Quick Notes on Eightball 23
is certainly worthy of extended treatment, though extended treatment is something I want to work up to. It’s a hell of a work, if not one I’m yet ready to rank with Ghost World and Ice Haven. Still, a handful of things that have occurred to me so far:
o Are we sure Andy’s dad wasn’t a killer like Andy? There seem to be an awful lot of dead people around him. And compare Clowes’ description of Andy’s demise in Ending C with what we know of Andy’s dad’s demise. There’s a pretty strong first page-last page correspondence there, and a prima facie “dramatic unities” case for a connection.
o Isn’t it also the case that a major problem with Louie and Andy’s moral cosmos is that they misunderstand the ethos of superhero comics rather than that they embrace it? I think this goes for their relationship to punk rock as well.
o If we reviewed artcomics like we review superhero stories we would no doubt complain that Louie’s decision to try to kill Andy when Andy is at his strongest rather than at his weakest is a “plot hole” as big as the one people spy in Doc Ock’s decision to throw the car through the window in Spider-Man 2.
