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jwinchell's review against another edition
5.0
This is an outstanding retrospective of Clowes' work. I particularly loved the essay by Chris Ware; I felt invited as an awkward observer to their journeys and genius. (Also, it was a relevation to finally match Clowes up with the artwork on The Earwax Diner menus--of course!). Pick up this book and marvel.
prufrog's review against another edition
4.0
A look into the world and work of Daniel Clowes, this book has gotten me interested in how he uses the medium of comics. It would have been better to see more of his life than images of his work, but that is nitpicking. I expected it to be more of a biography or collection, but it had some academic essays by comic geeks and they made me get more interested in the theory behind the craft. It goes into discussions about the comic as a genre and how Clowes has specifically engaged with it in his work. Overall, a good book for someone interested in comics and the creative process that goes in making them. I am really interested in reading more of Clowes’ work now.
Side note: the masculinity of the comic world kept hitting me again and again as the artists mentioned in the book were mostly male, the reviewers were male, there were random shots of tits floating around, I occasioned to see the word ‘whore’ a lot... Not to say that Clowes or the others were sexist or something (even if they were, you can’t deduce it from this book. It was a time of general cynicism towards everything)
This was pretty definitive as a book on a comic legend from the 90s. There have obviously been a lot of changes over the years and what we know of the comic geek world today is pretty different from how it was back then. I wonder what changes we’d see in a book on a comic artist from today. Say, Kate Beaton. How’d that go?
Side note: the masculinity of the comic world kept hitting me again and again as the artists mentioned in the book were mostly male, the reviewers were male, there were random shots of tits floating around, I occasioned to see the word ‘whore’ a lot... Not to say that Clowes or the others were sexist or something (even if they were, you can’t deduce it from this book. It was a time of general cynicism towards everything)
This was pretty definitive as a book on a comic legend from the 90s. There have obviously been a lot of changes over the years and what we know of the comic geek world today is pretty different from how it was back then. I wonder what changes we’d see in a book on a comic artist from today. Say, Kate Beaton. How’d that go?
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