Twentieth Century Eightball

Eightball

by Daniel Clowes

Trailing the success of the movie based on Clowes' graphic novel Ghost World (1997) comes this collection of shorter stories from his alternative comic book Eightball . Many of the pieces are tirades, albeit entertaining ones, about things Clowes despises (perhaps the comic should have been called Hateball ). "On Sports" details his contempt for professional athletics, and "Art School Confidential" is an expose of pretentious, talentless poseurs. This approach is carried to its logical peak in "I Hate You Deeply," a litany of the "types" that annoy Clowes, from "fashion plates" to "crybabies, whiners, and sensitive people." Clowes puts his misanthropy in abeyance for slice-of-life stories in which he ruminates during a stroll around his neighborhood or fantasizes about his fellow passengers on a subway. Worthwhile enough, these earlier stories merely presage Clowes' far-more-impressive recent work in which cynicism is presented more subtly, leavened with sympathy, and voiced by well-developed characters. If these pieces lack the heft of Clowes' longer, more ambitious efforts, the best of them are still masterful miniatures.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Comix, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book, Humor

100 pages, Paperback

First published August 2, 2002

About the author

Daniel Clowes is an American cartoonist, graphic novelist, illustrator, and screenwriter whose work helped define the landscape of alternative comics and bring the medium into mainstream literary conversation. Rising to prominence through his long-running anthology Eightball, he used its pages to blend acidic humor, social observation, surrealism, and character-driven storytelling, producing serials that later became acclaimed graphic novels including Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, Ghost World, David Boring, Ice Haven, and Patience. His illustrations have appeared in major publications such as The New Yorker, Vogue, and The Village Voice, while his collaborations with filmmaker Terry Zwigoff resulted in the films Ghost World and Art School Confidential, the former earning widespread praise and an Academy Award nomination for its screenplay. Clowes began honing his voice in the 1980s with contributions to Cracked and with his Lloyd Llewellyn stories for Fantagraphics, but it was Eightball, launched in 1989, that showcased the full range of his interests, from deadpan satire to psychological drama. Known for blending kitsch, grotesquerie, and a deep love of mid-century American pop culture, he helped shape the sensibilities of a generation of cartoonists and became a central figure in the shift toward graphic novels being treated as serious literature. His post-Eightball books continued this evolution, with works like Wilson, Mister Wonderful, The Death-Ray, and the recent Monica exploring aging, identity, longing, and the complexities of relationships, often through inventive visual structures that echo the history of newspaper comics. Clowes has also been active in music and design, creating artwork for Sub Pop bands, the Ramones, and other artists, and contributing to film posters, New Yorker covers, and Criterion Collection releases. His work has earned dozens of honors, including multiple Harvey and Eisner Awards, a Pen Award for Outstanding Body of Work in Graphic Literature, an Inkpot Award, and the prestigious Fauve d’Or at Angoulême. Exhibitions of his original art have appeared across the United States and internationally, with a major retrospective, Modern Cartoonist: The Art of Daniel Clowes, touring museums beginning in 2012. His screenplay work extended beyond Ghost World to projects like Art School Confidential and Wilson, and he has long been a touchstone for discussions about Generation X culture, alternative comics, and the shifting boundaries between the literary and graphic arts.

Reviews

[Emilia P · Rating 4 out of 5]

well, 20th century eightball is totally totally crass, more crass than I remember Clowes other stuff being. There are people who have sex with insects and fish in it, a graphic discussion of the phallic symbols in sports, and multiple comics that could easily just be called (and I think one of them is) "People I Hate". I felt a little sad for him, actually, that he could be angry at so many things in so many ways. I know he's kind of kidding, but he's also kind of serious.

That said, it's in a lot of little bite-size pieces so its fairly enjoyable. It looks interesting and is just a teeny bit thought provoking. Rock.

[Fergus Nm]

Perhaps sacrilege to say in some circles, but this is just a bit too of-it's-time for me. Too much angst, dated satire, etc. A few giggles here and there but not enough for me to wade thru some 100 pages of the stuff.
Maybe one to return to at a later day, but maybe not.

[Liam O'Leary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crudely honest, borderline too perverse to read, but thoughtful and funny.

Unlike other graphic novelists, Clowes has not changed his drawing or coloring style much throughout his career, he has just learned to 'tone down the sex and violence'.

Probably the edgiest comic I have ever read.

[Ahmet · Rating 1 out of 5]

Patience'ı okumadan önce araya biraz boşluk koyayım. Ondan da pek umudum yok artık zaten.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

How hilariously inappropriate!

