I'm a professional illustrator, mainly editorial work and advertising art (I make art for animation as well) - I've been at this for 25 years, still doing regular all-nighters even at 55 and loving every bit of it. I stumbled across you guys about a month or so ago - LOVE your channel. You've kept me going well into the morning hours many a night. My tastes run mostly into Clowes, Burns, Moebius and the whole Heavy Metal greats. I enjoy your passion, your banter and your encyclopedic insights into everything comic and art related... just wanted to say thanks for keeping the creative fires burning and thanks for inspiring people from every generation. All the best!
I asked Clowes last night at the Strand's signing event what pen did he use for lettering and he said Speedball's B6 calligraphy nib. I just tried it myself while lettering and yeah, that's where the Thin/Thickness comes from.
Got my copy signed by Clowes while at CXC after his spotlight interview (which people should absolutely go to next year), and before I gave him my book he made note of my Make More Comics shirt. We ended up talking the whole time about the Ames guide. I'm going to dig into this video after I've had my read though, but excited to hear you two break this down.
Had to stop the vid to get this one, thankyou guys sincerely for turning this art lover onto what good comicbooks and cartooning really are. Can't wait to finish watching this vid after I have drooled over my copy when it arrives. Exposure to this channel has truthfully changed how I make images and books.
I thought that "Glow Infernal" was a story that Monica wrote. She mentions she used to write and towards the end of her life we see that she picked it up again, that's why there are a few parallels with her life and why it's written in first person as another character. It was her way of trying to make sense of everything. That was my take, but I could be wrong.
All the clues to solving the mystery are on the book! Clowes truly outdid himself here, its his most impenetrable comic. I'm reading it for the third time already and keep finding more clues to how everything is tied together. Little throwaway sentences reveal entire relationships that I couldn't even notice at first.
It's very dense. I just re-read like a velvet glove and found it equally rich and interesting. I first read it serialized in 8 ball. I was 14, so I didn't get anything out of it except beautiful mental scars.
Just finished reading this after borrowing it from the library. I couldn't believe how dense the story was. I felt like there's so much I'm missing out on and need to re-read it. I appreciate that you guys are going into details you spotted in the work.
Looks so good! I'm waiting the french edition. Clowes continues to experiment, explore new ways to tell a story. I love his work. Thanks for the vidéo.
Monica figured out Penny joined the cult because she remembered the pamphlet in the backseat of the car was in a condition different than her own. Penny had a history of looking for New Age theories and ways to self destruct her relationships. Monica simply put two and two together. The side stories were fantasies she dreamed up of her potential fathers. One was a dreamy heroic war vet who could be excused for abandoning his family situation. Another was a PI (I'm thinking he represented Johnny) who she hoped was out there searching for her and would come to rescue her. Another was trapped in the clutches of cult life. Finally, there was the artist guy who seemed to be the French artist guy who her mother hooked up with early on. Two questions I have. I was under the impression that the candle business burned down. How did it thrive? What did she discover at the end of the story? One thing that stood out to me was the grandfather saying Monica was worse than Penny. Did Monica then do the unthinkable, become haunted by "his ghost", and then attempt to kill herself? She literally and figuratively went over the edge. I don't know... I'm probably overthinking that last part.
God, I thought I pretty much got the book on the first read, but after watching the video and reading the comments I’m realizing that I totally need to give it a second read. Such an amazing story, Clowes does it yet again.
i just finished reading it and it was my first experience with daniel clowes. def need to do more research and check out more of his stuff. i still have some questions but i appreciate clowes just going fully into the insanity and making such a unique story
Have been waiting to watch this video until I read it (and reread it). This kind of content makes me thankful for your channel. No where else can you go and get thoughtful discussion and criticism of this art form.
I took for granted that the strange chapters throughout the book were the stories that Monika likes to produce (and of which she refers to). Hence all the parallels to her own life.
I got to flip through it at CXC and hear him talk about it. I swear he said it took him 7 years to work it all out. After being bummed out by Wilson and Patience, this feels like a return to what I liked in Deathray and Ice haven.
Yeah, I'm with you. I actually wrote him a letter one time, asking him to stop being so negative. Of course, Monica has the ultimate downer ending, and I enjoyed every panel. I'm glad he didn't take my advice.
