Ghost World by Daniel Clowes

         

In this occasion the content of my post will be about Ghost World by Daniel Clowes. I decided to talk about this comic not only because for me it was a sad and melancholy story, but also because is absolutely realistic. But first of all, a little bit about Clowes: He is an American cartoonist, illustrator and screenwriter. Moreover, he is known for two comic books Eightball (1989-2004) and Ghost world (1997). Clowes not only played an important role in comics, but also he achieved a new level of respect from reviewers, academics, and readers.

Moving on, Ghost World in brief words has to do with Rebecca and Enid, who are two teenage girls, best friends both experiecing the threshold of adulthood and the changes that follow this stage. Furthermore, Ghost World is a series of eight related short stories about their everyday lives. Enid is the powerful one, with dark-haired and optical glasses, Jewish, and somewhat carefree. On the other hand, Rebecca is more passive, and kind of distress every time Enid does something brutal or freaky.

The stories are eight: Ghost World, Garage Sale, Punk Day, The First Time, Hubba Hubba, The Norman Square, A Smile and a Ribbon, and finally October. 

To continue, Rebecca and Enid started to being exposed to changes in their lives, maturity was coming. Of course, change is not always bad, but as perceived and seen by us, adolescents, it's always frightening. As I mentioned above, the end of adolescence was coming, and they aimed desperately to avoid it but they failed. Significantly, unexpected moments of balance satisfy the girls. For example,  when they twice saw the same pair of pants lying in the street, they're captivated; the persistence of the slogan Ghost World and its painter seems to imply that some things are permanent.

In addition to this, I personally believe that I can make a connection with what Blanche experienced in A street car named desire. Blanche, Rebecca and Enid had a hard time trying to accept that things were changing. On one hand we have Blanche that had to work against forces that couldn't be defeated, as Industralization during and after WW1 and WW2. She didn't like the idea of time constantly changing, and her desire was to remain in Belle Reve, in the past, not in the modern world. 

On the other side we have these two teenage girls, that, if you think about it, want to remain in their childhood, but only because they are afraid and also because they are used to their daily life. Not as Blanche, who perfectly knew what was in the Modern world, and she was decided  not to accepted it. 

Clowes displays his astonishing ability to capture the essential young adult. What's more, Clowes creates such realistic characters, that I felt quite amazed at his ability and brilliance in concisely capturing the awkwardness, self-doubt, ansiety, the audible silliness  of the Teen. Albeit they were frightened about this whole issue of adulthood, there was a desire that I felt throught the girls, a desperate eager to go beyond that threshold of childhood into something more than what they've known.

All in all, it wasn't an easy or charming journet to make, but in their own ways they tried it.  The outcome included misunderstandings, reconcilations, damaged feelings, confusion, and then, as spontaneously as they felt being together, they fell into separate routes. As a personal veiw, the outcome can also be related with what Hemingway proposed in the novel The Sun Also Rises. Here the outcome was going to be the same, Rebbeca and Enid going to adulthood, but the process of getting there, that is what mattered. Anyway, they wouldn't avoid suffering, instead they made sense of that suffering.