Daniel Clowes isn't quite as cranky as the old-time music fan in the film adaptation of his Ghost World comic book, but the artist and writer shares the character's jaundiced view of newfangled technologies.
"Digital seems like such a step back from a printed book," Clowes told Wired in a phone interview. "For me, the whole process involves envisioning this book in my head as I'm working. That is what I'm trying to create. That's the work of art. That's the sculpture I'm chipping away at, and when I'm finally done, I will arrive at that perfect 3-D object. The iPad version would be like a picture of the book, which doesn't hold any interest at all for me. Even if I only had 10 readers, I'd rather do the book for them than for a million readers online."
Plenty of pop-culture fans dig Clowes' ink-and-paper masterpieces just the way they are. With his meticulous pal Chris Ware and others, Clowes helped pioneer a new era of alternative comics fueled by antisocial characters, hilariously deadpan dialog and relatively naturalistic situations.
Modern Cartoonist: The Art of Daniel Clowes, an exhibition running through Aug. 12 at the Oakland Museum of California, and Abrams ComicArts' companion book The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist offer an eye-popping look at one of America's most literate humorists. (Enter to win a copy of the book below.)
The museum retrospective, which travels to Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and Ohio's Wexner Center for the Arts through 2014, includes early drawings illustrating Clowes' childhood obsession with Spider-Man. By the time he finished high school, the Chicago native's fondness for Marvel and DC Comics had largely evaporated.
"I sort of lost interest in those comics when I was 14 or 15, but I thought that was the only way I'd ever make a living as a cartoonist," said Clowes. "I remember thinking, 'Maybe I can ink Thor or something and that will be my job.' I did not look forward to it."
Instead, the budding artist embarked on his own path after studying illustration at Pratt Institute. "I liked the idea of real people in real situations," said Clowes, who now lives in Oakland.
Inspired by Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Vladimir Nabokov and old Hollywood movies, Clowes began writing his own texts to accompany the drawings. "I originally just wanted to be an artist," he said. "I was looking for a guy who could write the exact kind of stories I wanted to draw but I couldn't even explain to anybody what that was."
Expanding his creative options paid off. "I came to see that I was possibly better at the writing than the drawing," said Clowes, who earned a 2001 Oscar nomination for his screenplay adaptation of Ghost World, which starred Steve Buscemi as an irascible vinyl collector who strikes up a friendship with a teen named Enid (played by Thora Birch).
Rejuvenated after emergency surgery in 2006 following a near-death episode in which his heart blew up to twice its normal size, Clowes, now married and the father of a 7-year-old son, juggles the task of adapting his 2010 book Wilson for movie director Alexander Payne while laboring over an opus that he's loath to share details about.
"It'll sound really, really stupid if I describe it in less than two pages," Clowes muttered, sounding the self-deprecating tone that marks much of his fiction. "I have an outline but likely not to follow it, so I don't want to announce something and then go, 'Oh yeah, that really didn't work out.'"
Check the gallery above for a sampling of the sex- and sarcasm-drenched alienation found in Clowes' Eightball, Lloyd Llewellyn and The Death-Ray along with childhood drawings and portraits of Ghost World's iconic geek girl, Enid.
Win Modern Cartoonist Book Signed by Daniel Clowes
Wired is teaming with Abrams Books to give away one free copy of the The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist, which was published last month. The hardbound 225-page volume is autographed by the author. To qualify for the contest, comment below on your favorite image from the gallery.
Deadline to enter is 12:01 a.m. Pacific on May 30, 2012. One randomly selected winner will be notified by e-mail or Twitter. Winners must live in the United States.
Note: If you do not have an e-mail address or Twitter handle associated with your Disqus login, you must include contact information in your comment to be eligible. Any winner who does not respond to Wired’s notification within 72 hours will forfeit the prize.
Images courtesy Abrams ComicArts