When Christian missionaries went into European pagan lands, they would sometimes cut down their sacred trees to show that Christ wasn't afraid of their pagan deities. Maybe that's part of what Clowes is referencing.
the glow chapter.... when I was going through it I was thinking it was story that Monica had written since she mentions in her narration that she did write short stories and also because everything only connects up in an allegorical way only. Also the fact that it and the characters in this chapter are not brought up again throughout the rest of the book sort of leads me in that direction too....
I hear you! BUT! Glow inferno, krugg and 'THE INCIDENT' all have different colored pages that match. This could be interpreted as though all three are pieces of her fiction, as all three stray from the main narrative and the page color is such a deliberate choice. I'm ambivalent on this but Johnny does tell Monica about 'the incident' by name and the short comic feels like a hardboiled genre work. In both Inferno and Incident they bring up the Avis and Van Thorne family names, and William Avis' haircut is exactly the same as V's the cult leader. There are so many little clues in these two alone but like you said some things only connect up in an allegorical way. So I'm very inclined in this direction lately too..
That was my first thought as well that they were all her fiction because of the paper choice but then when the characters of the glow chapter did not return and the ones in the other (off white pages) chapters did I sort of leaned toward only the first on being her fiction.... Still she is not the most reliable narrator (her saying she never saw her mother again early in the book and then finding her in a later chapter, for instance) and Clowes never really let's you fully know what is real and what is not or rather what is surreal. I too was puzzled by the multiple and different references to the incident...I'm not sure it's something that can really be pinned down, really. A line that Clowes is exceedingly good at walking. The PI story also felt like a piece of fiction except for the fact that It stars Johnny. Who knows maybe the fiction parts of it are coming from Monica after she met these people in her mom's life and we are seeing it after the fact in the form of a story from her point of view.... Not sure that last idea would really stand up under scrutiny but it did cross my mind. Though I feel pretty strongly that the glow chapter is her short story. Granted this is just my first read too. @@winternitz_
This is all along what I was thinking! Second read through I realized her(Monica) saying she never saw her mother... and the whole pamphlet incident: though it's strongly implied Monica is ABOUT to be given the pamphlet, we can't say she did. Johnny interrupts, and from this panel to the next, Johnny could've just been like "gimme that shit," snatched and and threw it out. Monica getting it out of the trash may have been the first time she held it. And then when she and Penny leave, her memory is of the pamper being there, almost as if placed there by penny, by her incredulity and "weirdness" of this detail of her memory. Monica isn't like, "I held onto that pamphlet and it rode w me in the backseat!" She's unsure and weirded out by it
I finally got my copy and read it tonight. What a beautiful book! I love the EC Comics tropes. So many interesting ideas and subtext. Phenomenally strong book!
Any ideas about the brown paper bag? Security guy has it on page 52. Monica gives it to old Johnny on page 63. April’s dad gives it Monica on page 70-71. Here it contains the Second Gospel.
This book was made to be reread, contemplate and reinterpreted. It truly is a gift. The very best films and musicians do this. It’s “boring” to expect the same thing.
Couple of additional points... Monica w. blue skin on the cover is a parallel to the blue people in the Lovecraftian section. This might suggest some weird version of she's the invader... she's the outsider that threatens normality... who knows. Also, note the candles on the windowsill when the naked hippie walks past the kid. Penis, candles... there might be a parallel there. Phallic symbol, and Penny just "burning through phalluses" as she uses the men up? I wouldn't put such a dorky Freudian turn past cheeky, pulpy Clowes.
