In a soft spoken, almost sedate manner, Daniel Clowes ponders the webcomic. As a cartoonist who began his career in the mid ‘80s, Clowes speculates that if he were starting out today, he would likely take the online route. Yet while the author appreciates the current accessibility of what was once an esoteric art form, he admits that he does not have a particular fondness for reading comics on a computer.
“I like to have that kind of one-on-one correspondence with the author, where you’re not distracted by anything else,” Clowes explains. “I don’t really like looking at the comics with the light emitted from behind them that you get on a computer screen. I’m much happier sitting in a chair with a book that I know is self-contained and I know that the world of the comic is within that book, and when I put the book down, it won’t ask me to do anything else like a computer will.”
Daniel Clowes made his name in the world of alternative comics with his series called “Eightball” that began in 1989. With “Eightball,” which usually showcased a main story with a few backup features at the end, Clowes developed many of the characters he would later focus on in his graphic novels and films. The isolated and anguished Enid and Rebecca of Ghost World, the hacky and hopeful art students of Art School Confidential, and a handful of other finely drawn characters all developed their insight, neuroses, and slightly disturbed senses of humour in these early pages of his career. Clowes customarily keeps his characters brutally honest, adopting a stream-of-consciousness feel within the dialogue. The result is a narrative that feels real and deeply personal for both the author and the reader.
“I’m trying to be as honest as I can in my work and trying to find a way to communicate the unspeakable things that go on in my inner life. Things that I couldn’t quite articulate in a sentence, I’m trying to express through these created worlds and characters interacting with each other, and explore the various things that I find interesting, or exciting or anxiety provoking, or that engender some kind of emotion in me.”
In 2004, Clowes released a single-story issue of “Eightball”: The Death Ray; it was eventually released as a graphic novel on October 10 of this year. Set in the ‘70s, The Death Ray follows the fantastical story of Andy — an 18-year-old underdog who discovers that smoking cigarettes gives him super powers. Eventually acquiring a death ray gun, he and his friend go on a (fruitless) hunt for villains, which soon becomes a hunt for anyone.
“I came up with a very rudimentary version of the story when I was 16. It was about a kid … he had a ray gun and he had super powers and he lived with his grandfather, and his grandfather was killed by bullies at school and he sought revenge. But I never got anywhere into actually doing the story. I think I drew the cover, like, 50 times, trying to get it right, and then finally gave up. But I remember thinking a lot about the story and it had this great emotional impact on me … Doing the story at 45-years-old, it was much more about exploring the emotions I had about the story at 16 rather than trying to fulfil the vision of the 16-year-old.”
The story in one respect is an ode to Clowes’ relationship with the Spiderman comics of his childhood. With Andy’s red and blue mask-costume and the ‘70s era colours that fill every page, Clowes evokes the superheroes of his childhood to a certain extent.
However, with a power-tripping, anti-hero protagonist, it’s safe to say that The Death Ray is rooted in more than just nostalgia. Since its release, much emphasis has been placed on the fact that this is Clowes’ first post-9/11 publication.
“I wouldn’t say I was actually trying to make a point. I hope none of my work is actually trying to make a point, that’s not what I’m doing. But I was very informed sort of second-hand, not so much [by] 9/11, but [by the] Iraq War in the years [following],” Clowes clarifies.
“The whole build up to the Iraq invasion affected me emotionally. I just felt powerless, and like I was being lugged by these people whose motives were so impure and so built on revenge and opportunism. I think the Andy character came to sort of personify that a little bit in the story as I was working on it.”
Andy’s world may be of fantasy and villains, but the character ultimately still shares that element of humanity that marks so many of Clowes’ characters. It’s not the first time the artist has chosen an adolescent protagonist, either. In fact, some of his most intricate and mature characters are protagonists who are under legal voting age, whether they’re sexually frustrated 10-year-olds or self-aware teens who bemoan the flawed and immoral world in which they live.
“I guess it always struck me that young characters, teenagers, and children are never given their due in terms of the complexity that lies within them. I remember having very complicated thoughts when I was a kid and trying to piece things together that were very mysterious and had a hugeness about them … It always appealed to me the way in Peanuts the characters were much smarter than a seven-year-old would be, they had the awareness of an adult but the desires and drives of children, and I think I’m constantly revisiting that concept.”
The Death Ray follows Andy into middle age and, much like Wilson, he becomes an introspective curmudgeon. For the sole companions of these aged loners, Clowes turns to one of his real-life muses — his dog.
“She’s … the one living being who I spend the most time with really … I’ve developed this great bond with her, although I realize how it’s utterly fictional and it’s utterly my projection on to her which makes [that bond]. It’s sort of a work of fiction in the way that the comics are, so she sort of fits right into that world. I realize that if I were to die in my studio, she would happily eat the dog treats out of my pocket and then walk away.”
Since its initial 2004 release, there has been talk of making The Death Ray into a film.
“I had an idea for how to make [this one] into a movie as I was working on it, so I was much more receptive to this one being turned into a movie.”
Having brought two of his works to the screen in the past, Clowes knows not to confirm anything on a movie until it’s “going to be in a theatre on a Friday night.” Though his experience has brought him some freedom in the production process, there are still many trials when bringing a cartoon to life.
“Even with Ghost World, the drawings [were] more of a distraction than help. You know, crew members and people tend to look at the comic, and they are trying to replicate it, but you really have to create your own reality in film and you have to start over from scratch. It’s not about bringing something from another medium into the medium of film, it’s about creating a new thing that exists only as a film and doesn’t necessarily have anything whatsoever to do with the work at hand; at least I think so.”
Daniel Clowes garnered an Academy Award nomination for his 2001 screen adaptation of Ghost World. The 2006 film version of Art School Confidential expanded the four-page semi-autobiographical comic that Clowes drew about his experience as an art student in New York City.
The cartoonist, now 50, recalls the somewhat disappointing yet formative experience of starting his artistic career in NYC in the late ‘70s, “when it was still a really dangerous, Taxi Driver-ish city,” Clowes describes with a chuckle. Much like his characters of Art School Confidential would suggest, the classes did not teach him as much as the city itself did, and Clowes can recall a number of figures who inspired him at the time.
“There are so many, you know, cartoonists like Robert Crumb, and Art Spiegelman, and Kim Deitch — people who were kind of doing what I wanted to do but were kind of inventing the field of underground comics or alt comics and kind of making it up as I went along. I was very taken with them and still am.”
Clowes has since moved from the artistic hotbed of NYC and resides in California with his wife, son, and dog. He’s reached a point in his career where he doesn’t experience that outside influence on his work.
“I finally feel like I’m self-generated, for better or for worse. I used to always open other books for inspiration when I was starting. I needed to look at other artists to feel like I was trying to in some small way do what they could do. And really, in the last 10 years I haven’t felt that way; I just sit down and [explore] my own disturbed inner life.”
Daniel Clowes will speak at the International Festival of Authors at Harbourfront Centre on October 21, 8 pm.
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