[Edwin Arnaudin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely wonderful. Appeals to my loves and doubts, challenging and strengthening my stances on pet peeves, religion, the inevitability of certain things in life, and even (in conjunction with this year's terrible NBA Finals) makes me want to stop following/caring about certain sports. All of these messages are delivered in a self-aware, self-mocking manner with Clowes acknowledging the complexities of his role as an artist, wondering how he could possibly make a legit living by making stuff up yet justified that he's actually creating something instead of merely pencil-pushing and waiting for 5:00 to arrive. It's a marvelous collection and reinforces my belief that Clowes is the finest cartoonist around and one of our most important writers overall.

[Christopher Roth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. I was laughing so hard I cried. I remember living in Chicago in the early 1990s reading Clowes's Freudian analysis of American team sports in a free alternative paper called the Lumpen Times and I was Xeroxing it for friends and reading it over and over again, it was so wickedly good. I'm happy to see it here—I never made the connection that this was the same cartoonist responsible for Ghost World till I bought this volume—as well as other small masterpieces that were used as filler at one time or another in the pages of Eightball. One of my favorite graphic novelists, easily.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the latest chapter of “Like A Velvet Glove” weighed heavily on me like a psych anvil Dan Clowes would restore the levity by following it up with short features that always raised a chuckle. This anthology collects all those funny stories in one volume, so no matter how heavy “Ghost World” or “David Boring” got these little zany bumpers kept you laughin’. The Harvey comics parody was the best!

[Amanda Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite piece of work Clowes has produced and reading this really sparked my burning infatuation with underground comics and to this day, 8 years later, I consider myself just as infatuated with alternative/ indie/ underground comix as I was the day I picked this sucker up.

Thanks, Clowes!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

AND WHEN WE DIE THERE WILL BE A SPECIAL CORNER IN HELL RESERVED FOR CHICAGOANS WHERE THE DAMNED ARE FORCED TO DRINK OLD STYLE BEER WHILE LISTENING TO AN ETERNAL MEDLEY OF R&B STANDARDS PERFORMED BY JIM BELUSHI AND BRUCE WILLIS (ON HARMONICA) --- SEE YOU THERE!

[Jameson Fink · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one is better at turning misanthropy and self-loathing into brilliant commentary, satire, and scathing criticism than Clowes. Charming.

[Csquared · Rating 5 out of 5]

By far Clowes' funniest and my favorite. I've read it at least five times and have purchased for friends as their introduction to his work.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dan Clowes' gag comics are pretty dumb, but occasionally they're really endearingly dumb. Knowing that this side of his creative personality exists definitely makes me like him more.

[Megan Kirby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my favorite! Clowes has an appealing self-awareness but the early Eightball stuff leans heavy on vulgarity and lacks any real heart.

[Tyler Vale · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I was a boy, I found a book called Monumentally Mad, which was a publication of Mad Magazine. It was intended for adults, had lots of PG-13 language, and I always felt a bit worried that my parents would discover me reading the book and I'd be in trouble. This particular book gave me those same feelings.

This is the most "adult" and arguably pornographic comic I've read by a substantial margin. It's not all immaturity and vulgarity - there are some strips which function as societal commentary and criticism of seemingly everything. The author is clearly educated, nihilistic, and (at least a bit) cynical.

Unfortunately a lot of the author's observations/thoughts lack much in the way of profundity and are the sort of things that most people think about in high school or their early 20's. Much of it seems to be edgy for the sake of being edgy, or (worse yet) the sort of thoughts that a fair number of people have but few would venture to write down. This is not because writing down these thoughts or observations is "brave" or "irreverent", but because the thoughts are not actually worth anything. They are the meaningless (and occasionally violent) daydreams that plague seemingly all young men but don't need to be expressed in art. It's the literary equivalent of telling someone about a dream you had.

Strangely the bit I enjoyed the most was a one-page garbage story called "Needledick The Bugfucker", which was about a kid named Needledick who, well... fucks bugs. It was useless filth, but it was enjoyable because there was no attempt to impose any sort of social commentary or other self-inserts. It was just a comical and stupid story that made me laugh.

There is the possibility that I just "don't get" this type of art, but I don't necessarily think that's the case. I think it appeals to people who are less intelligent than the author and see him as a witty satirist. To be clear, the author IS a witty satirist, but this work is not objectively good. It feels like an underachievement.

