Daniel Clowes's first book remains a modern classic 15 years after its debut in Eightball #1, the comic book title that made Clowes a household name in comics circles. This surreal graphic novel is couched within a noir-ish detective structure and rich with recurring psychosexual motifs and imagery. The story follows a deadpan Candide named Clay Loudermilk, on a search for a former lover through a landscape that several critics have favorably compared to the works of David Lynch, Fellini, and Luis Buñuel, with elements of Dragnet and Russ Meyer films added for good measure. Clowes rigorously employs a dream logic as Clay spirals down a spare, unsettling wasteland, meeting three-eyed prostitutes, mutant waitresses, angry men with hair plugs, and orifice-less dogs with secret messages tattooed on their skin. As Clay attempts to untangle the vast conspiracy he finds himself a part of, Velvet Glove becomes a vivid and fantastic examination of futility, self-loathing and paranoia, and a masterpiece of postmodern fairy-telling,
Like A Velvet Glove returns in 2005 as Clowes and film director Terry Zwigoff put the finishing touches on Art School Confidential, the follow-up to their 2001 Academy Award-nominated film, Ghost World (based on the bestselling comic book of the same name). To be released in the late summer of 2005, Art School Confidential is sure to introduce an entirely new audience to Clowes's work, just as the Ghost World film did (pushing sales of the Ghost World graphic novel over 150,000 to date).
