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Post by arecomicsevengood on Oct 12, 2023 20:51:47 GMT
Alright if ever a book deserved its own thread it's this one. Got a handful of disconnected thoughts: Feels like it's really about Gen X - parental abandonment, and trying to figure out what the deal is. A thought this put in my head I hadn't had before is that the sort of interest in Lovecraft that's popular recently is like... Gen X trying to cope with life without God or religion but still seeing mysteries. Or like, viewing religion/God as malevolent and then finding a mythos about that. I don't know if I take the ending as being literally real? Or while it's foreshadowed, it still feels pretty abrupt to me. I took a lot of the fatalism in Monica's fiction (or imagined extrapolation of the lives of people who shaped her) to be more of a statement about her personality (due to her upbringing) than the book trying to wholeheartedly inhabit the horror genre. Like I viewed the intent as being more "literary" in its aims, a study of a person and her psychology, than horrific (describing a cosmology wherein we're fucked by demons). But uhhh I also didn't thik to view that dude she dates at the end as being a Clowes stand-in. I said this in the comments of the TCJ review www.tcj.com/reviews/monica/ but Joe took certain stories as being "real" (in-story) and others as possible fictions by Monica than I had reversed- I thought Fox Hole was a story Monica might've written, and Krupp was that character speaking for himself. Krupp is the funniest character, I liked those bits a lot. Interested in the role anti-semitism plays in the narrative. Krupp assumes Penny's boyfriend to be a hillbilly anti-semite, Monica gets mad at her grandfather for being anti-semitic when he's a ghostly voice on the radio. Flipping through I saw a few drawings of characters with a finger over the mouth, to indicate a person should be quiet... My vague memory of Alan Moore comics has that being a mystical symbol right? If that has anything to do with anything. Kinda interesting to think about the horror stuff as being the influence of Richard Sala as ghost. Or actually so much of the book to me is about Clowes taking the sort of collection of gag strips form you see him doing in Ice Haven or Wilson and then doing that with like EC stories instead. Like, as Twentieth Century Eightball is to Ice Haven, Caricature is to Monica... a recasting of the quasi-anthology as a portrait of consciousnesses in community. Or, the EC short story form, driven by narration, is sort of what he's doing in the Caricature collection. It might not have felt that way at the time but now the sort of narrative-caption approach to comics is very much out of fashion, everything's all dialogue, all the time. So this feels like Clowes investigating that EC approach and seeing if this approach can actually be made literary or novelistic, and then engaging with horror through that lens. So he looks back to like the gothic tales of Nathaniel Hawthorne as precedent as something deeper than the Shock SuspenStories formula. What do you all think? Totally agree with Joe's assertion that this is Clowes' best post-Eightball work.
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Monica
Oct 13, 2023 13:47:05 GMT
Post by jporcellino on Oct 13, 2023 13:47:05 GMT
I'm eagerly waiting for this to show up at In Stock Trades.
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luke
New Member
Posts: 46
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Post by luke on Oct 13, 2023 17:11:27 GMT
I find it hard to talk about, because I have so much anticipation and such loaded expectations for any new Clowes book that I usually end up totally changing my mind about whatever it is I think I think about it after a first read. Monica is definitely in a lot of ways Clowes' most impressive book, but to me Wilson remains his best "late period" work. (And I remember being disappointed at how slight Wilson seemed when I first read it!)
The idea that it's doing the multimodal thing that Ice Haven did but for EC and EC-knockoff comics feels spot-on to me.
I see the ending as a colliding of the "real" and fictional narrative threads in the story. I guess that can mean that Monica the writer is writing those final pages or the apocalypse, but that doesn't really matter to me as much as the book culminating, after swirling through all these genres and pastiches, into a liminal space that encompasses all of them. During my read through, I was kind of frustrated that the "real" stories and the fictions aren't clearly delineated but in the end it feels like a shrewd move on Clowes' part. The ending also reminded me a lot of the stuff with the Tin Tin inspired-egg thing in Burns' Last Look.
