Surprising Realsim

            With a title like Ghost World, I fully expected some strange, supernatural twist from Daniel Clowes’s comic.  And yet his story was completely based within the real-world, day-to-day lives of young women dealing with real-world, day-to-day issues: boys, sex, gossip, friendship, jealousy, growing up, betrayal, change. 

            My initial reaction to the main character’s Enid and Rebecca – especially their language and dialogue – was that their persons and syntax were unrealistic.  “I never talked like that,” I though, “and I don’t talk that way now either.”  However, upon looking at Clowes’s dialogue a second time, and paying closer attention to the ways that I spoke with my friends at lunch, at parties, or when hanging out (and also eavesdropping on some other Valentine conversations) I realized that Enid and Rebecca’s way of talking to each other was actually alarmingly similar to discussion in daily life (although Enid is more liberal with her profanity than most of the people I spend time with).

            I began to wonder what it was about this comic that initially made it seem so unreal to me, despite the truth of its writing.  From the you-know-I’m-your-friend-so-I-can-say-mean-things-to-you-and-get-away-with-it quality of Enid and Rebecca’s exchanges (Rebecca: “You’re a stuck-up prep-school bitch!” Enid: “Fuck you!” p.9) to the off-handed, non-politically correct comments shared between friends (Enid: “God, don’t you just love it when you see two really ugly people in love like that?” p.25), Clowes’s characters are undeniably realistic.  What makes it difficult to initially see this realism is the fact that it is so blatantly displayed in this dialogue-heavy comic.  Real-life conversations sound utterly fake when they are written down; the unavoidability of these conversations in Ghost World makes them feel like they should be constructed dialogue, and yet they are not.

            Another aspect of Clowes’s work that adds to this realism is that way that characters are drawn.  Their clothing changes day-to-day, their hair grows (or gets cut and dyed green), they get new glasses.  Even small details add to the realism, like Enid’s safety pin earring that she wears when she “goes punk.”

            One small element that I found very interesting was Clowes’s inclusion of himself in the comic.  This first happens on page 26 when Enid cites Clowes as the “one guy who lives up to [her] standards,” becoming very oddly meta as his character in his comic says of his work that “these aren’t like normal cartoons …”  Enid quickly changes the subject, taking it away almost as quickly as it is come up (again, not an uncommon part of normal conversation).  I at first thought the comic was going to become a strange contemplation of Clowes’s work, but he was only mentioned once more.  Yet his part in the story lingers in an odd way such that the comic becomes removed form itself; the characters exist independent of their creator.  Or are they figments of his imagination without knowing it?  Do they exist in a “Ghost World” within his imagination?  It is interesting to contrast Clowes’s presence in Ghost World to the small comic on the back of Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan; while Ware is undeniably self-deprecating and emphasizes that no one wants to read his book, Clowes calls himself “famous.”

            I have not seen the film version of Ghost World, and I’m not sure that I want to.  I think one of the greatest strengths of the comic is its ability to mirror real speech with off-putting accuracy, forcing the reader to contemplate it through the process of reading.  Hearing the speech spoken would take away from the jarring “wow, that really is how many young adults talk” quality of the story.