Before he rose to fame as a filmmaker and the author of the best-selling graphic novels Ghost World, David Boring, Ice Haven, and The Death Ray, Daniel Clowes made his name from 1989 to 1997 by producing 18 issues of the beloved comic book series Eightball, which is still widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential comic book titles of all time. Clowes is the Man. And as if to nail that title down, we now have a two-volume hardcover edition of The Complete Eightball 1–18, which originally ran from 1989–2004. It’s an early but by no means immature work, establishing Clowes as perhaps the best exemplar extant of the underground-comic sensibility of the late 20th century.... Eightballis not just a record of one obsessive’s tussle with the comics medium, but a kind of history of that medium as it comes to maturity.”

Daniel Clowes writes either the funniest sad comics or the saddest funny comics in the world.--Sam Thielman I'm looking forward to this release, another excellent idea from Fantagraphics, and the first book Daniel Clowes has released through his original publisher for several years. This is a deluxe boxset of hardcovers collecting facsimile's of the entire 'anthology'-run of 'Eightball' -- issues 1 - 18. I mean, it’s really what I see in my head. To me it looks almost like a diagram or like a coloring book or something. It really looks very…I don’t want to say bland, but it just looks very perfect. It looks exactly the way the world should look. And I don’t see a style at all. I see it as being each face is the way a face really looks…. People tell me they can recognize my style, and I don’t understand what they’re talking about. I don’t see my style.

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Ice Haven (Pantheon, 2005, ISBN 978-0-375-42332-1) – A reformatted version of the contents of Eightball #22

The stories you were doing in “Eightball” cross many genres, use different drawing styles, and are of varying length. Was it your intention to try out different approaches each time? In the interview, Clowes recalls the arduous process of using Rubylith sheets to get the distinctive color effects for Ghost World. It was a bespoke technique he learned at Pratt, and so comically cumbersome that he muses, “I might as well have spent four years learning how to fix a cotton gin.” The grumbling in both cases is tongue in cheek, because the labors he undertook worked. The Comics Journal cover—a Möbius comic strip—is a witty master class in the art form’s seductive charm and narrative flexibility, and Ghost World is what Clowes will be remembered for. This is a masterwork in its ability to stay with stories, telling them over years, or simply telling a fantastic story that touches on something in the reader's core. The stories within vary so much there's bound to be a gem in here that will capture your imagination.--David Brooke Once you finish your current project—the one you said you didn’t want to discuss—is there anything you’re looking forward to doing? Do you have some wish like, “I want to go play the kazoo in a band,” for example? Do you feel like your work has become more personal over the years? As you built a persona as an artist, have you been able to push the line you were talking about—whether readers get it or not?Edward Gorey devised suitably Victorian-sounding pseudonyms for his morbidly wry stories from the letters of his own name (Ogdred Weary, Regera Dowdy, et al.). Vladimir Nabokov inserted Vivian Darkbloom into some of his books for an enigmatic, anagrammatic cameo. For Ghost World, Daniel Clowes, a serial employer of pen names, rearranged himself, lending his most enduring and endearing heroine his letters. By the end of the book, Enid Coleslaw’s destiny is unclear, but she’s equipped with all the wisdom and love her creator has to offer. 7 4.