things in a de- mixed feelings about the comix he read occupied himself in his isolation by liberately unpopular way made Daniel in the third grade. “I didn’t really think “I’m so glad I didn’t read the full-length Jack drawing pictures and fantasies. Although appear to be a self-selected rather than of them as comics,” Daniel said. “I Chick comics when I was little,” Daniel says. being a pariah made him the obvious tar- branded geek, but he probably fooled thought of them as pornography…the “They might’ve really fucked me up.” get of bullies, Daniel attempted to ap- none of his classmates and certainly came 18 19 no closer to fulfilling his desire for a truer reason as always: to be different. The boy student’s cultural immersion: American Eventually he found himself trying to get expression of his self. “The thing about who air-tubaed in high school again said underground and French films, reading work in the porn industry, then the low- going to school with the same eighty kids “Fuck you” to the popular crowd—in “Burroughs and Bukowski and all that est of the low: a magazine for doll col- for your entire life is that if you were to this case the aging baby boomers now shit,” as he put it. “It’s all so cliché, it’s lectors. “That was the most depressing try to change your personality at all, these entrenched in the coastal media estab- hard to talk about.” time in my life,” he remembered. “That kids knew you so well that they’d know lishments like Rolling Stone—by again Although Daniel learned a lot at Pratt, was even worse than high school.” He it was some kind of phony thing, that acting deliberately like an idiot. But he insisted that he learned nothing from had no work, less and less money and lit- you were just trying to create some new Daniel was not only reacting to his New Pratt. He remembered only one teacher, tle or no idea what he was going to do image.” That was exactly what Daniel York context; he was also reacting to his a painter of Harlequin romance covers, next to earn a living. “I’d better accom- did want to do: “All my life liberal background. “It who taught him how to mix a flesh tone. plish something,” he said to himself, “or I’d been wanting to rein- was very hard for me to That was it, Clowes said. “He was the I’m going to blow my brains out.” vent myself in the way I rebel against my parents,” only guy who was honest about actually Driven by despair, Daniel sat down knew I could be.” But he he said, “because they teaching us a specific technique.” Many and did what he’d always wanted to do: let his classmates trap him were so cool and accept- people have told Clowes throughout his actually draw comix. Again, Daniel’s inside of his own self-image. ing of anything I would career that he was lucky—which itself he misunderstandings about the value of his Daniel’s chance for escape do…I could have dyed does not dispute—and that his luck con- work ironically helped him: “The fact came his senior year of high my hair green and gotten sisted of having four years at one of the that I was so unfamiliar with the existing school in the form of ac- a pierced septum and most famous art schools in the country comics market really helped me, because ceptance at Brooklyn’s Pratt come home and they to learn and practice the craft of Institute. He graduated would say, ‘Oh, you look cartooning. “That’s kinda what without having dated a girl cute.’ Basically, the only gets my goat,” he said. “I learned and left immediately for thing I could do was em- nothing of what I do now in art New York City. brace the punk philoso- school. Absolutely nothing. Every phy of utter stupidity. bit of it I had to figure out for my- really fell in love That would be the only self. I didn’t even have tips.” So al- ‘‘I with the city,” Daniel thing that would offend though Daniel has a B.F.A on his said of his arrival in New This spread: From Art my parents, the really crass wall—“like a dentist’s office”—he York. “I really liked the fact School Confidential. stupidity.” Gary Groth considers himself completely self- that it was this decaying island of hedo- asked Clowes why, if he wanted so badly taught. nists.” Because Daniel’s grandfather was to rebel, didn’t he just become a Re- his guardian, the University of Chicago publican? “Well, it wasn’t that far from aniel graduated from Pratt paid Daniel’s tuition in full; because it,” Dan replied. “In a lot of the attitudes. Din 1984. The greatest time of Daniel’s stepfather had been killed Daniel I wasn’t political enough to do that. I his life had peaked, along with his received four or five hundred dollars a wasn’t that crazy.” confidence. He walked out of Pratt month in social security benefits. He was Daniel’s politics extended only as far with the blessings of his teachers, free in New York with a steady supply as his myopia allowed; he was against who told him that he should