Daniel Clowes' Twentieth Century Eightball (Fantagraphics Books) is an entertainingly slapdash collection of rant comics and surreal misanthropy from the title that also yielded Ghost World and Daniel Boring.
It's probably safe to say that if Clowes had produced nothing but strips like the selection in this book, he'd still be residing in the margins of alternacomics. In the aftermath of Ghost World's indy film success, it's worth noting that the satire strips of Twentieth Century at one time reflected Clowes' primary cartooning voice: withering putdowns of pretension and superficiality by an artist who simultaneously was doing art for Cracked magazine. When Eightball #1 first appeared, in fact, it seemed more in tune with Mad-inspired underground collections like R. Crumb's Weirdo than the more nuanced title that it is today. It wasn't 'til Clowes' first serial novel, Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron, was released in a single volume that it became clear the artist was doing more than reviving Crumb-styled ranting for a younger generation.
Still, what great rants: here's Clowes holding forth on art school, devastatingly nailing both students and teachers ("If you must go to art school, for God's sake make the most of it . . . Seldom if ever again in life will you be afforded the chance to scrutinize such an array of losers in an environment that actually encourages their most pretentious inclinations."); here he is, in the guise of Lloyd Llewellyn holding forth on everything he hates (including "People who hide behind cartoon characters to espouse their unpopular opinions"); there he goes, slapping Freudian interpretation on popular American sports; or lamenting the elevation of loutishness in his hometown Chicago.
All very "total wiseass" (to quote Clowes quoting Art Spiegelman), all nicely keyed to the "everything sucks" attitude of all the male Enid Coleslaws out there. (The Ghost World heroine makes a brief appearance as "Little Enid" in an opening strip done for the book, incidentally.) In "The Stroll," "Marooned On A Desert Island With People On The Subway" and "The Party," the artist fantasizes about strangers much like Enid & Rebecca did in Angels restaurant. Do the beliefs espoused in these strips represent the writer/artist's? Somewhat, I'd wager, though Clowes also includes a neat four-pager ("Just Another Day") tweaking autobiographically-focused criticism by presenting himself in a series of bewilderingly contradictory cartoon personas.
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