Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron

I came to Daniel Clowes after reading the relatively straight-forward "Ghost World." What awaited me in this book was one of the most disturbing and terrifying pieces of literature I have ever read. Clowes has that rare ability to create a plot that may not connect on a conscious level, but makes a strange and beautiful sort of sense on a subconscious level. Clowes' world view is very dark, and very lonely, but through this terrifying landscape comes the comfort that someone else has experienced the loneliness and desolation that is par for the course of our modern world. But regardless of the thematics and eerie undercurrent, the situations and settings are so incredible, and the writing so fast-paced, that you can't help but become absorbed in the narrative. Like all great art, it works on multiple levels. Only one word of warning, though: this book could cause depression. It's not for the faint of heart, and I wouldn't reccommend reading it in a bad mood.

This story takes you to very strange places, but not so odd that you can't follow it. Forget the comparison to David Lynch. I didn't treat it as some kind of puzzle, I just had fun reading it. I want to read it again now.

I'm not sure what this story is about but it certainly held my attention. Its a nightmarish dreamscape with a stream of consciousness narrative. I've enjoyed watching Clowes evolve as an artist and a storyteller over the years. His artwork has become more sophisticated and less rigid. His stories are more complex and layered. And his characters are deeper and suffused with conflicted emotions/desires. "Like a Velvet Glove" seems like a bit of an experiment, a stage that he had to work through in order to elevate his storytelling. Still, its very compelling.

Worth it alone for the reactions I have gotten from people at school that I have shown this book to. But seriously, let's talk about the story... Velvet Glove starts off normally enough-Clay Loudermilk, with nothing better to do, goes into a B-movie theatre, where he steps in icky stuff on the floor, tries to look unapproachable for the other patrons, and wonders why there is a line forming in the men's room. So he's watching this movie and feeling all disgusted with himself, and then the second feature comes on, a movie he's never seen before, a movie of the same title as the story. In this movie, which features no nudity or sex but is somehow just as sickening, a masked woman in a bondage outfit appears to behead two other people in the movie, one of whom kinda looks like Hitler and dresses in baby clothes. Then the woman in the bondage outfit removes her mask and turns out to be--Clay's ex-lover.Clay's quest to find out what in the hell his old girlfriend was doing in that movie takes him on a surreal, psychotic voyage. On his way, he encounters a cult of nymphos bent on triggering the ultimate war of the sexes and an eccentric middle-age man who thinks a corporate logo holds the key to the origin of the universe.Love Clowes' character images. Very snazzy faces. He can draw some disturbing and ugly images, too. Had to note the art somewhere. Try to find this book or the issues of Eightball it is serialized in. It is worth the effort. If you do get the individual issues, be sure to get all of the first ten of Eightball so you get the complete story, because you need to down it all in one gulp. For the longest time you will plod through this book thinking something does not make sense or you'll wonder what that was doing in the story altogether. Don't go back trying to understand what you don't get right away. Just keep reading to the end where everything is neatly wrapped up more than you expected it to be, and be prepared for a kick in the head.But even at the end "makes sense" is a term used in the loosest way possible. If you want a realistic story, it's not here. This book ends nowhere near as normally as it began.

Sometimes you find yourself living an unexpected life -- no longer sufficiently rooted (in people and places and things) to be able to exercise that faculty of constantly creating, 2 or 3 steps ahead of yourself, the road you're on and the days you inhabit, by virtue of pre-expectation. The world es exactly what you have always known it would be, and each step you have taken has only served to reinforce this... and then one day its all gone. And where do you live then, you? You live in the world, the unrooted, fleeting, ever-ambiguous world outside your head, and it is truly more strange and vivid than anything you ever imagined. And it has teeth...This book will disturb your sleep for months. Tina, Foot-Foot, Clay, Laura the Dog, et al inhabit a neighboring counter-earth to the planet David Lynch hails from. Ther serial/chapter format, the mad accumulation of details and plot tangents, the little girl with the pipe... Creepy as hell. Harum Scarum indeed...Wish everyone could have been there back when you had to wait 3-4 months between serial installments of this in Eightball. It was truly disturbing then.