Monica is totally weirded out and incredulous of her memory of the pamphlet being next to her when they leave, almost like Penny placed it there...? Can't even be sure she actually held it until after getting it from the trash. Johnny may have grabbed it from the hippie, not Monica. Second page of Demonica, bottom left panel, on her way to the cabin, Monica stops at the exact spot where she ends up driving off the road. She says important stuff etc
Great video but what happened to the end? It cut off at "Here comes the Dan Clowes character." Didn't feel correct. I think you are right that this book is largely about Clowes reflecting on his body of work. The word "cult" can be used with the word "of" in the form of "The cult of Clowes." Some of the questions that emerge to me are things like, "why am I so selfish? Is it because I was neglected? Am I the mirror image of my neglectful parent? Why did I spend so much time creating an artistic cult around myself... why did I want 'followers' so badly? Was it to leave something behind when I'm gone?" and many different iterations of these questions, including one perhaps we all ask ourselves at some point.. "Am I really special? Am I just another nobody?" He's clearly had problematic ideas/feelings around success/fame/ego/hubris, you can just read his interviews and stories to pick all that up. I hope, and I think that he's realized by now that self-loathing is just as stupid as self-aggrandizing. Maybe he always did know it, look at "I Love You Tenderly" w. Lloyd LL. Maybe the human experience is to always pop between hubris and self-loathing as we try to answer unanswerable questions, and then the "horror breaks through the membrane," the barrier we have been scratching at to no avail, and we are annihilated. I just finished Namoi Klein's "Doppelganger" and she makes a version of this point as well... in our society we both love and hate ourselves too much, and neglect our interconnectedness and the environment we live in. Another point would be, if I let go of my hubris and ego do I just then hand it over to some predator? Deep stuff! "Cartoonist as Cult Leader"
That is a deep take and I love it. The whole world literally self destructs around Monica as she continues to dig and search for her personal worth/purpose.
It's meta. The answer to the universe is the number 42. Clowes is saying that there is no answer... the purpose we're searching for doesn't exist. In the end we create our own purpose in this life.
## Spoilers ## Here is my take. The stories with darker coloured pages are stories written by Monica. Monica always thought she was special and spent a lot of effort in trying to work it out. In the end she concludes that she is in fact not special, but in the process of getting on with life her final task literally leads to the end of the world, which was pre-ordained all along. It turns out that Monica was in fact special. This can be seen in her stories, her destiny is pre-ordained but she does not know it, but clues come out in her stories that reveal that at a subconscious level she knows she will end the world, just not the details. I'll give one example. In the story where the boy turns into a tree. If you look at the panel where he is revealed to be a tree. Notice the pronounced lump at the bottom of the tree almost as if the tree is pregnant and something is moving down inside it into the ground. Is this the object Monica finds underground at the end of the book? Was she always destined to find it, did something in her subconscious mind already know this but could only hint at clues? Anyway that's my current theory. I think the ending needs to be taken quite literally. I'm sure there are other clues within the Monica written stories, but I haven't worked them out yet. Edit: also just to add the tree story seems to be set in the 1940s or 1950s. If my theory is correct then Dan Clowes might be saying that the seeds of earth's destruction were planted in the 1940s or 1950s and are being realised now.
SPOILERS: I believe the entire book is a collection of Monica's stories. We're reading her writing; possibly before it's published. But I'm sure the two bizarre stories ("The Glow Infernal" and "The Incident") are examples of her writing. But I think the last story (and possibly most of the cult story) are also completely fictional stories written by Monica. The two pulp stories are deeply allegorical and sum up a lot of themes, obsessions, and personal histories of Monica's life. And a lot of the other stories (the personal stories) are tinged with magical realism or the surreal popping up directly, or indirectly. Again, the first horror story (the town corrupted by evil, "The Glow Infernal") perfectly sums up much of Monica's life, ideas, obsessions, and personal history, and the bizarre Johnny the Dog story, "The Incident," also mimics a lot of the themes, but this time about Penny (her disassociation with society; her abandonment of the world; her stance on the strangeness of others; her stance on men, etc). The radio story, "Demonica," is her most personal, but uses he supernatural to get at deeper pain and truths. Again, I think it's one of Monica's later short stories, but tinged with her obsession and fascination of pulp and horror. Also, I thought the cult leader might be the other guy in the fox hole with Johnny. Then again, we could just be seeing TWO of Monica's stories ("The Glow Infernal" and "The Incident") and all the rest actually happened. But I'm pretty sure those two stories are pieces of fiction written by her.
SPOILERS: I think the cult leader is the other guy in the foxhole, a) because he had the premonition / dream that ends the book, and seems to be the foundation of the cult's belief, b) because he basically says he's going to going to be an asshole outlaw once he gets back to the states, c) because he looks like the cult leader, but older, and d) his class resentment and hatefulness is the same. I could see him specifically going after Penny to get back at Johnny.
