Clowes' Wilson Headed for Hollywood

JUST announced: Alexander Payne of Sideways fame will direct an adaptation of Daniel Clowes Wilson, his latest graphic novel. Deadline.com has the story of the deal with Fox Searchlight here.

A few months ago I met the Bay Area-based Clowes, whose Ghost World and Art School Confidential have been adapted, to discuss Wilson. The character is an enraged loner who sometimes shows flashes of heart and soul. Still, he may be the most unlikable Clowes protagonist yet.

"I didn't intend to go in and try to push the envelope on how unpleasant I could make him," a slim, bald and darkly handsome Clowes told me over coffee at a Los Feliz cafe. "It came from within: I thought I'd make something both personally meaningful and something an audience would find interesting."

"I think we have a similar worldview," the author allowed. "And his sense of humor — finding humor in the razor's edge between tragedy and comedy — there's a lot of resonance between me and him."

Here is my full piece. Very eager to see how this project goes.

The Agony and Ecstasy of Daniel Clowes

I GUESS I expected one of those harsh, shriveled social misfits with which he he populates his books. But the comics artist I met in Los Feliz recently was a very cool, reasonably well adjusted guy.

But as I write in a piece in Sunday's LA Times: "In person, Clowes — who has created an oeuvre marked by hard-edged social criticism, over-the-top satire and obnoxious, confrontational characters — is almost disappointingly well-adjusted: He's intellectual without being weirdly intense, skeptical without being bitter, observant without being harshly judgmental."

Here is my piece on the Oakland-based Clowes and Wilson, his delightful new book about a despicable character.

I absolutely love Ghost World -- both the book and the film -- and a lot of Clowes' other work.

In some comments I didn't have room for in the piece, Optic Nerve cartoonist Adrian Tomine described how the expansion of comics, and its new respectability over the last decade, has brought many non-comics obsessives in the field -- people who come from fine art, performance art, and other fields instead of the kinds of geeky collector types who tend to make up the field. Many of these newcomers have less sense of comics history, Tomine said, but nearly all of them revere Clowes.

Clowes also talked to me about the connection he feels to the band Yo La Tengo, in his effort to be grounded in a tradition and an individual, non-corporate aesthetic and to come up with fresh ideas over a long artistic career.

More on this stuff shortly. Check out Wilson. I just wish it was longer; I'm praying for Wilson: The Lost Years.

Inverting Alice in Wonderland

WHEN world-class ski champion and hollywood film producer frank beddor approached me about his book project a couple years back, i wasnt sure what to think. the fact that, he told me, he had taken lewis carroll's "alice" stories and turned them into a rather violent YA novel, as well as a graphic novel and video game, made me wonder if this was just a case of corporate-style "synergy" gone mad.

but beddor's first book, "the looking glass wars," was powerful and smart, and entirely un-cynical, as was its sequel. here is my story on beddor, and here's what i wrote at the time:

'What's most impressive about them is that the novels seems to be recounting a universe fully imagined ahead of time. Beddor admires what he calls "the epic world creators" such as J.R.R. Tolkien, "Dune's" Frank Herbert and Philip Pullman of "His Dark Materials." Beddor's books seem tailor-made for kids who've completed the "Harry Potter" series and are looking up, a bit dazed from the experience, eager for somewhere else to go.'

i'm writing about beddor today because the third book in the trilogy has just come out, and my old colleague geoff boucher of hero complex, speaks to him, here, about the project. and dont forget: a tim burton "alice" film comes out in march.

Adrian Tomine Vs. Seth

AT this point, most enthusiasts of the graphic novel / literary comics know the work of adrian tomine, who i first encountered in his "optic nerve" comic.

when i started reading his stuff, insiders often complained that tomine's drawing was too similar to dan "ghost world" clowes, but he's since gone on to carve out his own turf, whether it's a younger / hipper milieu than the losers who tend to populate clowes' work, his own japanese-american heritage or the often bleak work of early manga master yoshihiro tatsumi, which he has translated.

and tomine's work now shows up on the cover of the new yorker as often as any cartoonist working. i love his understated style and his use of color, but it's the way he captures people who miss connecting with each other -- his influences include raymond carver and tobias wolff -- that makes his work the most affecting.

HERE is the profile i wrote for the LATimes a few years back -- reported from berkeley, where tomine lived at the time.

and here is adrian, a bit later, in a piece abou about tatsumi's work -- which showed him as a kid that comics didnt "have to be about samurais and robots" -- in a piece that concerns the plight of foreign language comics. hint: it's similar to the challenges faced by foreign films or translated literature. (tatsumi's memoir, "a drifting life," was recently reviewed in the NYT's top-gear dwight garner.)

and finally, here is a reported essay on the awkward relationship between comics and the fine arts world.

tomine and the wonderful canadian graphic novelist seth, best known for his retro-cool "palookaville" and "clyde fans" comics and the eerie shades of blue and gray he favors, are currently touring, and will show up at skylight books in LA's los feliz on weds. june 17. these guys are two of the best: dont miss it.

Photo credit: Drawn & Quarterly