I clocked the guy at the end being modeled after Clowes immediately, but I'm not sure I see the character as being as literal a Clowes stand-in as others.
I too read the Krupp chapter as being part of the "real" world. The details surrounding the character and his bombastic narration felt more idiosyncratic and better observed than the chapters I read as Monica's fiction (including, I think "Foxhole"), where the characters feel more archetypal and one-dimensional. In fact, that's my main critical thought about the book at this point. Even though it's probably intentional for the fictions to be flatter overall than the "real" story, they're each so pastiche-y that I feel like they don't tell us very much about Monica as a writer or a person outside of the clue-like motifs sprinkled in (which remind me of David Boring piecing together the comic panels and Karkes' symbol-laden love notes in David Boring). As products of Monica, they feel reverse-engineered; reading them, I feel Clowes' interest in playing in these genres much more than Monica's. I get that her connection to them is her grandfather's pulps, but that doesn't seem like enough to me.
There's obviously a lot of personal stuff in there that's extra interesting knowing Clowes' biography. More than the parents and grandparents stuff, which has been approached in his work lots of times before, I have to admit I was really intrigued in a gossipy kind of way by the "Success" chapter in light of Clowes' vaunted position (in terms of breaking into Hollywood and whatnot as well just general economics; I once heard from someone supposedly in the know that his biggest, life-changing payday was a settlement with Shia Labeouf) compared to most of the comics peers he started with. I think I read somewhere (maybe in Clowes' own remembrance) that it created tension between him and Sala.
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luke
New Member
Posts: 46
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Monica
Oct 13, 2023 17:17:58 GMT
Post by luke on Oct 13, 2023 17:17:58 GMT
Also, I haven't caught up on all the press surrounding it, but has anyone talked about the book in relation to Gilbert Hernandez's work, particularly his B-movie that recasts Fritz in various seedy genre send-ups?
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Post by mikesheawright on Oct 18, 2023 1:40:22 GMT
i found this book to be a completely miserable read from start to finish. not weird enough to be interesting, not enough substance to be thought-provoking, not funny at all. stories all felt empty, flat, connected retroactively to sell a book rather than floppies.
repeatedly commits the cardinal sin of comics for me which is writing long ass narration and then just drawing exactly what's in the text box. also looks like he forgot how to use all his drawing tools? either that or he's trying to loosen up, but it just looks like taking the screws out of all the furniture. what the hell are all those vertical line shadows over the linework? this felt like the first book of someone trying to figure a lot of things out both visually and narratively, not the magnum opus of a lifer OG. so pissed i spent $30 on this NPR-bait.
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Post by arecomicsevengood on Oct 18, 2023 13:08:28 GMT
Thinking more about the ending, and I am standing by my idea that it's not "real," but rather, is about how, in the context of a life - and the book is the story of Monica's life, beginning with her conception - when you die, the world as you know it ends. Especially in the context of a nonreligious worldview, the individual cessation of consciousness is it, the end of all that is. Monica has a grandfather, who can be an influence on her after she dies - we do get to live on through the lives we touch and interact with, even if others' perceptions of us are then subject to memory's faults - but Monica has no family or close friends, due to her success (and her perspective being wrapped up in retrospect, trying to understand her origins. Her grandfather gets to exist as a ghost of sorts, but Monica doesn't. When her life ends, the story ends, the world ends. For as personal as the book is, and for as much as the male character at the end may resemble Clowes, Clowes also has a wife and son (and is canonized, has an in-print body of work and many readers) and so his fate is different than his character's, who is nonetheless an examination of his worldview if he didn't have those things and was just left to his nihilism.
I also like thinking about this ending, and the horror elements in general, as guided by the spirit or ghost of Richard Sala, a friend of Dan's who loved horror and also to the best of my knowledge didn't have a family and, sad to say, is less likely to have as large of an audience after his death.
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Post by adamszym on Oct 18, 2023 16:34:04 GMT
I don't love everything Clowes has done (I didn't like Patience much at all), but I could not have had a more different experience than Mike up above. About the only thing I agree with is that there were moments where the images could have been a little less literally connected to the text.
