Warping the world we live in, Daniel Clowes’ David Boring has been hailed as a work of great comics literature in the past year of its life as a graphic novel. Outlets ranging from The New York Times Book Review to Esquire magazine have cited Clowes as one of the artistically impressive and important comics creators working today. He was the first comics artist to appear in Esquire’s annual fiction issue, and he has received awards for his work throughout his career. Indeed, Clowes is a pioneer of comics literature whose work not only beckons attention with intriguing visuals and interesting stories, but rewards critical inspection with deeply textured plots, intelligent symbolism, and strong emotional content.

Clowes studied art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, but doesn’t think much of his educational career. After graduation, he hunted around for jobs in various art fields, until landing a deal with Fantagraphics to publish his first series, Lloyd Llewellyn. Fantagraphics is a major publisher of "alternative" comics, counting among their stable of influential artists such big names as Peter Bagge, Charles Burns, Robert Crumb, Dame Darcy, Roberta Gregory, Kaz, Los Bros Hernandez, Robert Williams, and Chris Ware. Clowes has taken his place among the pantheon of important comics artists in the late 20^th and early 21^st Centuries. He eventually abandoned Lloyd Llewellyn for Eightball, started in 1989. Eightball is Clowes’ title, made up of short stories and serialized longer work (such as David Boring), and has spawned seven graphic novels for Clowes. These graphic novels include Ghost World, David Boring, Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, Pussey!, and Caricature: Nine Stories. His work has garnered a large cult following, and, as previously stated, has begun to infiltrate the mainstream of American and International artistic and literary culture. His novel, Ghost World, is currently being made into a major motion picture by MGM, directed by Terry Zwigoff, of Crumb fame (Fantagraphics 1).

The mainstream seems amiable towards Clowes’ work in part because he offers something truly different. His stories tend to be dark, outlandish satires of American middle-class life. These aren’t the restrained, subtly shocking, upper middle-class stories of Cheever or Carver – these are reflections of society that walk the fine line between Jerry Springer and Citizen Kane. His stories are complex, often exploring past, present, and future simultaneously, but are punctuated by events and characters that are sometimes repellant and often spectacularly flawed. Clowes is aware of the marginalized nature of comics, and although he might be hesitant to admit it of his own art, he believes that it is comics like his own, which stretch the boundaries of what comics can be, that will allow comics to enter the mainstream of art and literature. In an interview with Addicted to Noise writer, Joey Anuff, he says:

People have a bias against comics for, I think, a good reason. Most of what they’ve seen is really awful and they’ve been told time and time again that something like The Dark Knight is literature on par with Moby Dick. Then they go out and buy it and it’s this stupid Deathwish IV kind of thing with a guy in a superhero suit. So they think to themselves, ‘Well, I’m not going to believe that again.’ It’s very frustrating, but something like Maus proves that, given the right spin, you can convince people comics are as viable as any other art or literature. (2)

It is going to take more than redesigned superhero comics to change the perception of comics in artistic and literary forums, and Clowes’ own work, David Boring, is an example of a comic novel that takes the form to the realm of high art. David Boring rewards multiple readings, combining an intriguing visual style, which carries plenty of meaning in its own right, with a narrative and prose style that is complex and intricately crafted. It embodies all the hallmarks we look for in both good art and good literature, and rewards examination unlike most comics, books, or visual art we encounter on a daily basis.

To summarize David Boring is a significant undertaking, and one that could easily fail. In general, it is the story of David Boring, age 19, an aspiring filmmaker in the big city (presumably New York). Boring states early on his philosophy of living in the Postmodern moment – he exists less to create or produce, and more to experience. His family background is troubled. His mother and father (a comics artist, coincidentally) have been separated for almost 20 years, and although his mother insists that his father is dead, Boring has a hard time believing it. The story is told in three acts, mimetic of the standard script arc of a Hollywood production. It opens with Boring having sex with a young actress. The scene is almost completely dispassionate, and it is not long after this scene that we learn of Boring’s fetish for certain types of woman – defined mainly by their large posteriors. Boring experiences a compulsion to pursue these women, although he seems almost completely devoid of any desire for a real relationship with any of them. Throughout the opening of the story, and continuing to the end, we are reminded that the millenium is approaching and America is on edge about terrorist threats and possible war. This remains an almost sublimated element of the story.

