no need to commute to work, see people at work, etc).

Also, I am 12 years older, seem to be less into graphic novels in general these days, 2011 happened to have been the year in which I was laid off and my 'active' or 'daily' involvement with the world more or less ended (i.e.

To say more in a review would spoil the book for any readers of this review.Īlthough the book is only 12 years old, the intervening years seem to have changed everything around, starting of course with the pandemic and the effects on interactions etc. The date (Natalie) is similarly 'damaged' but in a different way mutual friends have set up the date thinking they might be perfect for each other. The drawing is excellent, in the usual flat, matter-of-fact Clowes style, and the dialog is priceless - capturing the protagonist (Marshall) eternally self-defeating second-guessing, his unending neurotic interior monologue. This 2011 graphic novel about a blind date feels somewhat 'dated' 12 years after it was created. Comparatively though, he’s done better and the book is about as close to a cookie-cutter Clowes book as you could get. It's not as funny as 'Wilson' but is interesting enough to make it worth checking out if you enjoy indie comics. While the book is a decent read, it's very much like Clowes' previous work and doesn't really do anything different to stand out from them. Marshall and his date are the same, Clowes-ian characters you've seen before in his other books like Ghost World, Caricature, Ice Haven, etc. If you've read Clowes before you'll be familiar with the characters - neurotic, nervous, awkward people struggling with basic things like polite conversation and self-expression. It's nothing too dramatic – it is Dan Clowes! - but I don't want to give away the whole story here as it's quite a short book. The book covers their evening, taking in their awkward first encounter, and their brief misadventures from there. The book was expanded and the pages were reformatted from their original twenty-instalment appearance in The New York Times Magazine in 20.Mister Wonderful is the story of Marshall, a damaged divorcee meeting another damaged divorcee in a coffee shop on a blind date. This allows for an extremely wide two-page spread at the conclusion. The book is published in an unusual format, wider than it is long.

Marshall's self-deprecating, paranoid introspections so overwhelm him that his own thought balloons sometimes cover up Natalie's dialogue. Marshall finds his date far too attractive to be interested in him and concludes there must be something wrong with her when she does not show signs of wanting to leave. Its main protagonists are Marshall (a self-disparaging, middle-aged loner ) and Natalie, who are brought together on a blind date. Mister Wonderful is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Daniel Clowes, published in 2011 by Pantheon Books after first being serialized in The New York Times Magazine.

Mister Wonderful by Daniel Clowes