Books by Daniel Clowes

Art School Confidential: A Screenplay

by Daniel Clowes

by Dan Clowes
Art School Confidential follows Jerome, an art student who dreams of becoming the greatest artist in the world. The short comic story by Dan Clowes was originally published in his comic book series Eightball, but it is presented here with an entirely new narrative only tangentially resembling the original comic. For this book, the strip will be presented in full-color for the first time. This scrapbook/screenplay also features the shooting script for the film adaptation, including several scenes edited out from the final cut. It also boasts two full-color sections jammed with photos, artwork, and many other surprises.

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Mister Wonderful: A Love Story (Pantheon Graphic Library)

by Daniel Clowes

The fan-favorite Eisner Award-winning story, originally serialized in The New York Times Magazine, now collected and with forty pages of new material.

Meet Marshall. Sitting alone in the local coffee place. He’s been set up by his friend Tim on a blind date with someone named Natalie, and now he’s just feeling set up. She’s nine minutes late and counting. Who was he kidding anyway? Divorced, middle-aged, newly unemployed, with next to no prospects, Marshall isn’t exactly what you’d call a catch. Twenty minutes pass.
A half hour. Marshall orders a scotch. (He wasn’t going to drink!) Forty minutes.

Then, after nearly an hour, when he’s long since given up hope, Natalie appears—breathless, apologizing profusely that she went to the wrong place. She takes a seat, to Marshall’s utter amazement.

She’s too good to be true: attractive, young, intelligent, and she seems to be seriously engaged with what Marshall has to say. There has to be a catch.

And, of course, there is.

During the extremely long night that follows, Marshall and Natalie are emotionally tested in ways that two people who just met really should not be. Not, at least, if they want the prospect of a second date.

A captivating, bittersweet, and hilarious look at the potential for human connection in an increasingly hopeless world, Mister Wonderful more than lives up to its name.

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Ice Haven

by Daniel Clowes

At long last: Daniel Clowes is back at Pantheon, with a brilliant new graphic novel already hailed by Time as “another of his hilariously slightly off-center worlds that have a vague sense of dread about them. Kind of like where you live.”

Welcome to Ice Haven! “It’s not as cold here as it sounds,” declares Random Wilder, our reluctant guide to this sleepy Midwestern town. He’s also its would-be poet laureate. Would-be, that is, were it not for the "Florid banalities” of his archrival, Ida Wentz, published ad nauseam in the Ice Haven Daily Progress. Among Wilder’s other fellow Ice Havians are the lovelorn Violet Van der Plazt and Vida Wentz; the detective team of Mr. and Mrs. Ames; the adorable interracial moppets Carmichael and Paula; disaffected stationery salesgirl Julie Patheticstein; the Blue Bunny, newly sprung from prison and the bitterest rabbit in town; and poor little David Goldberg, missing for more than a week now…

While Dan Clowes has gotten a nod from the mainstream — an Oscar nomination for the screen adaptation of Ghost World - his work remains wonderfully idiosyncratic and imaginative. The lives of the men and women of Ice Haven are woven into a multi-layered tale that, while it owes a debt to Our Town, is ultimately based on and inspired by… Leopold and Loeb. No kidding.

Only Daniel Clowes could do it and, luckily for us, he has.

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Scorched Art: The Incendiary Aesthetic of FlameRite Zippos

by Daniel Clowes, R Crumb, Tom Hazelmyer, Coop, Shag

For almost a decade, the radical art group Flame Rite has been producing Zippo lighters featuring the work of prominent comic artists. These "miniature billboards" that normally display a corporate logo have been reinvented as witty pop-art confections. Charles Burns’s ominous Smoking Skull, Daniel Clowes’s creepy-comic Eightball, Big Daddy Roth’s wacky Rat Fink, the fabulous retroisms of Niagara’s All Girls Are Bad and Shag’s Ooguh Booguh — all these and more (130 total) are on lurid display. The book includes the work of more than 30 prominent artists including R. Crumb, Daniel Clowes, and Shag, exclusive, previously unpublished art from 20 artists in the Flame Rite lineup, and every "metal canvas" that Flame Rite Zippo produced, featuring rare and out-of-print models.

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Ghost World

by Daniel Clowes

Inspiration for the feature film and one of the most acclaimed graphic novels ever, following the adventures of two teenage girls, Enid and Becky, best friends facing the prospect of growing up, and more importantly, apart.

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Patience

by Daniel Clowes

Patience is a psychedelic science-fiction love story, veering with uncanny precision from violent destruction to deeply personal tenderness in a way that is both quintessentially “Clowesian” and utterly unique in the author’s body of work. This 180-page, full-color original graphic novel affords Clowes the opportunity to draw some of the most exuberant and breathtaking pages of his life, and to tell his most suspenseful, surprising and affecting story yet.

