umwelt
New Member
Fathom the Concept
Posts: 14
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Post by umwelt on Nov 21, 2021 15:16:33 GMT
Definitely the marginal Eightball content.
This.
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Post by BubblesZine on Nov 21, 2021 17:08:27 GMT
Here's an exclusive forum only preview of my Clowes article in Bubbles #12. Pretty proud of uncovering these cards haha.
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Post by andrewpilkington on Nov 22, 2021 2:32:06 GMT
Here's an exclusive forum only preview of my Clowes article in Bubbles #12. Pretty proud of uncovering these cards haha. View AttachmentThis is great, I can't believe Don Mossi is real. Classic art imitating life.
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Post by awfulquiet on Nov 22, 2021 14:16:40 GMT
Here's an exclusive forum only preview of my Clowes article in Bubbles #12. Pretty proud of uncovering these cards haha. View AttachmentKayfabe just did videos on the Hate You/Love You stories and got into this same topic a bit. Love that these guys look like they could be whole cloth made up Clowes characters, but are somehow in fact real. Topps should get Clowes to illustrate some cards before they lose the MLB.
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Post by timbecile on Nov 22, 2021 15:28:18 GMT
Excellent article! Surprised Clowes didn't use the unibrow.
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kevinh
Junior Member
Posts: 61
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Post by kevinh on Nov 22, 2021 18:24:11 GMT
Thinking lately about "keeping an icy distance between author and audience"
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umwelt
New Member
Fathom the Concept
Posts: 14
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Post by umwelt on Nov 24, 2021 19:11:51 GMT
Recognized a familiar face on television a while back.
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Post by dominocorp on Nov 28, 2021 20:23:45 GMT
a top 10 just off the top of my head, I wouldn't be able to defend some of these but emotionally they make sense 1. ice haven 2. gynecology 3. on sports (the funniest strip he did imo) 4. ghost world 5. immortal invisible 6. mister wonderful 7. which one is the eight ball strip with the two guys endlessly pontificating with what your future might be like with different kinds of women, somehow finding ways to find defeat no matter what? I always think of lines from that as pretty funny 8. patience, which I need to read again but I remember liking a lot when I read it while working at a store 9. the mean ghost world reunion strip he did for an anniversary edition where enid comes to a book signing Rebecca is doing, and enid is now some desperate unsuccessful blogger and Rebecca is a boring NPR type author 10. the rest, they're all great
I feel like Death Ray is the most condensed version of his worldview (people narrating their own lives as being heroic rather than monstrous, no matter what they've actually done)...good window to view his other stuff but for some reason I dont reread it much.
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Post by k0rnbr34d on Nov 29, 2021 6:59:21 GMT
I feel like Death Ray is the most condensed version of his worldview (people narrating their own lives as being heroic rather than monstrous, no matter what they've actually done)...good window to view his other stuff but for some reason I dont reread it much. I know what you mean. The last time I reread it, I was really let down by the ending. Seemed so noncommittal. It didn't bother me the first couple times I read it, but the last time it stuck out like a sore thumb. It does contain all his stuff, though. Very condensed.
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Post by timbecile on Dec 6, 2021 20:19:15 GMT
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Post by BubblesZine on Dec 6, 2021 23:05:59 GMT
haha wow that's amazing.
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Post by junkflower on Jan 11, 2023 21:54:59 GMT
I'm a fan of the Thick Lines podcast and was surprised to hear that the hosts and others are fans of the character Tina in Velvet Glove.
I mean- on one hand, sure- but on the other hand I've always seen Tina as a reflection of Clowes' burgeoning youthful post-divorce misogyny that he was trying to work through at this time. Tina is the only character whose perspectives aren't warped by her (or rather, the world's view of) her sexuality. She's the only really nice woman in that world, who's willing to take Clay as he is (and not as some totem of their own personal damage or insecurity)... and also she's a hideous monster.
I think this ties into a lot of terrible misogynistic fears that Clowes is exploring here, which are obviously acted out by fucked up young men in a number of ways today.
This isn't a literary essay here, just some scrappy thoughts... I've just always felt like what Tina "represents" just isn't very... nice
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Post by mikesheawright on Jan 12, 2023 2:14:11 GMT
I'm late to the Clowes game, the first Clowes I ever read was Patience which I super hated so it took me a while to go back to that well. I'm reading Eightball for the first time now, lots of thoughts on it that I want to write or draw something about at some point. I loved Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, hated like 90% of the rest of the first 7 or 8 issues. Just insufferable complainy white guy nonsense, feels really forced and posturing from a 2023 view. Just intolerable smugness, not my thing. But I love love love the way he draws though so I stuck with it and I'm way into the back half of this book (the complete edition). These issues sort of merge the Velvet Glove stuff with more narrative and vibey stuff that is really visceral and wild. The charicature one really landed for me, and the Ghost World one where they set that sad guy up at the diner and he tells them to fuck off and they feel bad. I think I have two issues left, at that point I think I'm all set on Clowes for a while but might dig back through this thread at some point for some more recs.
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Post by arecomicsevengood on Jan 12, 2023 3:57:07 GMT
I gotta say, Eightball 22/Ice Haven is such a culmination of everything he'd been doing that I think it's a mistake to not include it in a book called "The Complete Eightball." It was also maybe one of the first Clowes pieces I read, and probably it's not the best starter. I think I recall being a little mystified by it. But it is brilliant and it also works better in comic book format than the half-sized book format. Probably it should be read only after reading the Caricature and Twentieth Century Eightball collections. Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron is definitely high up there on my list of favorites but it's also probably the best entry-point. The Death-Ray is also a total banger and absolutely in contention for being my favorite. Paying seven bucks for that when it first came out was some of the best money ever spent. Obsessive rereading when all my stuff was in storage after my freshman year of college and that was one of the only comics I owned because it had just come out. I felt like I finally "got" how Clowes was good/better than superhero comics after hearing that but not really feeling it in my heart. (In terms of stuff I read in high school I definitely preferred a Vertigo comic like Enigma over Ghost World and this in fact is still my opinion.)(EDIT: Obviously the implication here is that I liked The Death-Ray because it's a superhero strip and I might've even thought that at the time but in retrospect it could just be that I met people like the characters in The Death-Ray when I went to college but I actually wouldn't have encountered people like Enid and Rebecca at my suburban high school.)
David Boring still kind of mystifies me. It's him doing Nabokov maybe(?) who I love but the way it breaks down into three acts but there's huge gaps in between them and just a sense of there being puzzles to solve that I can't quite wrap my head around. I go back to it every couple years and every time there's such a steep learning curve between issues.
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Post by manoopuesta on Jan 14, 2023 9:44:07 GMT
When I read the Eightball complete volumes, the tone of the stories felt a bit dated for nowadays and they made me feel a bit alienated. The longer stories of that era, such as Like a Velvet or Ghost World, in general hold much better.
I started getting into comics by reading Clowes and the Hernandez Brothers and when comparing the latter ones to Clowes, the Hernandez's stories are still great to reread and the dated aspect doesn't seem to happen too much for their stories.
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