“Nothing seems to be working out / I don’t want to grow up,” the Ramones sing in the song (a Tom Waits cover) for which the video is based. Daniel Close created several animated episodes. Only these two verses express the meaning Ghost Worldone of the masterpieces of the American cartoonist.
First published in installments beginning in September 1993, it is also famous for the 2001 film adaptation directed by Terry Zwigoff and starring Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson. Ghost World over time has become essential reading for fans of Daniel Clowes, as well as one of the main works of that historical moment in whichat least in the perception of the general public, comics have evolved from an entertainment product to a cultural product. In short, thirty years after its publication, for various reasons Ghost World It is now considered a comic book classic.
A bittersweet story of adolescence
Ghost World talks about the summer after graduating from university Enid and Rebecca. Showing a lack of interest in any future project, the two friends they spend their days making sarcastic comments about everyone, from the comedians who perform on television, to the customers they meet in the cafeteria, to their former classmates. No one is immune to their caustic criticism, and it is this disdainful attitude that makes them feel powerful and strengthens their friendship.
Of the two, Enid has the edge, boys really like her, she changes her look every day and always has the right idea to liven up boring days. However, it is hidden great concern: When she’s alone, she gets lost in the happy memories of her childhood or dreams of going far away, becoming a completely different person and forgetting everyone, even Rebecca.
“When you leave childhood behind, you have a window of opportunity and a chance to become who you always wanted to be,” Close said in an interview. That’s for sure the suspension that precedes this irreversible transformation node Ghost World. Leaving childhood behind means no longer finding that sense of completeness that has always been in things, and that adults do not have the solution to all problems, in fact, they are often the cause. Having a window of opportunity in front of you means losing confidence in your uniqueness and contemplating the alarming possibility of becoming a failure and mediocrity like everyone else.
Enid and Rebecca’s reaction to this gradual revelation is one of rejection that is as desperate as it is exasperating: they judge, mock, treat with contempt and engage in humiliating pranks on everyone they meet, andTheir contemptuous gaze is reflected in the grotesque faces with which the other characters are drawn. But this is a losing battle, because willy-nilly they are already becoming part of that adult world.
Before coming to grips with the fact that the feared changes are actually already happening, the two girls do what adults are not allowed to do, which is fill their days with nothing. Ghost World flows like a piece of life historyaccentuated by non-activities they could be doing two nineties teenagers in an unnamed American town: organize a sale of your memorabilia in the home garden, socialize in a cafe, sitting at one of the tables in the window on the street, go to a sex shop as a joke in the company of a boy, rent movies in a video store.
The story is an accurate cross-section of the American province of those years, a quiet place where, however, there is no shortage of controversial personalities or those who seem to have gone crazy. A crowded place, but where it’s impossible to truly connectmostly non-place – a concept that Marc Auger theorized precisely in those years – in which people are reduced to a ghostly and intangible presence. This is echoed by the mysterious graffiti artist who defaces shop windows, walls and shutters with the words “Ghost World”, which Close, in the manner of Will Eisner, used as the title of the chapters into which the story was divided.
From the underground to the center of the American cultural scene
Even if today we read it in volume, history Ghost World was first published in parts on Eighth ballan anthology of comics created entirely by Close. for Fantagraphics Books from 1989 to 2004. The author had already worked for the same publishing house on other comics containing the laughter and satirical adventures of Lloyd Llewellyn, one of his characters who appeared in 1985. Love and rockets 13 Hernandez brothers.
Project Eighth ball was broader and more ambitious: he was inspired Insane and was designed to accommodate serious narratives, alternating short stories with longer ones divided into episodes. Practically, Eighth ball it became the container in which (as Ken Parille points out) Close experimented with different styles of comic storytelling.
Provocatively presented as “an orgy of anger, revenge, despair, suffering and sexual perversion.” Eighth ball he spoke about the banality of the province, showing less pleasant aspects of the American dream, revived by the wealth of the eighties and nineties. In these pages, which won the author numerous Eisner, Harvey and Ignatz awards, Close sharpened his disillusioned view of reality, devoted much space to extraneous characters and he managed to reveal the poetic and humane side of squalor.
Completed publication on Eighth ballin 1997 Ghost World had a one-volume edition. Along with the work of other authors such as Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Craig Thompson and Adrian Tomine, similar to Clowes of alternative comics, it quickly became one of the leading works of the graphic novel season.
As Paolo Interdonato emphasized in the introduction to the book dedicated to Close. Comics Repubblica – L’espresso 2006, the year of publication Eighth ballAlso American fiction began to use the language and symbols of pop culture to tell complex stories. capable of photographing the specifics of modern American society.
Works from writers such as Rick Moody, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem and Dave Eggers (the latter also an animator for the innovative literary magazine). McSweeney’s) – then ascended to the empyrean of American literature – eventually built bridge between “high” and “low” culture. This had a positive impact on the perception of comics by a more cultured public, who began to view graphic novels as works closer to literary novels than to superhero books.
Daniel Clowes expressed some bewilderment that a new format and, above all, a high-profile label such as “graphic novel” would serve to transform comics from mass reading into “a type of book that is generally adequate.” This is because in fact he was always convinced that The value of comics, of course, did not lie in their similarities to literature or other art forms..
According to Close, “even (and especially) in their least valuable form, comics convey an aura of untold truth”, unwilling to decipher it at any cost, caring “only about questions, without giving any answers.” And re-read Ghost Worldthirty years later, brings us back here.
Read also: Daniel Close, the loneliness of a cartoonist
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