INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the Comic Artist Reference Library. I originally created this as a place to store artist's images that inspire me when doing my own comic book work. Hopefully it will be useful to you as well. The nature of this site is not to include every comic book artist ever known, and there are dozens if not hundreds of tremendously talented artists whose work will not be featured here, but my goal in being so selective is to help others to discover artists and images that will help unlock their own creativity and introduce them to work they were perhaps unfamiliar with before. This type of thing is always a "work in progress", so please feel free to e-mail me suggestions, pictures, or anything that might help it to be more useful. Thanks. -Eric

Daniel Clowes

Daniel Clowes developed a fabulously dynamic art style early in his publishing career, years before he had really developed into one of the best story tellers in the avant-garde comic scene. His early years experimented with underground themed elements that often didn't utilize his insightful writing strengths, but as experimentation passed and Clowe's voice as a writer became defined, his stories began to hold an understated intensity with more subtle uses of humor and social commentary. Books like Ghost World, Pussey, and my personal favorite collection of stories, Caricature, are unsurpassed. His characters and conflicts feel genuine and relate-able, which all combines wonderfully with his hip, retro-esque art style.

Ghost World, Daniel Clowes... That Roy Lichtenstein guy is alright, but sometimes the real comic book artists make the best pop art... the Ghost World comic was made into a very good live action movie, which got an Oscar Nomination for best screenplay.:

Ghost World is perhaps the best of Clowe's novella length stories. Although it has many moments of subtle humor, Ghost World is a slice of life story centered around two friends who are trying to figure out their post-highschool world. The story is an insightful chapter of Enid's and Becky's life as they grow apart and start to realize that they don't have much in common. The story does an excellent job showing us this odd sort of revelation between best friends. On the one hand Enid is a naturally pessimistic observer explorer of life who needs somewhere to grow and mature, whereas Becky has always been Enid's sidekick and seems well adjusted to merely become a local personality. Without being soap-operatic or feeling contrived, the story is somewhat sad yet honest as we watch these two go through this short period of transition and separation into two very different worlds.  
Daniel Clowes: Art School Confidential - Page 1 of 4. This classic comic story can be found in the new Complete Eightball Issue 1-18 box set.:
Along with "Ghost World", "Art School Confidential" was another of Clowe's stories that was scripted into the basis for a movie. Although it's a really humorous story, the movie didn't have the bite and style of "Ghost World". The comic story is fabulous, and very relate-able for those of us who went to art school.



Cover of "Eightball" #22

20th Century Eightball by Daniel Clowes- My favorite book and author in the Comix realm:
This was a collection of early "Eighball" magazine stories that Fantagraphics put out at about the same time "Ghost World" was made into a movie. Honestly it is not one of Clowe's better collections of stories (other than the inclusion "Art School Confidential) but I do like the cover.
The first appearance of Gummo Bubbleman, in "The Young Manhood of Dan Pussey" - source : TCJ.com:
From "Pussey"





From "Death-Ray"




No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)