@@Ugly_Garfield I just reread it and was wondering the same! Is it Clowes? The Clowes stand-in who was flirting with Monica at the end of the book? Is it Clowes wielding Monica's shovel from the end of the book, and digging up all of her stories from hell (the unconscious or whatever)? Because it also looks like a male Monica from behind. And she wore that colored shirt in the book (at the end, and importantly, when she met her mom, Penny.) And that's definitely Johnny on the back cover, but is the other guy Butch / V, the cult leader? And why is he Pan? Is he the male seduction of the 60s? I have no idea.
@@Ugly_Garfield Not 100% sure but my inkling is to say the brown haired guy is Butch, the only representation we got of him, the older one with the shovel is Johnny and the satyr is of course Krugg, since he calls himself that in his chapter. These are three men SPOILERS Penny is involved with in the narrative.
![Method Writing: The First Four Concepts - Jack Grapes [FULL INTERVIEW]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ba9jAVzADY0/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm a professional illustrator, mainly editorial work and advertising art (I make art for animation as well) - I've been at this for 25 years, still doing regular all-nighters even at 55 and loving every bit of it. I stumbled across you guys about a month or so ago - LOVE your channel. You've kept me going well into the morning hours many a night. My tastes run mostly into Clowes, Burns, Moebius and the whole Heavy Metal greats. I enjoy your passion, your banter and your encyclopedic insights into everything comic and art related... just wanted to say thanks for keeping the creative fires burning and thanks for inspiring people from every generation. All the best!
I asked Clowes last night at the Strand's signing event what pen did he use for lettering and he said Speedball's B6 calligraphy nib. I just tried it myself while lettering and yeah, that's where the Thin/Thickness comes from.
Got my copy signed by Clowes while at CXC after his spotlight interview (which people should absolutely go to next year), and before I gave him my book he made note of my Make More Comics shirt. We ended up talking the whole time about the Ames guide. I'm going to dig into this video after I've had my read though, but excited to hear you two break this down.
Had to stop the vid to get this one, thankyou guys sincerely for turning this art lover onto what good comicbooks and cartooning really are. Can't wait to finish watching this vid after I have drooled over my copy when it arrives. Exposure to this channel has truthfully changed how I make images and books.
I thought that "Glow Infernal" was a story that Monica wrote. She mentions she used to write and towards the end of her life we see that she picked it up again, that's why there are a few parallels with her life and why it's written in first person as another character. It was her way of trying to make sense of everything. That was my take, but I could be wrong.
100%! Clowes is pretty into Nabokovian meta stuff like that, so it would make sense.
All the clues to solving the mystery are on the book! Clowes truly outdid himself here, its his most impenetrable comic. I'm reading it for the third time already and keep finding more clues to how everything is tied together. Little throwaway sentences reveal entire relationships that I couldn't even notice at first.
It's very dense. I just re-read like a velvet glove and found it equally rich and interesting. I first read it serialized in 8 ball. I was 14, so I didn't get anything out of it except beautiful mental scars.
What happened at 1:18:35? Sopranos ending... was it intentional or just a bug?
Yeah - the video just goes black. Intentional nod?
what he said.
Yes! Was very curious to hear your guys interpretation of the last panel...
Just finished reading this after borrowing it from the library. I couldn't believe how dense the story was. I felt like there's so much I'm missing out on and need to re-read it. I appreciate that you guys are going into details you spotted in the work.
Looks so good! I'm waiting the french edition. Clowes continues to experiment, explore new ways to tell a story. I love his work. Thanks for the vidéo.
Very appropriate ending to the video, especially considering how the book “ends” - both with Lynchian style.
Yes, but now I will need to buy the book to read the final 5 or so pages...
Monica figured out Penny joined the cult because she remembered the pamphlet in the backseat of the car was in a condition different than her own. Penny had a history of looking for New Age theories and ways to self destruct her relationships. Monica simply put two and two together.
The side stories were fantasies she dreamed up of her potential fathers. One was a dreamy heroic war vet who could be excused for abandoning his family situation. Another was a PI (I'm thinking he represented Johnny) who she hoped was out there searching for her and would come to rescue her. Another was trapped in the clutches of cult life. Finally, there was the artist guy who seemed to be the French artist guy who her mother hooked up with early on.