Boring’s high-school friend, Whitey, shows up in the city, which puts a certain tweak on Boring’s life. Throughout the story, Boring lives with his friend, Dot, who is his partner in filmmaking and a frustrated lesbian. Indeed, there are a lot of frustrated characters throughout the book. Whitey bothers Boring because he doesn’t accept the ideal of full-figured women, and makes Boring feel inferior because of his desires. Before Whitey can really cause any strife in Boring’s life, he is found dead, and Boring receives a summons to identify the body in the morgue. Returning home to attend Whitey’s ill-attended funeral, Boring meets a woman named Wanda. Boring is instantly obsessed, again because of Wanda’s resemblance to his ideal woman, and briefly considers skipping Whitey’s funeral in order to pursue her on her trip. After attending the funeral, Boring sneaks into his childhood treehouse to retrieve the only comic he has from his father, which he has managed to save from his mother. The comic, The Yellow Streak and Friends Annual, becomes a recurring element of the story. Boring tries throughout to piece together hidden meaning from the adventures of the Yellow Streak. Upon returning to the city, Boring manages to track down Wanda, and the two begin a sort of love affair. Wanda is oddly cold to Boring, and very prudish considering her interests in research and academic thought about sex and sexuality. Further complicating the relationship is the fact that Wanda seems to be involved with her professor, Karkes. At the end of Act One, Wanda dumps Boring. Then, somebody (who turns out to be Karkes) shoots Boring in the head.

Act Two begins with Dot, Boring, and Mrs. Boring journeying to the old family home at Hulligan’s Wharf. David and his mother have an estranged relationship, and she causes David great pain and stress. Boring has survived his headshot, although at this point in time he is still in bandages. Upon arriving at Hulligan’s Wharf, we are introduced to several other family members. David’s second cousin, Helen Capone, her daughter, Iris, and Iris’ new husband, Manfred, are all staying at the island, too. They are joined a few days later by Boring’s Uncle August, who claims the mainland has been attacked by terrorists. Lacking any communications devices on Hulligan’s Wharf, the group is obligated to take August at his word, and remain on the island as long as they can. As the days wear on, the family begins to disintegrate. Dot and Iris begin a friendship that develops into a lusty affair. David and Helen have an intimate encounter one night. Manfred and Mrs. Boring are becoming closer, even as Manfred begins ranting about Iris’ lack of attention towards him. Uncle August dies after a few weeks, and the dam breaks. Helen is found dead. We almost immediately discover that Manfred is the culprit, and after her death fails to bring him and Iris closer together, he tries to kill Dot. Dot survives, and runs away with Iris. During the turmoil, Mrs. Boring discovers the Yellow Streak comic, which she declares "obscene," and rips to pieces. Manfred and Mrs. Boring run off together. David and Mr. Hulligan are the last to leave the island.

Boring eventually meets another woman, Naomi, who he lives with for awhile at the beginning of Act Three. He claims to have forgotten Wanda, and spends most of his time trying to piece together the remaining bits of the Yellow Streak comic, working hard to come up with some meaning or story. One day he stumbles upon a book Naomi is reading, written by Karkes, which features an illustration from a scrapbook he gave to Wanda in Act One. He tracks down Karkes to discover his connection to Wanda, learns that Karkes was the one who shot him. This meeting leads he and Karkes to renew their search for Wanda, and begins once again to pull Boring away from the reality of his life. Caught up in the search, he cannot relate to Naomi’s worries about the possibility of terrorist attacks in the new year, 2000, and she eventually leaves him in order to seek shelter. Boring becomes obsessed with Wanda’s sister, Judy, who he and Karkes track down, and although they eventually find Wanda, who is a member in a cult that believes that after death you have sex with God, he abandons her to pursue Judy, who is similarly endowed in the hips, but also married.

After Naomi’s departure, Boring moves in with Dot again, and they resume their close friendship. Dot notices a couple of police officers, investigating the deaths at Hulligan’s Wharf and Whitey’s murder, have taken an interest in Boring. Boring refuses to believe the police are really looking for him, just like he refuses to believe the terrorist threats could be real, and continues to try to woo Judy. Ultimately, his relationship with Judy fails, just at the time the police have decided to frame Boring for the crimes. In a dramatic scene, Dot shoots the two cops and she and Boring escape for Hulligan’s Wharf in a boat, arriving on New Year’s Eve. They meet Boring’s cousin, Pamela, at the island. Pamela is the source for Boring’s fetish, and has fled to the island alone to protect her bastard son from rumored terrorist attacks. Dot bonds with the baby, and Boring and Pamela resume their childhood romance as they ponder whether the world is dying all around them.