have “Remember,” Clowes warns, “the only piece of of spending cash. “That was the greatest Reagan only because he felt sure that been freelancing for years. He paper less valuable than one of your paintings is a time of my life,” he claimed. newly-elected Reagan was going to use stepped into the offices of New B.F.A. degree.” The first thing Daniel did upon arrival the newly-reinstated draft to send young York City publishers as though he were if I had known how few people there in New York was to immediately im- Daniel to battle the Soviet Union in the next Seymour Chwast. were that would publish my work, I plement his long-awaited reinvention. Afghanistan. “Other than that I really Daniel persevered as publishing’s might not have even thought about it.” It’s fitting that, given his history of didn’t give a shit,” he recalled, adding image-makers ignored his vision. Al- With a mindlessness worthy of a Zen adamantly contrary behavior, he adopt- with characteristic self-deprecation, “I’ve though he almost never got past the re- monk, he simply sat down to draw. Out ed the pose and philosophy of total frac- always been pretty much interested in ceptionists, he continued to leave his still- sprang a character: tall, white, clean-cut, tiousness: punk. Although Daniel’s need my own little world.” Other than punk, distressingly-crisp portfolio with them, smoking an ever-present cig: American. for punk music and punk culture was Daniel’s own little world consisted of day after day: Time, Fortune, Esquire…all Lloyd Llewellyn delivered himself. deep, his adoption of it was for the same what he considered to be an average art the big boys. Nothing. For months. “There was no thought that went into it 20 21 at all,” Daniel said. “That very first panel corrupt world,” Clowes said, “but a have a clue what they’re talking about. I in that very first story was the first draw- straight man to a wacky world.” Lloyd love this stuff!’” And if they did have a ing I did of him. I was stuck with him Llewellyn was picked up by Fantagraph- clue? “They’d think I was part of the after that.” Lloyd Llewellyn’s character ics Books and Dan’s career as a cartoon- problem.” followed from his thoughtless creation. ist began in 1986. With no idea what he was doing, he problem being sexism. It’s liter- Clowes naturally tried to keep open ver ten years later Lloyd T ally a big problem: gigantic tits. every single option. Therefore Lloyd Llewellyn remains a mixture of Clowes’ explanation—“I think that’s be- Llewellyn was a cipher at his birth. “I O modesty and ambition: ambi- cause I couldn’t draw women at all”—I wanted not necessarily an innocent in a tious in that Clowes managed to cram in buy, but only at half-price. After all, this it almost every single pop-culture obses- is an artist who appears in red-blooded- sion of his youth, summarized nicely by American-male magazines like Cad and issue one’s Kurtzmaniac Mad-like cover; Randy. I press him regarding his nostal- ambitious also in that each issue grew gia for space-age machismo and hear the more and more sophisticated graphical- magic words: “I dunno,” he murmurs. ly, proving a fast learner at work; yet ul- “To me it has this quaintness to it. It timately a modest comix in that it re- seems so divorced from the way the mained thoroughly comic in every imag- world was at that time; it had this unreal- inable way, laffs from so many angles that ity to it that I found very interesting. I’ve it wasn’t actually about anything. got to say, whenever I’ve gone to a strip This initial aimlessness was due in part club or something I’m almost totally to Clowes’ ambivalence toward the bored and uncomfortable and don’t find dominant visual aesthetic, an aesthetic so it all that interesting in person, and yet strong that it, more than plot or char- somehow the idea of that lust world in acter, was what Lloyd Llewellyn was my comics was very appealing to me. about: Men. Men in the early I’m not really…I can’t really…put it in 1960s, in skinny ties, in padded a more particular…just the whole dy- suits, and in power—but not nec- namic is interesting to me, the weird essarily in control. Loaded men power structure that is involved in that.” with loaded sidearms and, in Lloyd’s Power structure? “It’s a weird thing. case, a loaded sidekick (quasi-ethnic, I find it very appealing, visually. I don’t natch). And women, of course, plen- mean sexually appealing, but to draw the ty of women who were nothing but lines and the curves and the look—I re- trouble—mainly because the men were ally like to draw women in full bondage not interesting to us, except in this visu- too dumb to learn. Clowes called this gear. That latex look. But I couldn’t be al way. Just the look of it. I don’t think aesthetic “space-age machismo,” but it less interested sexually in it. Absolutely our personalities have to be related to it, was