Ghost World

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For other uses, see Ghost World (disambiguation).

Ghost World is a set of comics stories by Daniel Clowes, usually presented as a graphic novel. The author describes the story as the examination of "the lives of two recent high school graduates from the advantaged perch of a constant and (mostly) undetectable eavesdropper, with the shaky detachment of a scientist who has grown fond of the prize microbes in his petri dish." The story is presented in spot color.

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Trivia 3 Collections 4 Other media

[edit] Synopsis

Enid Coleslaw (her father had it legally changed from "Cohn" before she was born) and Rebecca (Becky) Dopplemeyer are two cynical, intelligent teenage girls who are best friends in the 1990s. They have recently graduated high school and spend their days wandering around their unnamed city criticizing pop culture and the people they encounter while wondering what they're going to do with the rest of their lives. They are attracted to boys, in theory, but also unhappily entertain the possibility that they might be lesbians. Their friendship is very close, but as the book goes on tensions between them build, especially over Enid's plans to move away to college. They also have a quiet friend named Josh; throughout the book the two girls enjoy teasing him, but they are also attracted to him and eventually a romantic triangle of sorts forms. Originally chronicled in Clowes' acclaimed comic series, Eightball, the full length graphic novel was first released in book form in 1997.

Like many of Clowes' graphic novels, Ghost World is notable for its realistic, banal, and mostly objective portrayal of everyday life and adolescence. Each chapter ends with a certain amount of melancholia which gradually builds up into the end of the series. The work calls to mind other coming-of-age works, specifically novels, such as The Catcher in the Rye or The Bell Jar. The comic ends with Enid and Rebecca separate; while they speak half-heartedly of "getting together sometime," the easy intimacy they once knew is long gone. Rebecca is now in a relationship with Josh and seems on her way to settling into a "normal" life, while Enid, having failed to get into college, is as much of a misfit as ever and finally leaves town alone to start a new life.

The series was a major departure for Clowes, who had previously populated Eightball with considerably more outlandish material.

The comic was then turned into a film starring Thora Birch and Scarlett Johassen.82.20.83.117 22:28, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trivia

• The main character's name, "Enid Coleslaw," is an anagram of "Daniel Clowes".

• Although the graphic novel reprint uses only blue and black, one of the stories originally appeared in black and yellow when presented in Eightball.

• Clowes has said in interviews that he chose two teenage girls for his protagonists partly because he could use them to express his more cynical opinions without readers taking the characters as author surrogates.

• Clowes himself makes a brief appearance in the story. Enid has a crush on him based on his reputation as a cool cartoonist, but when she attends a Clowes book signing in a sleazy store, she is appalled to discover that he is a leering "perv".

• As a kind of coda to the book, Becky and Enid make a cameo appearance as old ladies in Clowes' Dan Pussey collection. Pussey is a self-important, nerdy superhero comics artist, and the book ends in the future as Pussey dies alone and unloved, with Becky and Enid as two bitter crones in his rest home going through his possessions. When they discover his stash of "silly books" (comic books), they wonder, "What would a grown man want with such foolishness?"

• Some of the references in the book (Sassy, etc.) date the book very specifically to the '90s, which Clowes has said was intentional. He wanted it to date the way that throwaway cultural references in Catcher in the Rye root the novel in a time and place.

• Currently, 3 different versions of Enid are available in doll form. One from Fantagraphics with artwork by Clowes depicting Enid having various adventures, another "Little Enid" from the Eightball comic, and an Enid/Rebecca pairing with the likeness of voodoo dolls. The price ranges from 10-35$.

• Clowes has said he chose the pale blue coloring for the book because he wanted to reflect the experience of walking home in the twilight, when every house has a TV on and the living rooms are bathed in a ghostly blue light.

• Clowes moved from Chicago to Los Angeles during the book's creation, and he has said that the town in the story is a visual combination of both places.

• The title "Ghost World" comes from something that Clowes saw scrawled on a building in his Chicago neighborhood.

• The "Seymour" story that forms the main plot of the film is actually just a short part of the story here, with "Seymour" never uttering a line of dialog and being known only as "bearded windbreaker".

• Clowes originally created the first chapter without any plans to continue it.

• Clowes was partly inspired by The Peter Sellers movie The World of Henry Orient, in which two curious young girls stalk a middle-aged man who is having an affair. In the book, Enid and Rebecca are obsessed with various strange people in the neighborhood, including a couple they dub "The Satanists" and a psychic named Bob Skeetes.

• Clowes made various changes to the artwork between the original issues and the book collection, perhaps most notably changing Becky's face early in the story so it more closely matches her appearance at the end.

• The song "Ghost World" from Aimee Mann's album Bachelor No. 2 appears to be inspired by the graphic novel.

[edit] Collections

• Hardcover Edition: ISBN 1-56097-280-7 Fantagraphics Books (December 1, 1997)
• Paperback Edition: ISBN 1-56097-427-3 Fantagraphics Books; 4th edition (April 1, 2001)

[edit] Other media

The book was made into a 2001 movie, Ghost World, directed by Terry Zwigoff (also known for his award-winning documentary about underground cartoonist Robert Crumb). Thora Birch played Enid, Scarlett Johansson played Rebecca, and Steve Buscemi played Seymour (a minor character in the comic, although very important in the movie). Christina Ricci was at one time considered for the role of Enid, but by the time the project started to come together she had become too old for the part.