[Drew Canole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of the short tales from Eightball (so excluding the graphic novels). It's enjoyable stuff for the most part, I don't really love Clowes's humour, sort of a less good Peter Bagge (and even him, I prefer his long form stuff)

Little Enid
Title Story
Art School Confidential
Cool Your Jets
Ectomorph
The Truth
Ink Studs
The Stroll
Devil Doll?
Needledick the Bugfucker
Feldman
I Hate You Deeply
Zubrick and Pogeybait
Frankie and Johnnie
Marooned on a Desert Island with the People from the Subway
Just Another Day
Hippypants and Peace Bear
Zubrick
Chicago
Why I Hate Christians
Pogeybait
On Sports
Sexual Frustration
The Operator
A Message to the People of the Future
The Happy Fisherman
Give it Up!
Grist for the Mill
Ugly Girls
Curtain of Sanity
Playful Obsession
Squirrel Girl and Candypants
Paranoid
I Love You Tenderly
The Party
The Sensual Santa
My Suicide
Eightball
Man-Child
Wallace Wood
Tits
Tom Pudd
Grip Glutz and Shamrock Squid
You
About the Author

[Ietrio · Rating 4 out of 5]

2024-05-03:

as with his other books, clowes has a very naturalistic view. and his observations are correct, yet, blended with his assumptions, the volume becomes another propaganda piece for the masses: there was a mythical place, in the first story the art school, but profit has corrupted this heavenly place. how about it has always been rotten, and it was created precisely to serve other purposes than those assumed by the inmates?

the other stories are in the same spirit. they are not exactly observations of reality as illustrations of clowes' reality. as in women don't do x, although some might occasionally, but rather clowes assumes they do when he is not around. given his fan base, there are quite a few believing in the same oppressive crap. and it's not even the case if women do or do not x, but rather is the self esteem and body image of clowes surfacing as ”this is what they do”.

yet, i like he does not conform to the prude american mainstream.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of humor pieces from Clowes' long-running "Eightball" comic series. While I admire his later work, this was not my vibe.

The short illustrated segments (generally the length of a Mad magazine features) are sophomoric, aggressively sexual and filled with a kind of sneering disdain for everyone else walking the planet. Clowes does poke fun at himself for his own pretensions, but this compilation is filled with generalized loathing posing as truth-telling.

That attitude was en vogue at the time these comics were published, but it never sat easily with me, and it feels more like a copout now. Still, Clowes' work is obviously skilled, as he shows early mastery of the pace, presentation and layout of cartooning. Just the little logos he makes up are amazing to take in.

[Lateef Amodu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a compilation of comic strips, by Daniel Clowes, created over a period of time; I think late 80s to early 90s. There's some funny material in this book. It ranges from social commentary, satire, outrageous tales to weird character deceptions. The illustrations are really good. The strips come in either black and white or colour. The characters facial expressions and emotions are captured really well. This is a good book for anyone who's into alternative comics or you're looking for something different in the comic book medium.

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has aged pretty poorly. It is rentlessly cynical and reads like a series of comics made by an angsty teenager in the mid 90s. Because of that it is a weird time capsule of a book in that the thing it perserves isnt the events or pop culture of a previous time period but the attitude of sourness and misanthropy of a previous time period. The archetypes presented in this book largely don't exist anymore but its hard to understand what ecatly has changed. Definitely interesting but wouldn't recommend.

[Onur · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kitapta sanırım Eightball adında bizdeki Leman, Uykusuz'a denk düşen bir süreli yayında yer alan Daniel Clowes çalışmalarının derlenmesinden oluşuyor. Kendi içinde bütünlük yok bu açıdan ve aslında iyi çünkü 70. sayfaya kadar kitabı bırakmakla okumak arasında gittim geldim. Clowes'un çizim ve anlatısı son 30 sayfada yerine oturdu. Derleme bir tarih çizgisi takip ederek oluşturulduysa, bu yazar-çizerin fikirlerinin olgunlaştığının göstergesidir.

[Grégoire Maillard · Rating 4 out of 5]

funny, bitter, and… unique; this is one of my favorite graphic novel from Clowes, it’s 100 pages of (very) short stories written and drawn earlier in his career; the authors unwinds about everything and anything with his limitless humor, totally recommend if you want to discover this era of American graphic novels!

[Andre · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of, if not THE, definitive 90s alternative comics. Eightball (and the stories that sprung from it's pages like Ghost World or Velvet Glove) is pretty much a must read.

[Seth Roback · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG this graphic novel had me dying of laughter. If you like xgen humor this is a masterpiece!

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man, this was some rollicking fun that took me back to being a kid, teen and young man. Read it!

[Keith Kavanagh · Rating 3 out of 5]

preachy in places, funny in most

[Rob McMonigal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me awhile to get into Clowes, probably because his best known work (Ghost World) didn't work for me. But these collections are fun!

[Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

i didnt like it.

[N.D. Wisard · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm just not into most comics. True life. Someone, show me the light!

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very Good.