never clear what the author’s inten- uninteresting. My wife is the same way. that much. I mean, it’s just a pure aes- tions were other than silliness. Now She really likes that kind of rubber and thetic choice.” Clowes admits to being a bit two-faced latex stuff. She’s always buying those While we’re on the subject of pure about his intentions: “Lloyd Llewellyn was magazines with pictures of it. Her moth- aesthetic choices, I ask Dan about his re- really a fake parody. It was me drawing er’s convinced that I’m a pervert and that cent work for Hustler magazine. The this stuff that I loved, and wanted to I’ve gotten her involved in some kind of main appeal of working for them is, of draw, and then pretending that it was a sadistic scene.” Clowes is adamant that he course, the money. It’s good money, parody so that people wouldn’t make fun couldn’t keep a straight face if he and his Dan says, as good as Time or Newsweek— of me.” He laughs. “The very best re- wife tried to actually dress up and act out and they pay right away. But Clowes views I got dealt with it as a ‘brilliant par- a sexual power trip. His face is perfectly chooses Hustler because he especially likes ody.’ I would think, ‘These people don’t straight as he tells me this. “Completely their attitude: “They’re the only maga- 22 23 zine that will call you up and say, ‘We or a long time many people other Rodger clams up to protect the pearl of himself and mustered an amount of com- want you to illustrate this stupid article,’ F than me suspected this immaturity his romanticism. It’s a clearly autobio- passion, there was nothing he couldn’t in a totally self-deprecating way. ‘It’s a in Clowes. I thought by the time of graphical story—“between forty and sixty do, as evidenced by the consistently im- dumb article that we made up about a Eightball 12 that the only thing holding percent true,” Clowes admits. It’s hard proving stories that immediately followed child molester. We’re pretending it’s a Clowes back was Clowes himself. This to trust my own reasons for elation at it, one after another: that same issue’s real exposé, or an inter- was at least partly due to the reading the story because I identified so much more ambitious Ghost World, then view, or something. Just do fact that I didn’t look long “The Gold Mommy”; “Like A Weed, a really, really sleazy enough into his disturbing, Joe”; “Immortal, Invisible”; “Carica- painting.’ They never ask ten-part comix opus, Like a ture,” and finally, “Gynecology.” for sketches. Never ask Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, to see for changes. You do that the mature work I craved ot coincidentally, a concurrent whatever you want and was right under my nose, hid- N trend is Clowes’ making every they love it. They’re so den in symbols that didn’t so issue harder and harder for himself to funny to deal with. They much add up as accumulate, complete, both as a writer and as an have such a cynical view and which I was too impatient artist. There’s a direct relationship be- of what they’re doing.” to do the work of actually tween Clowes’ frustration and the qual- To a slight but, I think, more important weighing. But it was also because Clowes ity of his stories. “I would say around extent, Hustler fits Dan’s aesthetic of per- was too shy to admit completely the vul- issue twelve or thirteen,” he says, “I just versity: “It’s sort of vaguely amusing to nerability I demanded; a vulnerability got slower and slower.” He explains that me to be involved in it,” he says, “be- which, although subtly present in the he used to do very little revision. “In cause it is the stupidest, sleaziest maga- pages of his work, I viewed and exag- those days I was much happier with what zine. The whole editorial thrust is so gerated through my own projections. I was doing, which is weird because I weird. It’s this false audience that Flynt’s Until Eightball 13 and the publication Rodger Young is afraid of girls. But boy, look back on it now and I would give created—this libertarian, redneck liber- of “Blue Italian Shit.” “Blue Italian Shit,” does he want them. anything to be able to burn it all. It’s a al. I don’t think it’s in line with any- itself a reference in the story to wearing terrible, terrible thing. Most people can body’s philosophy. It’s a totally created absurd, costly fashions, was Clowes’ much with Rodger Young: brand-new look back on their work and feel happy thing.” As with space-age machismo, it’s breakthrough, the point where he laid in an old, crumbling city; wearing a black about it. I feel awful about it.” Every a sense of unreality that draws Clowes to bare all his romantic tendencies in a way leather jacket to protect me in my night- panel, he explains, now goes through mess-age porno. both forgiving and unspar- ly peregrinations; feeling closer to my many intricate stages. “Now I have such Clowes