Eightball: David Boring back

Three separate acts, three turns in direction.

David briefly finds the girl of his dreams while on the way to a funeral. She understands the powers she holds and milks his fixations for her own ego and to taunt another lover. Someone shoots David. The second chapter is set on a small island as relatives and friends shelter from what they believe to be the coming apocalypse. Soon personalities clash and blood is spilt.

Clowes' first book after GHOST WORLD still features an intense, close friendship but mixes in a distant mother, an estranged father and the clues to their break up hidden in fragmented panels of a yellowing comic book. David's objects of desire are laced with his sexual obsessions, a Clowes strongpoint. As his loyalties stray you find that he's in love with The Girl, an image he's created long before he finds the physical incarnation deemed worthy.

I got the feeling that this book was a direct result from working on the GHOST WORLD script. The three-act structure almost begs to be remade for film. (As a side note, he followed it up with EIGHTBALL #22, a comic that has to remain exactly what it is. Any other format would break the spell). I've read it half a dozen times and it still stands up. Highly recommended.