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The Complete Eightball 1-18

by Daniel Clowes

Before he rose to fame as a filmmaker and the author of the best-selling graphic novels Ghost World, David Boring, Ice Haven, and The Death Ray, Daniel Clowes made his name from 1989 to 1997 by producing 18 issues of the beloved comic book series Eightball, which is still widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential comic book titles of all time. Now, for the 25th Anniversary of Eightball, Fantagraphics is collecting these long out-of-print issues in a slipcased set of two hardcover volumes, reproducing each issue in facsimile form exactly as they were originally published. Included are over 450 pages of vintage Clowes, including such seminal serialized graphic novels/strips/rants as “Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron,” “Ghost World,” “Pussey,” “I Hate You Deeply,” “Sexual Frustration,” “Ugly Girls,” “Why I Hate Christians,” “Message to the People of the Future,” “Paranoid,” “My Suicide,” “Chicago,” “Art School Confidential,” “On Sports,” “Zubrick and Pogeybait,” “Hippypants and Peace-Bear,” “Grip Glutz,” “The Sensual Santa,” “Feldman,” and so many more.

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The Complete Eightball 1-18

by Daniel Clowes

The beloved comic book series Eightball made Daniel Clowes' name even before he gained fame as a bestselling graphic novelist (Ghost World, Patience, David Boring, Ice Haven) and screenwriter. From 1989 to 1997, he produced 18 issues of what is still widely considered one of the greatest and most influential comic book titles of all time. Now, Fantagraphics is collecting every single page of these long out-of-print issues in a paperback edition. It includes more than 500 pages of vintage Clowes: seminal serialized graphic novels, strips, and rants, such as "Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron," "Ghost World," "Pussey," "I Hate You Deeply," "Sexual Frustration," "Ugly Girls," "Why I Hate Christians," "Message to the People of the Future," "Paranoid," "My Suicide," "Chicago," "Art School Confidential," "On Sports," "Zubrick and Pogeybait," "Hippypants and Peace-Bear," "Grip Glutz," "The Sensual Santa," "Feldman," and many more. Features new covers by Clowes, and "Behind the Eightball": the author’s annotations for each issue, heavily illustrated with art and photos from his archives.

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Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron

by Daniel Clowes

Clay Loudermilk stumbles into a screening of a bizarre snuff film that wraps him up in a mystery surrounding a series of cult-inspired killings, dubbed “The Harum Scarum Murders.” The subsequent path Loudermilk’s life takes is both a terrifying journey into madness and jaw-dropping tour-de-force of visual imagination fraught with psychosexual and conspiratorial tension.

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Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron

by Daniel Clowes

From Eightball, this terrifying and fascinating journey into madness makes Twin Peaks look like Teletubbies. The mysteries behind a snuff fim lead to an increasingly bizarre cast of characters.

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Monica

by Daniel Clowes

Monica is a series of interconnected narratives that collectively tell the life story ― actually, stories ― of its title character. Clowes calls upon a lifetime of inspiration to create the most complex and personal graphic novel of his distinguished career. Rich with visual detail, an impeccable ear for language and dialogue, and thrilling twists, Monica is a multilayered masterpiece in comics form that alludes to many of the genres that have defined the medium ― war, romance, horror, crime, the supernatural, etc. ― but in a mysterious, uncategorizable, and quintessentially Clowesian way that rewards multiple readings.

Five years in the making, Monica marks the apex of creativity from one of the defining voices of the graphic novel boom over the past quarter-century. A new book from Clowes is always a huge event in comics and literary circles; Monica will be the biggest literary event of 2023.

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Wilson

by A. Scott Berg, Daniel Clowes

Longlisted for the 2014 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography

“With the prescience that all truly great biographers possess, Berg discovered in Woodrow Wilson a figure who would understand Washington’s current state of affairs.”—Vanity Fair

“A brilliant biography that still resonates in Washington today.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin
From Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times–bestselling author A. Scott Berg comes the definitive—and revelatory—biography of one of the great American figures of modern times.

One hundred years after his inauguration, Woodrow Wilson still stands as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, and one of the most enigmatic. And now, after more than a decade of research and writing, Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. Scott Berg has completed Wilson--the most personal and penetrating biography ever written about the 28th President.

In addition to the hundreds of thousands of documents in the Wilson Archives, Berg was the first biographer to gain access to two recently-discovered caches of papers belonging to those close to Wilson. From this material, Berg was able to add countless details--even several unknown events--that fill in missing pieces of Wilson’s character and cast new light on his entire life.