Two questions I have. I was under the impression that the candle business burned down. How did it thrive? What did she discover at the end of the story? One thing that stood out to me was the grandfather saying Monica was worse than Penny. Did Monica then do the unthinkable, become haunted by "his ghost", and then attempt to kill herself? She literally and figuratively went over the edge.
I don't know... I'm probably overthinking that last part.
Is this the first time you guys have said "Richard Sala" in a video?? Please do a video on one of his books, or several!
That one panel in "The incident" chapter made me recall the laughing spitting man
The Gary, I believe, is cartoonist Gary Leib, who passed away in 2021.
Yes he said it was in his Green Apple interview.
God, I thought I pretty much got the book on the first read, but after watching the video and reading the comments I’m realizing that I totally need to give it a second read. Such an amazing story, Clowes does it yet again.
I'm madly in love with this book.
i just finished reading it and it was my first experience with daniel clowes. def need to do more research and check out more of his stuff. i still have some questions but i appreciate clowes just going fully into the insanity and making such a unique story
That video ending tho! ^^
Have been waiting to watch this video until I read it (and reread it). This kind of content makes me thankful for your channel. No where else can you go and get thoughtful discussion and criticism of this art form.
Had to wait til I got my copy to watch this and enjoy your “DVD. Commentary”. Goddamn, what a masterpiece
I took for granted that the strange chapters throughout the book were the stories that Monika likes to produce (and of which she refers to). Hence all the parallels to her own life.
If anyone is into this cult small town surreal type of story, The Case of the Missing Men is a fantastic graphic novel that explores similar themes.
I waited to watch this video until I got my copy of Monica. Truly a masterpiece! The ending is up there with my all-time favorites.
I got to flip through it at CXC and hear him talk about it. I swear he said it took him 7 years to work it all out. After being bummed out by Wilson and Patience, this feels like a return to what I liked in Deathray and Ice haven.
Yeah, I'm with you. I actually wrote him a letter one time, asking him to stop being so negative. Of course, Monica has the ultimate downer ending, and I enjoyed every panel. I'm glad he didn't take my advice.
So tempted to watch, but I want to go in fresh.
What a crazy book! Can’t wait to get get my ordered copy.
When Christian missionaries went into European pagan lands, they would sometimes cut down their sacred trees to show that Christ wasn't afraid of their pagan deities. Maybe that's part of what Clowes is referencing.
A perfect "Clowesian" ending to the video
the glow chapter.... when I was going through it I was thinking it was story that Monica had written since she mentions in her narration that she did write short stories and also because everything only connects up in an allegorical way only. Also the fact that it and the characters in this chapter are not brought up again throughout the rest of the book sort of leads me in that direction too....
I hear you! BUT! Glow inferno, krugg and 'THE INCIDENT' all have different colored pages that match. This could be interpreted as though all three are pieces of her fiction, as all three stray from the main narrative and the page color is such a deliberate choice. I'm ambivalent on this but Johnny does tell Monica about 'the incident' by name and the short comic feels like a hardboiled genre work. In both Inferno and Incident they bring up the Avis and Van Thorne family names, and William Avis' haircut is exactly the same as V's the cult leader. There are so many little clues in these two alone but like you said some things only connect up in an allegorical way. So I'm very inclined in this direction lately too..
That was my first thought as well that they were all her fiction because of the paper choice but then when the characters of the glow chapter did not return and the ones in the other (off white pages) chapters did I sort of leaned toward only the first on being her fiction.... Still she is not the most reliable narrator (her saying she never saw her mother again early in the book and then finding her in a later chapter, for instance) and Clowes never really let's you fully know what is real and what is not or rather what is surreal. I too was puzzled by the multiple and different references to the incident...I'm not sure it's something that can really be pinned down, really. A line that Clowes is exceedingly good at walking. The PI story also felt like a piece of fiction except for the fact that It stars Johnny. Who knows maybe the fiction parts of it are coming from Monica after she met these people in her mom's life and we are seeing it after the fact in the form of a story from her point of view.... Not sure that last idea would really stand up under scrutiny but it did cross my mind. Though I feel pretty strongly that the glow chapter is her short story. Granted this is just my first read too. @@winternitz_
This is all along what I was thinking! Second read through I realized her(Monica) saying she never saw her mother... and the whole pamphlet incident: though it's strongly implied Monica is ABOUT to be given the pamphlet, we can't say she did. Johnny interrupts, and from this panel to the next, Johnny could've just been like "gimme that shit," snatched and and threw it out. Monica getting it out of the trash may have been the first time she held it. And then when she and Penny leave, her memory is of the pamper being there, almost as if placed there by penny, by her incredulity and "weirdness" of this detail of her memory.
