In the graphic novel, the art work is black and white with green shades acting as go between. While the mixture of green, black and white seem a little out of the ordinary, one realizes that adding the green to black and white creates a sense of depth thus heightening his gothic experiment. Perhaps one of the biggest strengths of the book is its fascinating exploration of the minds of young people in the post modern world. Some of the challenges that young people go through demonstrated in the book include anxiety, pursuit of independence and freedom, insecurity, friendship and love as well as the pursuit of happiness.
It would also be interesting to examine why Clowes’ conservative use of color is appropriate for the use in the story. First, I understand the color as a giver of two impressions. One one hand, it gives room for the conquest of melancholy, moodiness, and the pervasive lack of happiness in the book that automatically reflects on the mood of the characters. Second, the coloring is an important aspect to look at while is the looming culture change and the physical growth embodied in the characters. With the green in between, one gets the idea of life, and growth just as nature. One can authoritatively say that Clowes color usage is gives a lot of weight to the novel by emphasizing the concept of the Ghost World. In fact, the surrealist nature of the comic is father heightened by the normality of the two protagonists. In the novel, only two lead characters Edin and Rebecca are normal. The rest of the characters are abnormal is one way or the other. This way, we get to understand that Edin and Rebecca see the world as deformed and that everyone else in the world cannot match to their standards.
Using dialogue, Clowe’s Ghost World captures the imagination of both young and adult readers with realistic portrayal of the absurd in the world.
Enid: I hate this fucking magazine! These stupid girls think they’re so hip. But they’re just a bunch of trendy stuck-up prep school bitches who think they’re “cutting edge” because they know who “Sonic Youth” is ! (page 2).
Rebecca: You’re a stuck-up prep-school bitch!
I see the characters Enid and Rebecca as the typical representation of the hipsters in 1990s. The two are anything but post-modern high school graduates. They are trendy, witty, cynical and self loathing. The book allows us to follow through their meaningless adventures pursuing happiness with a gang of miscreant gangs, misfits, and societal weirdoes. While reading this book, I ask the question, are the two growing up or growing apart? Is Ghost World a rebuke of the concept, pursuit of happiness? Even though Edin and Rebecca feel hotter that hot cookies, they still fail the challenge of getting dates.
Rebecca: “Look, how hot we are: How come no boys ever ask us out on dates?” “May be we should be lessboss” Edin: Get away from me!” (page 20).
Daniel Clowe’s Ghost World is a story of two teenage girls trying to come-of-age. However, the girls realize that coming of age is not an easy thing as they have to contain with several aspects of life. In their environment, the girls are surrounded by a conglomeration of caricatures. One teenager is an extremist who fights top against the pervasive liberalism while the other young girl is a shy and absorbs the friend’s sexual frustrations. The story is filled with parents who fail their role of showing the young lads how to do the right thing and an assortment of weirdoes, ghostly characters and an atmosphere that is hue and gloomy.
Page 37
My journal for this week focused on Clowes’ use of color. Today, I noticed that even though his use of color was intended for a particular message, I realize that that his work would not be the same because of the quality of the graphics. While reading the book, one notices that the graphics are descriptive and go beyond the mile to show facial expressions. Through the graphics, one can without straining, be able to tell complex emotions in the eyes, mouths, and other body parts. In some instances, it is easy to see that even though the characters are smiling in the ye, it is noticeable that their mouths are twisted. Perhaps this is one way of showing how the world is skewed to the understanding of happiness. Here is an example:
"The trouble is the kind of guy I want to go out with doesn't even existlike a rugged, chain-smoking, intellectual, adventurer guy who's really serious, but also really funny and mean" Chap. 3, Punk Day, p. 31
While the girls wonder in life while searching for happiness, they fail to realize that what might mean happiness is not necessarily what they are looking for. The feeling of uncertainty is most visible in the following image: This book is about self evaluation.
Understandingly, the comic novel is almost gothic. However, on the other hand, the movie is accurate in the depiction of analyzing the adolescence culture in America though the eyes of two cynical teenage girls. The witty dialogue and the carefully orchestrated transition between adolescence and adulthood as well as the end of friendship because of the varying values and interests.
Page 15
Vogue Magazine wrote that: “ No one has their eye- or ear- focused on youth as acutely as Daniel Vogue.
One can argue that the darker side of life always fascinated Daniel Clowes. His works explore and unmasks the depression and melancholy the 20th century American experience. Some scholars have explained that Clowes work is rich in sadness because of its strong sense of “the human quest for meaning and value”. Clowes makes use of the concept of happiness while borrowing the philosophy of “the absence of morality”. Uniquely, Clowes uses languages as a way of deepening into the bank of human psychology. He documents the sporadic nature of human psychology, the apprehension of failure and fear of rejection, and the uncertainty of friendship.
In Ghost World, the story’s plot although dark and grotesque and have come to be defining for the style, gothic, Clowes did exactly what he intended to do. The story is dark and makes shocking instances that make one feel something in the guts. The story is full violent language, teenage bully, and vulgar language. What is it with the morality? The nasality of the plot makes the book of the classical gothic literature in America made in the late 1990s. Here is the quote that summarizes what I mean:
"That's okay—I don't want him to buy any of my sacred artifacts, anywayI can't bear the thought of some jerk with a trendy haircut buying 'Goofie Gus'!" Chap. 2, Garage Sale, p. 15
My general perception of Ghost World is that is a clear plot depiction of the world and the place of the young adults in the society. The plot is full of pain, but also full of life. This is a pragmatic depiction of how life is in. Clowes is tense, tight and precise in terms of his description. It is the grotesque nature. The book also contains elements of grotesque such as the wagered depiction of the characters, the use of color, and human fewer forms of the characters. In the end, Daniel Clowes succeed not by romanticizing the teenage adolescence experience as showing them as princes, but by depicting a cynical, honest and oft the roof depiction of how young teenage girls roll.
Work Cited
Clowes, Daniel, Ghost World. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics, 1998. Print.Ghost World « Aben Maler." Ghost World « Aben Maler. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Sept. 2013.
