Daniel Clowes
David Boring (2000)
Author: Daniel Clowes
Genre: Graphic Novel (Literary)
Plot Summary:
David Boring's story is told in a 3 act structure. In the beginning of Act 1, David's life is seemingly ordinary in "the City" until the day he meets the perfect fat-bottomed girl and everything becomes very complex very fast. When his obsession turns near-deadly and David takes a shot to the head, his estranged mother and best friend, Dot, take him to an island home to recover. There they come across David's Aunt and newly-married 16 year-old cousin, Iris, and her husband. This makes for an odd and entertaining lifestyle. SPOILER: Things get even odder when David's Aunt drowns "mysteriously" by the hands of her son-in-law. At the start of Act 2, Dot and Iris run/boat off together, leaving David alone with his mother, Iris' freaky husband, and the house-hand. Soon they all make it off the island and back to the "the City" where David discovers that his shooter was his fat-bottomed lover's other lover, a psychiatrist just as obsessed with her as David is. In a bizarre turn of events, David meets his ex-lover's sister and falls for her, but that doesn't go so well. In the end David returns to the island to find his first love (and first cousin). As they swim together off the dock, David's life seems to be returning back toward happiness, but will remain far from ordinary. End of Act 3.
Geographical Setting: "the City" (New York-esc) and a nameless island
Time Period: Contemporary (2000)
Appeal Characteristics:
David Boring is written in a measured pace with a 3 act structure. The deliberate cuts from the storyline with blacked-out cells and narration provided by the main protagonist makes the graphic novel feel like a movie script. While David is at the center of the story, his life revolves around many intriguing secondary characters. His lesbian best friend Dot is somewhat of an enigma and his disjointed family are even stranger in their actions. The story is somewhat sexually explicit centered around a motley crew of characters from David's bi-sexual cousin Iris' violent husband to his lover's other lover who happens to be a psychiatrist and David's new best friend. The novel has a definite darker tone and a bleak look at David's dreamlike world (with discussions of a possible viral war) but ends with a hint of hope in a rekindled relationship. Clowes' drawing and writing styles are vintage and complex. He juxtaposes black and white panels with colorful characters and pieces of David's father's bright but forgotten 1950's comic book with David's mostly stark environment which makes for an overall intriguing look and read.
Read-alikes: Readers who loved Clowes use of black and white in his artwork and enigmatic secondary characters may also love Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine, a comedy which centers around a young Asian couple threatened with an interest in white people and their culture. Those who find a bleak tone and motley crew of characters intriguing should try Black Hole by Charles Burns about teenagers who start contracting "the bug" through intercourse which causes them to grow strange mutations all over their bodies. A reader who salivates over Clowes stark black and white panels and David's humorous narration of his own story should take a look at I Never Liked You by Chester Brown. Brown illustrates his introverted childhood with humor in this touching memoir. If a reader is drawn to harsh city environments, enigmatic family relations, and Clowes vintage feel, then they should check out Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware. Set in Chicago, Ware tells the story of four generations of deserted men and their humorous reunion in near Technicolor. Alex Robinson's Box Office Poison is one to try for someone who likes a black and white city setting and getting into the minds of graphic characters through narration. It follows a motley crew of twenty-something New Yorkers as they brave post-college life and the corporate world.
Red Flags: sex, incest, and violence
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