From the scholar-President who ushered the country through its first great world war to the man of intense passion and turbulence , from the idealist determined to make the world “safe for democracy” to the stroke-crippled leader whose incapacity and the subterfuges around it were among the century’s greatest secrets, the result is an intimate portrait written with a particularly contemporary point of view – a book at once magisterial and deeply emotional about the whole of Wilson’s life, accomplishments, and failings. This is not just Wilson the icon – but Wilson the man.

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Wilson

by A. Scott Berg, Daniel Clowes

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, "a brilliant biography"* of the 28th president of the United States.
*Doris Kearns Goodwin

One hundred years after his inauguration, Woodrow Wilson still stands as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, and one of the most enigmatic. And now, after more than a decade of research and writing, Pulitzer Prize–winning author A. Scott Berg has completed Wilson—the most personal and penetrating biography ever written about the twenty-eighth President.

In addition to the hundreds of thousands of documents in the Wilson Archives, Berg was the first biographer to gain access to two recently discovered caches of papers belonging to those close to Wilson. From this material, Berg was able to add countless details—even several unknown events—that fill in missing pieces of Wilson’s character, and cast new light on his entire life.

From the visionary Princeton professor who constructed a model for higher education in America to the architect of the ill-fated League of Nations, from the devout Commander in Chief who ushered the country through its first great World War to the widower of intense passion and turbulence who wooed a second wife with hundreds of astonishing love letters, from the idealist determined to make the world “safe for democracy” to the stroke-crippled leader whose incapacity—and the subterfuges around it—were among the century’s greatest secrets, from the trailblazer whose ideas paved the way for the New Deal and the Progressive administrations that followed to the politician whose partisan battles with his opponents left him a broken man, and ultimately, a tragic figure—this is a book at once magisterial and deeply emotional about the whole of Wilson’s life, accomplishments, and failings. This is not just Wilson the icon—but Wilson the man.

INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS

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Wilson

by A. Scott Berg, Daniel Clowes

AN ORIGINAL GRAPHIC NOVEL FROM THE OSCAR-NOMINATED SCREENWRITER AND AWARD-WINNING CARTOONIST

Meet Wilson, an opinionated middle-aged loner who loves his dog and quite possibly no one else. In an ongoing quest to find human connection, he badgers friend and stranger alike into a series of onesided conversations, punctuating his own lofty discursions with a brutally honest, self-negating sense of humor. After his father dies, Wilson, now irrevocably alone, sets out to find his ex-wife with the hope of rekindling their long-dead relationship, and discovers he has a teenage daughter, born after the marriage ended and given up for adoption.Wilson eventually forces all three to reconnect as a family―a doomed mission that will surely, inevitably backfire.

In the first all-new graphic novel from one of the leading cartoonists of our time, Daniel Clowes creates a thoroughly engaging, complex, and fascinating portrait of the modern egoist―outspoken and oblivious to the world around him.Working in a single-page-gag format and drawing in a spectrumof styles, the cartoonist of GhostWorld, Ice Haven, and David Boring gives us his funniest and most deeply affecting novel to date.

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Wilson

by A. Scott Berg, Daniel Clowes

Now a feature film with Woody Harrelson and Laura Dern

A new paperback edition of the modern classic timed to the release of the Alexander Payne–produced film version.

Meet Wilson, an opinionated middle-aged loner who loves his dog and quite possibly no one else. In an ongoing quest to find human connection, he badgers friend and stranger alike into a series of one-sided conversations, punctuating his own lofty discursions with a brutally honest, self-negating sense of humor. After his father dies, Wilson, now irrevocably alone, sets out to find his ex-wife with the hope of rekindling their long-dead relationship, and discovers he has a teenage daughter, born after the marriage ended and given up for adoption. Wilson eventually forces all three to reconnect as a family--a doomed mission that will surely, inevitably backfire.

Daniel Clowes, one of the leading cartoonists of our time creates a thoroughly engaging, complex, and fascinating portrait of the modern egoist--outspoken and oblivious to the world around him. Working in a single-page gag format and drawing in a spectrum of styles, the cartoonist of Ghost World, Ice Haven, and The Death-Ray gives us Wilson, his funniest and most deeply affecting novel to date.