The plot of David Boring is complex, and involves many characters. To make the events and players seem real, and even natural, Clowes uses some intricate techniques to build the story. What comics give us, in the best examples, is an insight into how we build meaning from a narrative, how we, as readers, are prompted to develop sympathy for characters, interest in stories, and emotional reactions to fictional events. In a very active sense of the word, Clowes’ work requires us to read it. It presents, on the surface, compelling artwork and innovative design that makes it "feel" like a good comic. However, closer reading reveals the ways that Clowes creates meaning and makes his story.

Told in the first person, David Boring is up front about who the narrator is – David Boring – and what kind of story we are dealing with. Many comics are aware of being comics, but David Boring is aware of being a comic masquerading as a film memoir of a fictional character. Comics and film, often compared to and borrowing from each other, form a synthesis in this book. The story we read – images and text taken as a whole – is Boring’s film, begun during the story, made from his memories and imagination, seen through the "mist" of recollection, manifested as a comic book. Clowes’ form of comic abstraction is "justified" through the story as the sheen of memory. Coupled with his clean style, which is often cited by critics, reviewers, and his publishing company as a major attraction to Clowes’ work, this narrative justification, or justification through the narrative framework, helps mask Clowes’ presence in the book. We almost believe we are witnessing the world through Boring’s memory, and when we see things that Boring could not have seen, they are presented as Boring’s imagined reality. His narration is pervasive, and there can be no doubt that it is his story, but it is also rendered in a way that makes you curious and entertained by Boring, if not entirely sympathetic.

We are confronted with this narrative frame of a film immediately. The Copyright page of the book is an image of a filmstrip, featuring one frame completely, partial frames above and below it, and a sprockethole evident on the edge of the film. The scene is the corner of a city block, showing only the tops of buildings, the sky, and a quarter-moon. The image is washed in shades of grey, with stark black lines, almost like a woodcut. The windows of the buildings glow a pale yellow, and although the image is composed of clean linework, it seems gritty. In Act Three Boring starts a screenplay, which he will write to all the standard conventions ("three acts, etc."), and that cements the form of what we are reading. Boring introduces himself immediately, as if in a film noir feature, and gives the piece an autobiographical slant. It is the story of Boring, by Boring. At various points in time, narration is given like script directions, such as when Pamela’s dialogue reads, "I’m not taking any chances with him (gestures toward baby) in the picture" (114). It is as if Boring has scripted this line, and the line is delivered in the narration, which seems to lend itself to this idea.

It is followed immediately by a fairly photorealist rendering of the cover of a comic book, The Yellow Streak And Friends Annual. This sets up the duality of the story. The cover of the comic shows a character identified as Testor shooting the Yellow Streak with a "2-D RAY", which is making him disappear. In fact, it is as if David Boring has been hit with the 2-D RAY, forced into making movies of his life in the comic realm forever. At any rate, it is a narratively significant image in that it introduces the characters of the Yellow Streak comic and sets up a picture of a family in turmoil.

The Yellow Streak Annual shows up throughout the story as narrative accents that hint at backstory and reinforce the emotional or thematic weight of different scenes. They are immediately noticeable because these panels are presented as reproductions of the actual comic, as if Boring is showing them to us as he sees them. For some reason, Mrs. Boring loathes the comic, and this issue especially, and we can see that it is somewhat allegorical. The Yellow Streak can be seen as Boring’s father, the Hag represents his mother, and Testor is Boring himself. The backstory is that David’s father was a controversial comics artist, and his work was removed from the market. Mrs. Boring claims he did an "obscene" comic, and Boring thinks the Annual is the issue she means. The story compiled from the frames is fragmented: The Hag somehow lured Testor into her grip to eliminate the Yellow Streak. The Hag tricks Testor into shooting the him with the 2-D RAY. This renders the Yellow Streak invisible, and dooms Testor to suffer the wrath of the Hag alone. The Hag torments Testor, who wonders why the Yellow Streak doesn’t come to rescue him. She continues to lure Testor to her lair, where she will presumably do something bad to him. In between we get pieces of some kind of secondary plot – the Yellow Streak being seduced by an alien woman, getting caught by Florence (who is difficult to account for), killing Florence (but insisting her death is necessary), and the Hag removing an alien woman mask, indicating that she set everything up. Somehow, the Yellow Streak regains his "three-dimensional" manifestation and makes amends with Testor. The Hag is enraged, and shown pulling a switch, screaming, "If I can’t have you, nobody can!" (95). The frame that could follow is on page 115, and seems to depict an atomic explosion.

