Critical Questions: Daniel Clowes

2001's film adaptation of Ghost World, directed by Terry Zwigoff, introduced Daniel Clowes' grimly beautiful stories and cartoon work to a mainstream audience and racked up a number of prestigious awards in the process. Long before that, however, Clowes had been putting out a consistently steady line of comics that were dark, disturbing, and drawn in a clean, dynamic style that grabbed my interest from the first time I saw them back in the late '80s. His latest work, Mister Wonderful, is a both a continuation of his harsh and comic-absurd worldview, and a subtle departure from that - though there are still plenty of on-the-edge losers, loners, and freaks populating his pages. Clowes graciously pried himself away from his drawing board to answer a few questions for us.

CM: You live in Oakland now but grew up and lived in Chicago for years. Has living in California had any unforeseen effects on the content of your work?

DC: I've added palms trees to my repertoire of grim urban flora, and my work has gotten less grotesque, I suppose, now that I'm surrounded by health-conscious vegetarians rather than bloated Midwesterners.

Mister Wonderful has some, well, wonderful, wide-screen panoramas in it. Did you find that the format had an impact on the way you told the story?

I had always wanted to do a comic in Cinemascope, with wide vistas in every panel, though I imagined it would be something a bit more epic than a downbeat romance on a five-block span in Oakland. Telling the story in the New York Times in one-page-per-week increments caused that version of the story to be quite dense and constricted, so it was great to have a chance to break free from the claustrophobia.

Mister Wonderful is more cautiously optimistic than much of your other work. Did you have to resist the pull of any darker instincts in order to make it this way?

I honestly didn't know how it was going to end up until I drew the final strip. Maybe I was just in a good mood that day. Or maybe it's less optimistic than people think.

Who would you consider some of your literary influences?

Any answer I would give would sound dumb or annoying. Two books I've enjoyed in the past year or so, however, are Fat City by Leonard Gardner, and Stoner by John Williams.

After the success of the film adaptation of Ghost World, are there any new live-action film projects you're currently involved in?

I am attempting to write a screenplay adaptation of Wilson for the director Alexander Payne.

Is any of your work being considered for an animated feature? What would be your criteria for working with a director?

I would only do animation if I had complete visual control, or if I had no involvement whatsoever. Mostly, producers want something in between those two.

You recently had a retrospective of your work in Lucerne, Switzerland. Have you found a noticeable difference between Europeans and Americans in the appreciation of your work?

I can't really tell. They never seem to laugh at my jokes when I give a talk over there, but that may just be that they have more refined sensibilities.

Have you ever drawn on a computer - with a tablet or a software program - and if so, what did you think of it?

I bought a Wacom tablet many years ago and wound up putting it out on the curb in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep until I got it out of the house.

You're quite adept at shifting styles when you see fit, and there are hints of Ivan Brunetti and Charles Schulz scattered throughout Mister Wonderful. Do you have a favorite cartoonist or style you like to channel when you switch modes?

I guess it depends which mode I'm switching to. I'm usually just thinking of things rather than looking at reference. I'm more interested in my own flawed mental construction of how a Peanuts strip looks than in actually copying the real thing.

Among the younger generation of cartoonists, who do you like to read?

I like Dash Shaw. Is he still young? [At 28, we can safely say yes. - Ed.]

Have you mellowed with age?

I don't know, but I used to find drawing comics a really tedious, frustrating chore when I was younger. I was always struggling to get it right and failing over and over and it caused a lot of stress, and now all of a sudden I love every minute behind the drawing board. Right now I'm cursing myself for spending time on interviews and paying bills and other stuff when I could be working.