« American Theocracy - Kevin Phillips
Main
Palomar - Gilbert Hernandez »

This is either the best book or the worst book to read while you're sick like I've been this week. The story is like a fever dream and when I would put it down to take a nap I couldn't tell where the book ended and where my cold-induced dreams began.

The story is very much a mixutre of David Lynch and Thomas Pynchon. The protagonist, Clay Loudermilk, finds himself intrigued by a bizarre snuff film called "Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron" and seeks out the makers of the film. On his journey he is arrested, befriended by a sad and lonely fish girl whose mother may be the woman in the snuff film, is followed by a headless dog, and introduced to a vast conspiracy involving a crudely drawn cartoon head that seems to show up everywhere. Like any good Clowes character, Loudermilk takes this all with relative stride. Even though he seems to be uncovering a dark and subversive underworld it may actually not be that much weirder than the world that Clowes has him living in to begin with.

This book reads like a black and white existentialist art film or even moreso like Lynch's "Eraserhead". It's quite amazing how Clowes manages to pack so much disturbing surreal imagery into one book and to make it play out on the page exactly like these film influences. It's not for everyone, maybe not even for fans of other Clowes' books like "Ghost World" but it's one of the weirdest graphic novels I've read. Yet it still has a great sense of character even with the most minor of players and the weirdness doesn't feel arbitrary. You want to help Clay uncode this mystery even if he doesn't seem to be trying too hard himself.

Posted at May 26, 2006 01:43 PM