| Product: |
Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron - Daniel Clowes |
| Date: |
23/07/02 (94 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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(You know those days when you can't think of a short and snappy title? I'm having one today.)
This is a graphic novel by Daniel Clowes, the writer/artist who also created the more famous Ghostworld. It was originally published in instalments in Clowes' comic Eightball, and has been collected into a nice one-volume edition by Fantagraphics, one of the most venerable publishers of alternative comics.
I bought it quite recently, having read Ghostworld. I was looking forward to more of the same kind of thing - a cynical and probably slightly moving tale of people trying to respond to the world around them. Boy did I get that wrong.
The only thing I can compare this to is the work of film-maker David Lynch. It has the same warped values and skewed logic, the same black humour, the same indescribable wrongness lurking beneath the surface of American life, and the same obsession with freaks and visual oddness in general. But although Clowes was clearly influenced by Lynch, and occasionally pays explicit homage to his films, especially Eraserhead, the comic has a distinctive feel all of its own. It successfully imitates the inimitable (although it does feel like it's straining for effect a little at times) but works in its own right and is well worth tracking down.
The plot is very episodic, with lots and lots of things going on around the edges that I don't really have space to mention. But the main part of it concerns Clay Louderman, who we see watching porn films in a sleazy adult cinema. One of the films shown is an enigmatic little number called 'Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron'. He recognises one of the women in the film. In the toilets of the cinema there is a man who can answer all questions, so Clay finds out from him who made the film. (While Clay is queuing to talk to the all-knowing man we can hear some of the answers he is giving other people. They give a pretty good idea of the kind of thing you
can expect from this story: 'In answer to the second part of your question, the only crime you would be guilty of in that instance is murder in some degree. There are no specific laws in this state governing the unlicensed practice of taxidermy, tanning or puppetry.')
Clay borrows his friend's car and sets out in search of the film company. He has a nasty run-in with some cops who beat him up and carve a face on the sole of his foot. He then briefly falls in with a group of Manson Family wannabes who take their inspiration from Elvis rather than The Beatles. After escaping them he meets a grotesquely deformed girl, Tina, who works in a diner. She takes him home where her sexually predatory mother has a room to let.
He then buys a doll with the same face as the one carved on his foot. This arouses the interest of Billings, a man with a failed hair transplant. He believes that the face, which he calls a 'Mr Jones', has some enormous secret significance, and he's been tracking manifestations of the face throughout the last century (he has found one drawn on one of the pimples on Hitler's neck). Billings has a dog called Laura, which has no orifices at all, but lives on one injection of water a day. Billings eventually turns nasty, so Clay flees. The dog follows him, so Billings hires the terrifying Geat, a bounty hunter type who injects testosterone and loves doing horrible things to people, to track them down. Clay then meets Haskell, Billings' arch rival, who can't digest tomato ketchup. And then... ah no, I give up. The plot of this thing is far too convoluted to try to describe.
The plot meanders along, taking some really sinister turns along the way, until it reaches its despicable conclusion. Needless to say, few things are resolved. But the plot isn't really the point of all this. It's just a framework for Clowes to create a very unusual world, which seems to have its own logic if only you c
ould figure it out. It's a world where a little girl smoking a pipe writes the plots to snuff movies, where lonely freaks wander the streets trying to find someone to talk to, where you will keep on losing your car. No-one in the book is particularly attractive, either in terms of looks or personality. There's a fabulous vein of black humour that runs through it, which carefully undermines any sympathy you might feel for any of the characters (to whom unspeakable things often happen). In that respect it's quite similar to Chris Morris's Blue Jam radio series.
The visual style of the book is fantastic. David Lynch's work tends to be about finding the warped evil that lurks beneath idyllic picture-postcard small-town American life. Here we just get the warped evil, we get none of the beauty. The artwork is all in black and white, and the generally very regular way individual rectangular panels are laid out on the page makes it look like a TV show, specifically an American 1950s TV show (which have their own peculiar ugliness when seen today). For anyone who's read Ghostworld the visual style is similar to that, but rather harsher. As I said, none of the characters are attractive - they all have really nasty bags under their eyes, and tend to sweat profusely. And there are some pretty revolting images in the comic, too. I really wouldn't like to meet Daniel Clowes.
I'm not sure I've done a very good job describing this comic. It's difficult to nail down. But a week after reading it I can't seem to get it out of my head. Its effect is similar to having a complete stranger come up to you on the Tube and push his finger up your nose. Not aggressively, but gently. It's not painful, nor even particularly uncomfortable, but it freaks you out and you sure as hell wish it wasn't there. And when he finally leaves you alone you feel confused and dirty. That's what this comic is like.
And if that&#
39;s not a recommendation, I don't know what is.
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