Other than that I personally found it really compelling, funny, creepy, moving. It's wild to say it feels like someone's FIRST BOOK. I would kill to live in a world where most cartoonist's first books were this good!
The book hasn't left my mind since finishing it, and I look forward to chewing on it more and eventually diving back in.
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Monica
Oct 18, 2023 16:42:41 GMT
Post by awfulquiet on Oct 18, 2023 16:42:41 GMT
i found this book to be a completely miserable read from start to finish. not weird enough to be interesting, not enough substance to be thought-provoking, not funny at all. stories all felt empty, flat, connected retroactively to sell a book rather than floppies. repeatedly commits the cardinal sin of comics for me which is writing long ass narration and then just drawing exactly what's in the text box. also looks like he forgot how to use all his drawing tools? either that or he's trying to loosen up, but it just looks like taking the screws out of all the furniture. what the hell are all those vertical line shadows over the linework? this felt like the first book of someone trying to figure a lot of things out both visually and narratively, not the magnum opus of a lifer OG. so pissed i spent $30 on this NPR-bait. I had a lot of these same feelings when I was halfway through it. I stopped there, went to bed, woke up and drove home from CXC and reflected on it, then finished the book when I got home and by the time I got to the end I felt like it all came together and I was in love with it.
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Post by arecomicsevengood on Oct 19, 2023 2:42:13 GMT
Important context is that Mike has a comic in his new zine about reading through The Collected Eightball and not liking that either
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Post by mikesheawright on Oct 19, 2023 10:52:45 GMT
Important context is that Mike has a comic in his new zine about reading through The Collected Eightball and not liking that either haha this is true BUT i ended up liking the weirder parts of it more (Velvet Glove, Caricature, etc.) by the end. there's something enigmatic and enticing about those stories that's missing from Monica for me. a greater than the sum of its parts issue? i just felt like there was nothing outside of Monica, it didn't feel like it was engaging with anything other than i guess comics reference points. no meat on that bone for me. just a steady drone of ugly showing and overtelling.
i'm curious why i found it so repugnant visually too, there's something about this late clowes style that i find really hard to look at. maybe i'll try to take some reference shots and break it down to try to figure it out. i understand not wanting to repeat yourself creatively and expand the zone or whatever but it comes across to me as just really weak and sloppy.
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Post by pentimento on Oct 20, 2023 1:15:40 GMT
I think his drawing really went downhill when he and Tomine started hanging out. Tomine's insufferable blandness (Ikea Kartuning) rubbed off on Clowes for whatever reason... I do think Clowes was already in the mind of reducing his work to a sort of intentional blankness that only true cartooning can do (no other artform really can - something about the lines and colors) and I get where he's coming from with that, but I think he really fumbled his way, the nadir of that being Mr. Wonderful and Patience, which I think are his two most garbage stories on top of the aawful drawing.
However, Monica is excellent, visually - I have to disagree with you. It's a new layer of density and texture never present so complexly and assuredly in his drawing and composition. It's got the Krigsten peculiarity and the EC obsessiveness of his early work, and the Kubrickian refinement of David Boring. It's thrilling to look at, but still has the weird dead Kurt Schaffenberger/Wayne Boring quality he obviously likes - and it colaesces into a very unique and disturbing whole.
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Monica
Oct 20, 2023 13:36:23 GMT
Post by jporcellino on Oct 20, 2023 13:36:23 GMT
After waiting and waiting for it to show up at my Diamond-serviced retailers, I finally just ordered from Amazon. Should show up on Tuesday. I wonder if it sold out already?