Monica isn't like, "I held onto that pamphlet and it rode w me in the backseat!" She's unsure and weirded out by it
I'm going to meet him SEATTLE soon!!!
A hummingbird for Ed 😢
Finished it last night. Love the shifting perspectives that build the overall story.
1:18:36 hey, what happened to the rest of the video? Such a solids analysis, I gotta hear this being wrapped up…!
Would love to see you guys cover some of tradd moore's stuff!
Fanta also had advanced copies at CXC of the Hip Hop Family Tree Omnibus. Looks great Ed.
I finally got my copy and read it tonight. What a beautiful book! I love the EC Comics tropes. So many interesting ideas and subtext. Phenomenally strong book!
Getting mine tomorrow!
Clowes is signing in Philly tomorrow at Partners and Son, can't wait to get my copy!
Any ideas about the brown paper bag? Security guy has it on page 52. Monica gives it to old Johnny on page 63. April’s dad gives it Monica on page 70-71. Here it contains the Second Gospel.
It seems like Monica has beer in the bag on 63 ( they are drinking in the subsequent panels). Don't know about the other bags.
This book was made to be reread, contemplate and reinterpreted. It truly is a gift. The very best films and musicians do this. It’s “boring” to expect the same thing.
Got my copy over the weekend. Excellent book!
Couple of additional points... Monica w. blue skin on the cover is a parallel to the blue people in the Lovecraftian section. This might suggest some weird version of she's the invader... she's the outsider that threatens normality... who knows.
Also, note the candles on the windowsill when the naked hippie walks past the kid. Penis, candles... there might be a parallel there. Phallic symbol, and Penny just "burning through phalluses" as she uses the men up? I wouldn't put such a dorky Freudian turn past cheeky, pulpy Clowes.
Monica while blue, does not have blue skin on the cover.
I watched the whole video, I am curious to read the whole book!
nice editing in this video
I can’t wait!
your videos cuts to black towards the end. was it on purpose?. what happen in the end?
You guys should make a video on Victor De La Fuente. I love his Haxtur series.
The cover reminds me of the cover of Spaced Out by Enoch Light.
Monica is totally weirded out and incredulous of her memory of the pamphlet being next to her when they leave, almost like Penny placed it there...?
Can't even be sure she actually held it until after getting it from the trash. Johnny may have grabbed it from the hippie, not Monica.
Second page of Demonica, bottom left panel, on her way to the cabin, Monica stops at the exact spot where she ends up driving off the road. She says important stuff etc
Great video but what happened to the end? It cut off at "Here comes the Dan Clowes character." Didn't feel correct.
I think you are right that this book is largely about Clowes reflecting on his body of work. The word "cult" can be used with the word "of" in the form of "The cult of Clowes." Some of the questions that emerge to me are things like, "why am I so selfish? Is it because I was neglected? Am I the mirror image of my neglectful parent? Why did I spend so much time creating an artistic cult around myself... why did I want 'followers' so badly? Was it to leave something behind when I'm gone?" and many different iterations of these questions, including one perhaps we all ask ourselves at some point.. "Am I really special? Am I just another nobody?" He's clearly had problematic ideas/feelings around success/fame/ego/hubris, you can just read his interviews and stories to pick all that up. I hope, and I think that he's realized by now that self-loathing is just as stupid as self-aggrandizing. Maybe he always did know it, look at "I Love You Tenderly" w. Lloyd LL. Maybe the human experience is to always pop between hubris and self-loathing as we try to answer unanswerable questions, and then the "horror breaks through the membrane," the barrier we have been scratching at to no avail, and we are annihilated. I just finished Namoi Klein's "Doppelganger" and she makes a version of this point as well... in our society we both love and hate ourselves too much, and neglect our interconnectedness and the environment we live in. Another point would be, if I let go of my hubris and ego do I just then hand it over to some predator? Deep stuff! "Cartoonist as Cult Leader"
That is a deep take and I love it. The whole world literally self destructs around Monica as she continues to dig and search for her personal worth/purpose.
channels like this are why youtube was created!