assures me that ing. Rodger Young, the virginity than I had since the night I’d a high level of expectation for myself that he’s been criticized for his narrator, is in essence a lost it. But in retrospect I was right about it’s very, very difficult to meet it,” he portrayal of women as sex kind, sensitive kid without the story: “Blue Italian Shit” was not says. “I’m expecting much more out of objects—but not from any- the courage to turn his only a coming-of-age story in body whose opinions he sensitivity into principles. itself but also for Clowes as an cares about. “I don’t care He wears false, tough-guy author. The story was the first about anybody’s opinion,” principles like he wears his merging of the personal probing he says. “That’s the prob- leather jacket. The story is of Like a Velvet Glove… with the lem.” I mention other car- set up so that it’s techni- articulate focus of his previous toonists whose work he re- cally about Rodger losing rants against society. It’s not his spects. He replies, “All the Velvet Glove’s Clay his virginity, but by the last best story, but it’s the most per- cartoonists I know whose Loudermilk tries to locate panel that loss is an anticli- sonal and therefore perhaps the work I respect have much his estranged wife after max, an afterthought. The most pivotal of his post-Velvet deeper problems with wo- unexpectedly viewing her story is really about a boy work. It was a naked attempt to in a sadomasochistic film. men, or men, than I do.” He trying to live up to soci- say goodbye to machismo and laughs. “That’s part and parcel of the ety’s terrifying, absurd definition of mas- to spoof romanticism at the whole thing. That’s sort of what we’re culinity, and hating it, yet still wearing same time. Now that Clowes playing out here.” the shell. At every moment of truth, had turned his sarcastic eye on 24 25 story’s about many other things—pri- beautified comic language. becoming successful fine artists marily the importance of illusions in “Ideally I’d like to draw these are interested in coming up chasing a goal—the difference between very specific, not exactly ugly with something that plays off the current practice of caricature and the or pretty types— but it’s hard to of people’s expectations in the original practice of caricature is remark- get that across in a comic where art world, rather than actually ably similar to what Clowes himself is everything’s so iconic. If I were sitting down in a room and trying to do with comix. He’s trying to to draw somebody who is producing something of maintain the simple, iconic tradition of thought of as beautiful in a very meaning to them. It’s like comix faces—a tradition which by its accurate but still comic style— they’re second-guessing the very simplicity allows the reader to pro- she wouldn’t even look beauti- whole question of, What is ject herself onto the character; in effect, ful unless I exaggerated things properly. Art? To me that gets really tiresome. It’s to identify with the character—while also Her eyes would look too small and her part of this whole system where you’re This page: from “Caricature.” trying to capture the verisimilitude of face would have a weird shape.” Playing responding to what’s been done before, photography, which, in comix, can dis- devil’s advocate, I ask Clowes a question rather than what you’re actually interest- myself than I’m delivering, so I’m con- tance the reader.* It’s not easy to merge from one of his own stories: Why are ed in yourself.” stantly frustrated.” He laughs. “I’m killing the two languages, to balance the sub- your people so ugly? “We see enough Clowes is resigned to his fate as a myself.” Only two 36-page issues of jective and the objective. “I’m trying to beautiful people,” he says to me. We’re middleman between comics and art. In Eightball came out last year, yet Clowes create a new visual language of how to sitting in a Berkeley café peopled by a way, that’s become his stance. In his works like a scribe at his desk from draw humans,” Clowes states. The artist some of the brightest youth of typically self-deprecating style, evening until sunrise every single night. who is trying to find some sympathy for America’s Golden State. “I Dan does not define himself as He makes his equation between knowl- humanity says that, in a comix context, look at the world and I don’t an artist. “I’ve always thought edge and labor perfectly clear: the more a normal person appears ugly simply be- see that many beautiful people.” it was a good idea to just call he learns about comix, the longer it takes cause we’re so used to the simplified, them comics, and call yourself him to draw them. The nocturnal cre- s a comic artist Daniel a cartoonist.” He explains that ator sees geometric possibilities going off A Clowes has been largely it used to be considered an in- in every direction. ignored both