Eightball (comics)
Eightball is a comic book by Daniel Clowes and published by Fantagraphics Books. It ran from 1989 to 2004. The first issue appeared soon after the end of Clowes's previous comic book, Lloyd Llewellyn. Eightball has been among the best-selling series in alternative comics.
Early issues of Eightball feature a mixture of very short, often crudely humorous comics, topical rants and satires, longer, more reflective self-contained stories, and serialized works. The first extended story serialized in Eightball was Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, which ran in issues #1–10. Glove was followed by Ghost World. Beginning with #19 each issue of Eightball has been devoted to a single storyline, as opposed to the more eclectic format of the earlier issues. Issues #19–21 serialized the graphic novel David Boring, while issues #22 and 23 each consisted of a collection of short, fragmentary stories in diverse styles and formats that meshed into a unified narrative. The issues of Eightball beginning with #19 have been published in full color in a larger magazine-sized format. Eightball #18 included a bound-in copy of Clowes's pamphlet Modern Cartoonist.
Single issues
| Issue # | 1st Print Date | Stories | Notes |
| 1 | Oct - 89 | Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, Devil Doll, The Laffin' Spittin' Man, Young Dan Pussey, What is the Most Important Invention of the Twentieth Century? | |
| 2 | Feb - 90 | Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, The Truth, I Hate You Deeply, What Do You Think George Washington's Voice Sounded Like? | |
| 3 | Jun- 90 | Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, The Stroll, The Young Manhood of Dan Pussey, What Can Robots Do? | |
| 4 | Oct - 90 | Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, I Love You Tenderly, The Future, Dan Pussey's Masturbation Fantasy, Sexual Frustration, What Do You Do for a Cold? | |
| 5 | Oct - 90 | Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, Just Another Day, Playful Obsession, Paranoid | |
| 6 | Jun - 91 | Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, The Dr. Infinity Story, Marooned | |
| 7 | Nov - 91 | Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, Art School Confidential, Chicago | |
| 8 | Mar - 92 | Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, Ugly Girls, Grist for the Mill, Dan Pussey Presents Komic Kollector's Korner, Nature Boy, Give it Up, My Suicide, Dialogues from Duplex Planet | 'Ugly Girls' contains a prototype of Enid from Ghost World |
| 9 | Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron | ||
| 10 | Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron | ||
| 11 | Jun - 93 | Velvet Glove, Ghost World, The Party, The Fairy Frog, The Happy Fisherman, Why I Hate Christians, Ectomorph | "Velvet Glove" is a parody of bad film adaptations, using the just-completed Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron as its source, with behind-the-scenes segments showing an increasingly anxious Clowes in talks with a clueless Hollywood producer, and scenes from the resulting movie, in which Clay is a tough, sarcastic police detective who plays by his own rules and makes pithy remarks before shooting his enemies. Tina is recast as a space alien who gives "Clay" a ring of power. |
| 12 | Nov - 93 | Ghost World, Hippypants and Peace Bear, The Origin of Dan Pussey, Glue Destiny | |
| 13 | Apr - 94 | Ghost World, Buddy Bradley in 'Who Would You Rather Fuck: Ginger or Mary Ann?', Blue Italian Shit, Cool Your Jets, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine | The Buddy Bradley story is based on characters by Peter Bagge. |
| 14 | no indicia | Ghost World, The Goldmommy, On Sports, The Death of Dan Pussey, The Sensual Santa | |
| 15 | Apr - 95 | Ghost World, Caricature, Feldman | The Feldman character makes an appearance in the film 'Ghost World' |
| 16 | Nov - 95 | Ghost World, Squirrel Girl and Candy Pants, Like a Weed, Joe, MCMLXVI, Immortal Invisible | |
| 17 | Aug - 96 | Ghost World, Gynecology | |
| 18 | Mar - 97 | Ghost World, Black Nylon, Latch-Key Kid, Modern Cartoonist | Modern Cartoonist is a pamphlet included with the comic |
| 19 | May - 98 | David Boring, Act I | |
| 20 | Feb - 99 | David Boring, Act 2 | |
| 21 | Feb - 00 | David Boring, Act 3 | |
| 22 | Oct - 01 | Ice Haven | |
| 23 | Jun - 04 | Death Ray |
Book collections
- Lout Rampage! – Short stories
- Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron – Graphic novel
- Pussey!: The Complete Saga of Young Dan Pussey – Stories featuring Clowes' character Dan Pussey
- Orgy Bound – Short stories
- Ghost World – Graphic novel
- Caricature – Short stories
- David Boring – Graphic novel
- Twentieth Century Eightball – Short stories
- Ice Haven – A reformatted version of the contents of Eightball #22
- The Complete Eightball 1–18
Film adaptations