But, besides being weird, it has a complete narrative that achieves at being more than just a collection of strange images. Clowes’ bold lines and unnerving black-and-white artwork leaves every bizarre twist or insane visual imprinted in your mind. It follows, stoic protagonist, Clay Loudermilk as he makes his way through a hazy mystery involving his ex-wife, crazy cults, conspiracy theories, BDSM snuff films, and plenty more avant-garde ideas. Episodes of “Velvet Glove” would appear in every issue, from the start, and eventually concluded in issue #10. A mystery story that feels like a waking dream and is reminiscent of David Lynch’s work. The comic opens with the first installment of “Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron”. So, with that said, let’s dive into some elements that made this such a unique and outstanding series.įrom page 1 of issue #1, you are given a glimpse of the surreal aspects of Clowes’ art. At least that was the theory I was going by.” But I also had the theory that if it was all by the same artist, and the artist was trying to be truthful or willing to let his unconscious or his intuition decide what was going to happen on the pages, then it would all kind of come together in a cohesive way.

The thought was that if you did stories in all these different styles-if you combined the serious stuff with humorous stuff-that the result would be kind of discordant.

In an interview with The New Yorker, Clowes said, “I wanted to do an anthology publication like Mad magazine, but I just wanted it to be all my own work-with no other collaborators. He went to so many different places but somehow made every story a hit. Eightball was a peek into the flourishing mind of a growing artist. His style and skill progressed at an astonishing rate. It showcased Clowes exploring all corners of his artistic creativity and expanding the art form as he did. Eightball was a one-man anthology series that ran from 1989 to 2004 for 23 issues. After one last Lloyd Llewellyn “special” in 1988, Clowes was ready to move on to the work that would secure his much-deserved spot on the list of essential comic creators. In 1986, it ran for just over a year with 6 issues to its name. Cartoonist Daniel Clowes’ first comic series for the seminal independent comic publisher, Fantagraphics, was a 50’s jazz & film noir influenced detective comic called Lloyd Llewellyn. The alt comix Mount Rushmore would have way more than 4 faces because they’re never ones to play by the rules. He’s on my imaginary landmark too, along with many others. On the Mount Rushmore of alternative comic book creators, along with Art Spiegelman and both Hernandez Brothers, is Daniel Clowes.

Daniel clowes caricature