It’s easy to read the story as a cloudy account of basic familial discomfort. Boring’s father and mother seem to have had an adversarial relationship, revolving around David. The characterization of the Hag as plotting and deceptive is bolstered when Boring’s mother discovers the comic in his room at Hulligan’s Wharf. She tears it up, and says, "Your father is dead." Boring continues in narration, "Meager details follow, only half-heard (X years ago, got a letter from his lawyer, burned the letter, didn’t know you were so interested)" (64). This characterization not only accounts for Boring’s lack of knowledge about his father, but also for his mother’s propensity to fall in love with Manfred, who is apparently compelled to murder people regularly, or at least attempt it. Her relationship with Manfred further creates suspicion about the fate of Boring’s father.

The occurrences of the Yellow Streak panels that don’t pertain to the story of the Boring family can be attributed to emotional highlights that strengthen the tie of the Yellow Streak Annual to Boring’s consciousness. When Karkes shows Boring the video of Wanda in the cult, a panel showing Testor shining a flashlight tells us that he has revived his search for and interest in his former love (83). When Wanda, who shows herself to be manipulative and self-centered throughout the story, comments on her study of pornography, she says, "I felt like a scientist looking at the microbes in his petri dish!" (20). This cues Boring to her controlling personality, a realization symbolized by a panel showing Testor being bonked on the head with something that looks like an umbrella.

It should not be surprising that Boring is attracted to Wanda, who shares his mother’s dominating characteristics, above all else. Boring’s fetish is for women who look very much like his mother, and Wanda’s personality suggests he may really be looking for something even deeper in them, some more profound resemblance. Still, Boring explains his fetish as the product of another familial relationship. He tells the story of his relationship with his cousin, Pamela, which began at a family vacation to Hulligan’s Wharf. Pamela exhibited the hourglass figure, with emphasis on the lower half, that Boring is so obsessed with now. He runs into and has affairs with other women who physically fit his ideal, but Wanda becomes special, in large part, it seems, because she resembles his mother in attitude and personality.

Boring’s sexual encounters are tied to his perspective at the beginning of the book. In the opening, he narrates to the reader that he believes in "experiencing the moment without dwelling on bygone associations or a tragic aftermath" (1). While this may have been true before the story begins, it only takes the appearance of Whitey to bring "bygone associations" to the forefront. It is after Whitey’s death that Boring becomes especially concerned about his father, finding the Yellow Streak comic during the trip home for the funeral. After that, he cannot let go of his past, present, or future. He becomes as obsessed with the story of his father, mother, and their family as he is with Wanda. Eventually, throughout Act Two, Wanda fades into the background, being displaced even further by Boring’s desire to reconstruct the meaning hidden in the comic book. He regains an interest in Wanda during Act Three, which now becomes a fascination with another bygone event, and his emphasis on her and his father make it impossible for him to treat Dot’s warnings about the corrupt police officers seriously. His past is so real and immediate to him, and such an enveloping force in his life, that he is unable to focus on the present at all.

He shows no malice toward Karkes, who was the shooter in Act One, when he meets him in Act Three, although Boring has openly wondered about who shot him. Karkes is analogous to Boring’s point of view at the opening of the story, but Karkes never goes through a transformation like Boring’s. Karkes is seen ranting at his colleagues about the benefits of acting passionately, and how the sexual appetite should be privileged and not repressed (25). He was Wanda’s professor, and his affair with her has similarly ruined his life. He shot Boring because he thought Boring had stolen Wanda away. He has lost his wife, and openly admits that his life is in shambles. Still, he and Boring take up the search for Wanda, and when they find her Karkes resumes his irrational position, threatening to compete against Boring for Wanda. That threat, especially in light of the previous assault on Boring, is very real, and a reader can only imagine that Karkes has met, in the end, with another disappointing reality, like the one he lived in between the shooting and Boring’s meeting with him.

