Twentieth Century Eightball
Published by: Fantagraphics Books, Inc. – 2002
Written and illustrated by: Daniel Clowes
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Despite appearances, Twentieth Century Eightball, written and drawn by the incomparable Daniel Clowes, is not a graphic novel. It is a compilation of roughly 50 short, comedic, comics stories which Clowes has referred to as “filler strips”—humorous diversions of between one and five pages (on average). This is a departure from his more serious graphic novels such as Ghost World, David Boring, Ice Haven, and The Death-Ray, which are composed of extended, book-length narratives which were initially serialized alongside the “filler strips” in Clowes’s comic book Eightball. If one were solely aware of Clowes’s more literary graphic novels, Twentieth Century Eightball might seem like a bit of an oddity for its crudity and just plain hilarity, but it shares the same visual skill and cogent observations and criticisms of people and modern life.
There are a few short stories that stand out above the rest. “Art School Confidential”—which spawned a highly underrated movie of the same name—“I Hate You Deeply,” “The Stroll,” “The Truth,” “On Sports,” “Curtain of Sanity,” and “I Love You Tenderly” all stand out as clever, insightful, and original. “Art School Confidential” humorously blows the lid off the great “scam” that is art school; “On Sports” reveals—in the funniest most graphic way possible—the truth behind the sublimated sexual desires that compel sports fandom; and “I Hate You Deeply” is a very funny Generation-X artifact of glass-half-empty cynicism. Though dominated by crude humor, Twentieth Century Eightball also features several pieces with a more contemplative tone—“The Stroll,” “The Party,” and “Squirrel Girl and Candy-Pants” come to mind—though still possessing some humor.
Clowes drawing style is classified as a “clean-line” style, meaning that he largely eschews hatching and minute detail. His work is characterized by smooth precise ink-work, some exaggerated caricature-ish realism, and forays into more traditional “cartooning.”
One notable technique Clowes employs is a version of what Scott McCloud (comics theorist and writer/artist/creator of ZOT! and the seminal Understanding Comics) calls the “masking effect,” wherein highly realistic renderings are juxtaposed with more simplistic ones. A high degree of detail suggests objectivity, whereas a simplistic rendering can act as a nondescript vessel which the reader imbues with a more subjective identity. Clowes uses this technique to delineate characters whom are objects of special criticism—which are highly detailed—from those subjected solely to general criticism—which are more simplistically rendered—as all his characters are meant to be in some way criticized.
Twentieth Century Eightball is strictly for mature audiences. Though its cruder humor would probably appeal to a large swath of thirteen-to-fifteen-year-olds, it is equally likely that it would be deemed inappropriate for them by most parents. Graphic depictions of—and references to—nudity, sexual intercourse, and masturbation are distributed liberally across the short stories. However, the violence is kept to a minimum, and verbal profanity is present without being overwhelming.
Recommendations:
Despite not being as acutely funny or as frequently vulgar, Clowes’s other comics are recommended for the same demographic audience as Twentieth Century Eightball. Clowes’s graphic novels possess the same astute observations of humanity and its failings that informs his satire. Much of his less comedic work is characterized by highlighting the somber and melancholy found in life. Though the laughs may be smaller and less frequent, Ghost World, David Boring, and Ice Haven should all be satisfying reads to anyone not so one-dimensional as to only appreciate satire for its crudity. Caricature is another highly recommended short-story compilation by Clowes. Less intent on humor than Twentieth Century Eightball, Caricature has a larger page-count per story and may be a better segue from Twentieth Century Eightball into Clowes’s more serious graphic novels.
The works of the Hernandez brothers (Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario) in Love and Rockets and Adrian Tomine in Optic Nerve should also appeal to fans of Clowes’s work in general—if not Twentieth Century Eightball specifically. They share in the “clean line” drawing style and specialize in slice-of-life character studies. The Hernandez brothers, however, often intersperse the supernatural or impossible into their stories—at times bordering on science fiction—whereas Tomine is almost exclusively grounded in the “real” world.
Though composed of crudely drawn full-page comic strips as opposed to a traditional comic book, Matt Groening’s The Big Book of Hell and The Huge Book of Hell—compilations of his classic Life in Hell comic strip, which predates Groening’s creation of The Simpsons—shares a similar sense of humor with Twentieth Century Eightball and should appeal to a similar audience. Like Twentieth Century Eightball, Life in Hell is astute satire and social commentary, not just comedy. Life in Hell, however, is more appropriate for a broader demographic because it avoids the acutely offensive—graphic treatments of profanity, violence, nudity, and sex are absent—largely eschews controversy—by avoiding pushing the bounds of decency—and thus is appropriate as a developmental precursor to Twentieth Century Eigthball—one parents can purchase for their thirteen-to-fifteen-year-olds without fear of scarring them psychologically or emotionally.
Brian Bigelow
September 25, 2016
