eight!fucking!ball!

[verbminx]

I am proud owner of a Little Enid Action Doll ("it's Enid from Ghost World when she was a little girl!"). And no, I didn't pay anywhere near as much as the Fantagraphics site wants for her. Hurrah for being a frequent customer at the local comic shop! So... has anyone else actually gotten the chance to see Ghost World yet? It hasn't played around here. :(

My lips are numb, so I think I may have forgotten to take my Paxil before I went to sleep last night. Gotta love side effects, especially those that remind you to actually take your pills. I have been more faithful about Paxil than just about any other medication in my life, including BuSpar (which made me feel crappy enough that NOT taking it was the more desirable state: as it started to metabolize, I'd get dizzy and sleepy and my arms would go pretty numb from the elbow down).

Other than that, I'm enjoying my evening at home, puttering around in my blue tank top and my white capri pj bottoms with the little retro flowers all over them and the hem border of green grasses and flowering plants. Friends-only entry about to go up in a minute.

Comments

[superfly-ww.livejournal.com]

I read a little bit of Ghost World at See Hear a few years ago. I liked that one book Caricature. But I thought it was dull. It never wrestled with the heavy issues.

[verbminx.livejournal.com]

i dunno... does clowes ever wrestle with the heavy issues? i think caricature is coming out in pb next year... it's oop in hc. & i'm waiting for the pb of david boring cause i can't be arsed to read it in the bookstore (i've tried. like six times.)

i liked ghost world a lot (enough to need a Little Enid Action Doll as a computer mascot), but generally prefer acme novelty library to eightball.

[ragdoll.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you got the dollie. She looked so damn cuuuute. :-) I have to read Ghost World eventually, don't I? Too many people have said good things about it.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Saw it last night, dontcha know. WOW. Incredible pic. Starts kinda slow and a little bumpy at times but it really works on a lot of different levels. I'm bummed that it's in such limited release.

I was actually worried a bit about the film being overhyped because I am not sure I would steer people to Ghost World in its comic form-- I found it the weakest of the 3 story lines Clowes has worked on in Eightball up to now. The comic meanders a bit-- I think it took him 3 or 4 issues to really figure out what he wanted to do with the story. The film, on the other hand, weaves things together very effectively and really improves a lot on the comic. I don't think saying this takes anything away from Clowes because he really wrote the film in a lot of ways-- there are a lot of new plotlines that work really well to show you his take on the world. The Steve Buscemi plotline, which I was afraid would stick out as a "star vehicle," turned out to incorporate a lot of ideas from other Clowes stories besides Ghost World. Also great stuff in Enid's art class that incorporates his satire on the art world.

I like Acme too-- I used to read Chris Ware's stuff when I lived in Chicago 8 years ago. I never really got into it too much, though, until the appearance of the Jimmy Corrigan book, which is wonderful. I find Clowes a more compelling storyteller and ranter, though, just because he has a knack for putting you into the world of the people he describes. Ware is brilliant but so clinical and abstract. Harder to get into but definitely worth the effort.