No page 42? Is that an error or another clue????
Also on page 23, the page number is on the opposite side.
It's meta. The answer to the universe is the number 42. Clowes is saying that there is no answer... the purpose we're searching for doesn't exist. In the end we create our own purpose in this life.
This looks so cool where can I get this
## Spoilers ##
Here is my take.
The stories with darker coloured pages are stories written by Monica.
Monica always thought she was special and spent a lot of effort in trying to work it out. In the end she concludes that she is in fact not special, but in the process of getting on with life her final task literally leads to the end of the world, which was pre-ordained all along. It turns out that Monica was in fact special.
This can be seen in her stories, her destiny is pre-ordained but she does not know it, but clues come out in her stories that reveal that at a subconscious level she knows she will end the world, just not the details.
I'll give one example. In the story where the boy turns into a tree.
If you look at the panel where he is revealed to be a tree.
Notice the pronounced lump at the bottom of the tree almost as if the tree is pregnant and something is moving down inside it into the ground.
Is this the object Monica finds underground at the end of the book?
Was she always destined to find it, did something in her subconscious mind already know this but could only hint at clues?
Anyway that's my current theory. I think the ending needs to be taken quite literally.
I'm sure there are other clues within the Monica written stories, but I haven't worked them out yet.
Edit: also just to add the tree story seems to be set in the 1940s or 1950s. If my theory is correct then Dan Clowes might be saying that the seeds of earth's destruction were planted in the 1940s or 1950s and are being realised now.
SPOILERS:
I believe the entire book is a collection of Monica's stories. We're reading her writing; possibly before it's published. But I'm sure the two bizarre stories ("The Glow Infernal" and "The Incident") are examples of her writing. But I think the last story (and possibly most of the cult story) are also completely fictional stories written by Monica. The two pulp stories are deeply allegorical and sum up a lot of themes, obsessions, and personal histories of Monica's life. And a lot of the other stories (the personal stories) are tinged with magical realism or the surreal popping up directly, or indirectly.
Again, the first horror story (the town corrupted by evil, "The Glow Infernal") perfectly sums up much of Monica's life, ideas, obsessions, and personal history, and the bizarre Johnny the Dog story, "The Incident," also mimics a lot of the themes, but this time about Penny (her disassociation with society; her abandonment of the world; her stance on the strangeness of others; her stance on men, etc). The radio story, "Demonica," is her most personal, but uses he supernatural to get at deeper pain and truths. Again, I think it's one of Monica's later short stories, but tinged with her obsession and fascination of pulp and horror.
Also, I thought the cult leader might be the other guy in the fox hole with Johnny.
Then again, we could just be seeing TWO of Monica's stories ("The Glow Infernal" and "The Incident") and all the rest actually happened. But I'm pretty sure those two stories are pieces of fiction written by her.
SPOILERS:
I think the cult leader is the other guy in the foxhole, a) because he had the premonition / dream that ends the book, and seems to be the foundation of the cult's belief, b) because he basically says he's going to going to be an asshole outlaw once he gets back to the states, c) because he looks like the cult leader, but older, and d) his class resentment and hatefulness is the same. I could see him specifically going after Penny to get back at Johnny.
Think you hit the nail on the head! 🤘-Ed
Do you have an idea of who the man in the red-torn shirt with shovel on the back of the book might be?
@@Ugly_Garfield I just reread it and was wondering the same!
Is it Clowes? The Clowes stand-in who was flirting with Monica at the end of the book? Is it Clowes wielding Monica's shovel from the end of the book, and digging up all of her stories from hell (the unconscious or whatever)? Because it also looks like a male Monica from behind. And she wore that colored shirt in the book (at the end, and importantly, when she met her mom, Penny.)
And that's definitely Johnny on the back cover, but is the other guy Butch / V, the cult leader? And why is he Pan? Is he the male seduction of the 60s?
I have no idea.
@@Ugly_Garfield Not 100% sure but my inkling is to say the brown haired guy is Butch, the only representation we got of him, the older one with the shovel is Johnny and the satyr is of course Krugg, since he calls himself that in his chapter. These are three men SPOILERS Penny is involved with in the narrative.