by Comics and sult to call a film a movie: you by Art—at least by the buyers were abbreviating the podunk aces have always been Clowes’ fa- of each business. One of the phrase, movin’ pitchers. But Fvorite subject; they’re his strength, continuing obsessions of Eightball has now, calling a movie a film can be pre- and a statement about where his priori- been the relationship between art and tentious—and comics are comix, not ties lie as an artist. I don’t think it’s a co- commerce, and hilarious observations graphically sequential narratives. This incidence that he’s also one of the best about the sometimes inverted relation- filmic cartoonist sees a similarity: “When writers in comix: it’s that focus on char- ship between art’s merit and its price. you’re part of the lowly tradition of acter, on the human. He’s got a theory Considering that Clowes makes a decent comics it tends to be a very liberating ex- on faces, one played out at least in part living not from Eightball but from album in the story “Caricature.” In the story a covers and the porn industry, consider- traveling caricaturist, Mal Rosen, ekes ing that the only way he was even able out a meager living by doing state-fair- to produce Lloyd Llewellyn and the earli- style caricatures of people, the kind of er Eightball was by living for free through caricatures which take unique, not-nec- luck and thrift with friends and relatives, essarily pretty people and bland them all he’s bitter. He says so—“bitter”—with a to goofy icons—what Clowes calls “the lilt that almost turns it into two syllables happy mass of sameness.” The irony of of laughter. But the way he sighs out his Mal’s approach is, of course, that the *For the original and much better explana- explanation of grievances against the Aht original idea of caricature was physiog- tion of this theory, read Understanding Comics, Wuld indicates stoic acceptance more nomy: to render a unique, often by Scott McCloud. Tundra Publishing Ltd, than his younger anger or hysteria: “You grotesque, inner state. Although the 1993. just feel like people who are interested in 26 27 perience. With a histo- low, yet he finds it dif- ry so limited, there’s so ficult and probably de- much that can be done. structive to articulate It’s virgin territory.” The any reasoning or think- attraction of the medium and ing that goes into maintain- the curse of the medium are almost ing the equilibrium. “That’s some- identical: total freedom and guaranteed thing that I’m dealing with on a day-to- obscurity—a hipster’s paradise. Or hell. day basis,” he says. “It’s something I’m so close to I can hardly even comment lowes seems to have internalized on it.” Dan Clowes is sure of one thing, C this paradox; in fact, it fits his aes- however: he has to be wary of the desire thetic of perversity to a t-square. Al- to grow up. He refers to his “giant battle though he was practically born into this plan to make comics accept- damned art form, this fallen world of able as art,” but in almost comix, and has done as much as anybody the same breath asserts to champion or redeem it, Clowes also that there’s a faith to be deliberately draws work that will justify kept. “I think you have the general condemnation of comix. The to be true to comics to key to his puzzle is sleaze. On the one some degree,” he says. hand, it can be discouraging: “I want “The history of comics The “meaning” of people to see comics exactly the way I is so spotty and disrep- Velvet Glove do. I see that it has this sort of inherent- utable that I think it’s im- in a nutshell. ly sleazy quality, but I can see beyond portant to maintain the tra- that, see the potential of the medium, dition, to keep true to what comics have what it really is. It bothers me cultivated, which is this sleazy, low- that people always see the down, back-alley demeanor.” The sleaze sleazy part of it, but I think may be discouraging, he explains, but it’s that I’ve tried to deal with that also valuable: “You can’t be a sculptor for so long that I’ve gotten to and have that behind you,” he says. “It’s the point where it just sort of something you can’t buy.” That’s Daniel amuses me that people only see comics Gillespie Clowes’ final truth: by necessi- Clowes’ work can be ordered from Fan- as completely trashy. I realize that peo- ty and by choice, he’s a believer in his tagraphics Books at 1.800.657.1100. ple have bigger things on their minds own inheritance. than the Meaning of Comic Books.” But on the other hand, Dan Clowes has done so much to keep the sleaze in comix. He ele- vates the form to the level of liter- ature and yet he refuses to take out the trash; your comix, I tell him, are both Art with the capital A and comix with the x. “All right!” he says—his one and only exclama- tion point during the hours we spent together. He’s aware of the balance he holds between the high and the 28