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The Death-Ray

by Daniel Clowes

ON TIME, NPR AND USA TODAY'S BEST-OF 2011 LISTS! WINNER OF THE EISNER, HARVEY AND IGNATZ AWARDS

Teen outcast Andy is an orphaned nobody with only one friend, the obnoxious―but loyal―Louie. They roam school halls and city streets, invisible to everyone but bullies and tormentors, until the glorious day when Andy takes his first puff on a cigarette. That night he wakes, heart pounding, soaked in sweat, and finds himself suddenly overcome with the peculiar notion that he can do anything. Indeed, he can, and as he learns the extent of his new powers, he discovers a terrible and seductive gadget―a hideous compliment to his seething rage―that forever changes everything.

The Death-Ray utilizes the classic staples of the superhero genre―origin, costume, ray gun, sidekick, fight scene―and reconfigures them in a story that is anything but morally simplistic. With subtle comedy, deft mastery, and an obvious affection for the bold pop-art exuberance of comic book design, Daniel Clowes delivers a contemporary meditation on the darkness of the human psyche.

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The Death-Ray

by Daniel Clowes

A cartoonist’s acclaimed take on the superhero genre―now in paperback.

Teen outcast Andy is an orphaned nobody with only one friend, the obnoxious―but loyal―Louie. They roam school halls and city streets, invisible to everyone but bullies and tormentors, until the glorious day when Andy takes his first puff on a cigarette. That night he wakes, heart pounding, soaked in sweat, and finds himself suddenly overcome with the peculiar notion that he can do anything. Indeed, he can, and as he learns the extent of his new powers, he discovers a terrible and seductive gadget―a hideous compliment to his seething rage―that forever changes everything.

The Death-Ray utilizes the classic staples of the superhero genre―origin, costume, ray gun, sidekick, fight scene―and reconfigures them in a story that is anything but morally simplistic. With subtle comedy, deft mastery, and an obvious affection for the bold pop-art exuberance of comic book design, Daniel Clowes delivers a contemporary meditation on the darkness of the human psyche.

One of Clowes’s most beloved books, The Death-Ray is the winner of the Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz Awards.

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Ice Haven (Pantheon Graphic Library)

by Daniel Clowes

At long last, the paperback version of Daniel Clowes’s brilliant graphic novel, hailed by Time as “another of his hilariously slightly off-center worlds that have a vague sense of dread about them. Kind of like where you live.”

Welcome to Ice Haven! “It’s not as cold here as it sounds,” declares Random Wilder, our reluctant guide to this sleepy Midwestern town. He’s also its would-be poet laureate. Would-be, that is, were it not for the “florid banalities” of his archrival, Ida Wentz, published ad nauseam in the Ice Haven Daily Progress. Among Wilder’s other fellow Ice Havians are the lovelorn Violet Vanderplazt and Vida Wentz; the adorable interracial moppets Carmichael and Paula; the Blue Bunny, newly sprung from prison and the bitterest rabbit in town; and poor little David Goldberg, missing for more than a week now. . . .

The lives of the men and women of Ice Haven are woven into a multilayered tale that, while it owes a debt to Our Town, is ultimately based on and inspired by . . . Leopold and Loeb. No kidding.

Only Daniel Clowes could do it and, luckily for us, he has.

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David Boring

by Daniel Clowes

The “hilariously funny” graphic novel (Time) from the highly acclaimed author of Ghost World and Patience tells the story of David Boring, a nineteen-year-old security guard with a tortured inner life and an obsessive nature, who is about to meet the girl of his dreams.

Things go awry: what seems too good to be true apparently is. And what seems truest in Boring's life is that, given the right set of circumstances (in this case, an orgiastic cascade of vengeance, humiliation and murder) the primal nature of humankind will come inexorably to the fore.

"Boring finds love with a mysterious woman named Wanda, loses her and sort of finds her again. He also gets shot in the head (twice) and stranded on an island with his brutish family. Meanwhile, the world may or may not be ending soon." —Time

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Pussey!

by Daniel Clowes

A vicious satire of pop culture and the commerce of art returns! New edition, cover and intro by Clowes! This hilarious classic from Dan Clowes is a brutal and scathing peek into the insular, pathetic world of the comic book industry, as seen through the eyes of antihero Dan Pussey (pronounced "Pooh-say"), creator of the smash superhero comic "Nauseator." From cradle to grave, Clowes presents the complete saga of Young Dan Pussey, mercilessly skewering the business and medium of comics, bouncing from art to commerce to culture high and low. Clowes not only parodies the superhero genre (notably Stan "The Man" Lee), but also his own peers, from his publishers and fellow authors at Fantagraphics to artistic heavyweights like Art Spiegelman (seen here as "Gummo Bubbleman"). Through it all, Pussey dreams endlessly about having sex with a woman, but even those fantasies degenerate into superhero scenarios. If you think Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons is pathetic (and hilarious), wait 'til you read Pussey!

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