Daniel Clowes - Graphic Novelist

There are two general types of graphic novels. First, there is the superhero variety. These are comic books that have been published in book-length format. Comic books have always gotten a bad rap for being silly, pulpy drivel. This reputation is often deserved. Most comic books are badly drawn and badly written. However, beginning in the 1980's, a number of comic book writers emerged who used the comic book/superhero/fantasy format, but addressed the larger issues of the day. Writers such as Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta), Frank Miller (The Dark Night Returns, Sin City) and Neil Gaiman (Sandman) tackled issues such as terrorism, government repression, and the morality of the use of force. The Dark Night Returns potrays Batman as a heavy drinker that has doubts about his crime fighting abilities. These stories are a little more complex that the comics of the 1970's and prior.

The other general category is the "literary" graphic novel. These are often stories that could have been told in a conventional text format, but the writers chose to represent the stories graphically. If you are wondering whether a graphic novel can have any literary merit, you have to go no further that Maus I and II by Art Spiegelman. These books deal with WWII and the holocaust. Spiegelman confronts the horror of the camps and the guilt of the survivors as effectively as any novel I have read. I put it up there with Night by Elie Wiesel as a seminal work dealing with the holocaust. Spiegelman potrays the Jews as mice, the Germans as cats and the Americans as dogs. It may sound silly at first, but it is a very effective device. Another literary graphic novel that I recommend is Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. This one deals with the Iranian Revolution.

If these historical/biographical tales are not to your liking, let me tell you about Daniel Clowes. He is a fabulous graphic artist and writer. He is best known for his work Ghost World, and I wholeheartedly recommend this book as a starting point. His characters tend to be of the urban, arty, nerdy, cranky variety that may be familiar to many of you. He has a new book coming out later this month called Wilson. The quote I read from the publisher is as follows:

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.

You get the picture. Other graphic writers of note include Ivan Brunetti, Chris Ware and R. Crumb (he just published the Book of Genesis in graphic form and it is sitting on my shelf awaiting its turn).