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Post by soodumoodu on Oct 20, 2023 16:51:05 GMT
i found this book to be a completely miserable read from start to finish. not weird enough to be interesting, not enough substance to be thought-provoking, not funny at all. stories all felt empty, flat, connected retroactively to sell a book rather than floppies. repeatedly commits the cardinal sin of comics for me which is writing long ass narration and then just drawing exactly what's in the text box. also looks like he forgot how to use all his drawing tools? either that or he's trying to loosen up, but it just looks like taking the screws out of all the furniture. what the hell are all those vertical line shadows over the linework? this felt like the first book of someone trying to figure a lot of things out both visually and narratively, not the magnum opus of a lifer OG. so pissed i spent $30 on this NPR-bait. I had a lot of these same feelings when I was halfway through it. I stopped there, went to bed, woke up and drove home from CXC and reflected on it, then finished the book when I got home and by the time I got to the end I felt like it all came together and I was in love with it. Yeah I felt the same way. I was kind of bored and didn't like it very much until part where she starts looking into the cult. Then it really picked and I enjoyed it a lot. I think I will enjoy it way more on a second read.
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skoden
Junior Member
Posts: 56
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Post by skoden on Oct 20, 2023 21:13:43 GMT
*Warning Spoilers* I finished this up last night and really enjoyed it. Reading some recent interviews with Clowes, it's interesting how Penny was based on his own mother and that Monica's loneliness and lack of family mirrors Clowes' recent loss of his mom and older brother. There's a great depth of loneliness and how the past haunts us pervading the entire book. The references to disasters and apocalypse with the ending, Krugg accosting Poppa, the Blue Invasion, and the line, "the first pandemic," are unsettling in these recent times. There's a good documentary on Clowes addressing these themes if you haven't seen it from 2002 - " Nostalgia and Paranoia." The documentary made me reflect on the ending which reached a fever pitch for me as the pages dwindled and I had no idea where it was going and how Clowes comments, "I don't believe in solutions for my characters unless it comes organically..." I think the most impactful parts of the story for me was the cult which has been a fascination of mine since the Heaven's Gate deaths in the 90's. I'm mostly drawn to how people are deceived (coerced/forced?) into what they perceive as a meaningful and fulfilled life in these groups while being led to disaster by totally delusional and dangerous charlatans. People can be so fragile, yet so resilient. I found the Alice character particularly tragic since so many cults of the late 20th century raised numerous children outside of a rapidly progressing society with no access to education or culture, such as the Rajneesh movement or the Branch Davidians. I'm terrified by the thought of undiscovered cults deep in some desolate woods area stuck in the past and exploiting individuals and families while resorting to desperate measures to survive. Monica's infiltration of the cult is deeply creepy and I almost expected her to receive divination from the V character and go down a darker path. There's a good Harper's article on a private investigator whose niche clientele were parents whose children had run off to join these kinds of cults - " The Man Who Saves You From Yourself." Worth a read and ties into Johnny rescuing that youth in "The Incident" chapter. The final act was fast paced and somewhat mundane with Monica seemingly settling into a quiet retirement which was totally upended by the last panel. I like how it brought up so many questions though. Why was Monica's father a monster to Penny? Who was the british man's voice on the radio? Was William in the "The Glow Infernal" a doppelgänger of V. Flowers as written by Monica? Was there any significance to the Satyr on the back cover? What was going on in the town during "The Incident?" Are the inside cover splash pages the final pages of the story? I loved this book's playfulness with callbacks to EC comics, 60/70's Americana, and the occult. There's also deep tragedy and fear in these pages emanating from the scenery, characters, and story all while drenched in primary colors. Then there's the paranoia within all the characters—distrustful, wounded, and bracing for the worst possible outcome—which are often played off for laughs. It's pure Clowes, ultimately, and I hope we keep getting more of it from him. "All the most nostalgic people I know are also the most paranoid." — Dan Clowes, 2002.
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Post by wigshop on Oct 23, 2023 18:17:45 GMT
Fun to consider the faux toning of the paper stock: perhaps the tanned stories are Monica's own EC-style fiction (Foxhole, The Glow Infernal, The Incident, Krugg), the white ones her 'real life' (Pretty Penny, the cult, doomsday). This leaves two yellow-paper stories (Demonica and Success) which might be read as intentionally adulterated/fabricated/fictionalized versions of her own backstory.
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