By the end of the story, when Boring, Dot, and Pamela are back at Hulligan’s Wharf and the world may or may not be in complete shambles, he begins to regain a sense of the present. He acknowledges the state of world affairs and affirms his sense of the moment: "After all, what better could we hope for than a few perfect weeks before the curtain falls? Believe me, I’m thankful for every second" (116). This realization, of course, could never have come were it not for the actions of Dot, who puts herself in the path of danger to save Boring.

Dot and Boring have a unique relationship. She shows Boring a sense of devotion that comes from no one else in the story. She is there for him when he returns from his flings and one night stands. She takes care of him after he is shot, even going to Hulligan’s Wharf for an extended period. We don’t know much about Dot outside of her interaction with Boring. She has occasional girlfriends, and presumably makes a living somehow, but that doesn’t seem to matter for the reader. What is important is her connection and devotion to Boring. In the end, she invests in a gun, half-joking, "It should come in handy when I kill that stupid pig and Judy’s fag husband" (98). Those murders, while immensely helpful to Boring, would do Dot no good at all. She hasn’t exhibited homicidal tendencies before, so we are forced to understand that she is willing to do this for Boring. In the end, she murders two officers to save Boring, and they escape together. But what is the source of their friendship? Why would she go to such extremes for Boring who, while not a "bad" friend or roommate, doesn’t seem to have many redeeming characteristics, and certainly never shows the same kind of extreme devotion towards her?

The connection is in large part due to their artistic connection. Just as the comic as a whole can be seen as Boring’s "film," it can also be understood that Dot helped him make it. Dot has been his compatriot in filmmaking from the beginning, and both of them demonstrate an affinity for and connection to the art. They are linked by the artistic output that seems stymied by Boring’s obsessions, and Dot is able to understand on some level that it will only be after Boring has worked out issues regarding his family and personal relationships that he and she will be able to resume the task of making films. This artistic connection seems to be the strongest personal bond in the entire book.

Dot and Boring are intimately connected, and seem to be the only pair who can really understand each other. As Boring is excluded from the world of normal, everyday relationships because of his extreme fetishization of a certain female figure, Dot is excluded from the world of normal relationships because of her status as a lesbian. Society marginalizes and makes it difficult to act on such impulses of desire. Perhaps the moral here is this: While it is possible to have deep interpersonal connections, and beneficial relationships, these do not necessarily come with the satisfaction of carnal desire. Dot doesn’t have a large enough rump, and Boring isn’t female, so they will never make each other physically happy. But that doesn’t prevent them from having a strong bond. The reader recognizes this bond almost from the outset of the story, and does not want them to separate. As readers, we can tolerate them having sexual relationships with others, but it would be almost impossible to see them separate without feeling the real pangs of a break-up. When Dot leaves Hulligan’s Wharf with Iris to escape Manfred, it is a difficult time for the reader. She tells Boring that she is going, implying that she is not going to be hiding from him, but it is still an awkward moment, mostly for the reader. Emotion dictates that we want to see them reunite, and they do just a dozen or so pages later. After their reunion, it is readily apparent that their connection is just as strong as ever, in fact, they begin talking more and more about making movies again.

When Dot and Boring arrive at Hulligan’s Wharf and meet Pamela, they tell her the story of how they got there. Pamela says, "When you find a good man, you have to do whatever you can to protect him" (115). It is a moment that suggests that the two have come to a point in their relationship where they realize, somewhat more openly, that they need each other and belong together. Perhaps physical satisfaction will never come, or perhaps they will abandon their ideal fantasies and accept each other as partners. Whatever comes of their relationship, the reader feels they will not only be good for each other, but they will remain a couple of some kind.

Clowes’ story is not exceptional because of the enlightening moral it delivers, or the factual information it contains about people, history, or society. It is exceptional because of its construction and its effect on the reader. Combining visual and textual elements that work together to create emotion and narrative, Clowes draws us into a world that is very much like our own, but not quite. His prowess at luring us into the reality of the story is exemplified by the fact that this is a piece written entirely in the first person, and a fairly traditional first person perspective at that, but he effectively makes us fear for Boring’s life twice, in spite of the fact that we know Boring must live. It requires a modicum of talent to pull off such a trick on the reader, without making it feel unfair or unjustified. Clowes shows us what kind of narrative power can be unleashed using the comics medium, and reminds us to not judge a book by its cover.

Works Cited and Consulted