RFI: What Dan Clowes publication is the following scene from?

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Two teenage sisters have moved to a new town. they spot the neighbours kids and walk into their garden to talk to them. They get bored of talking to them and ask "Do you have anything to eat?"

― Aribonne WInstone, Tuesday, 25 October 2005 19:10 (twenty years ago)

sounds like "the darlington sundays," from mcsweeney's #13.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 19:12 (twenty years ago)

Wow.

― Roxymuzak, Mrs. Carbohydrate (roxymuzak), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 19:33 (twenty years ago)

It'd be awesome if this was an ongoing game called "What Dan Clowes publication is the following scene from?"

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 19:35 (twenty years ago)

A young woman tells a young man that she had to watch a bunch of X-rated movies for a class and that it was "so thrilling."

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 19:38 (twenty years ago)

haha

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 19:46 (twenty years ago)

I'm waiting...

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 25 October 2005 19:46 (twenty years ago)

David Boring.

― xero (xero), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 12:33 (twenty years ago)

YES! Your turn.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 12:37 (twenty years ago)

A character snaps his fingers and says "DARN! I forgot to masturbate!"

This is a serious question, by the way. I can't remember the name of the piece it came from, and it haunts me.

― xero (xero), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 12:39 (twenty years ago)

Further details: the character has just gotten off the phone with a very bored phone sex worker (who used the phrase "honking on that massive choad," among others, in the course of the conversation). I recall the names of the two main characters, including the one who snaps his fingers in vexation, but not the title of the piece.

― xero (xero), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 12:53 (twenty years ago)

zubrick & pogeybait

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 13:38 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, but I thought the story had another title. Maybe not.

― xero (xero), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 13:52 (twenty years ago)

Your turn.

― xero (xero), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 13:53 (twenty years ago)

somebody says:

Sure, in many ways life is horrible, but we must never forget that there are beautiful, sweet-natured 22-year-old girls who are bursting with love and who would rather read than watch television...also there is beautiful art and music and a small handful of like-minded individuals with whom to share your time...and those with a black sense of humor are never at a loss for amusement. There is work to be done. History to be made. Petty ego triumphs to be had...and what's more, love does exist and is indeed a beautiful thing!

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 14:24 (twenty years ago)

Haha, and somebody faints from the sheer beauty of these sentiments, so that you see their feet being lifted off the ground by the force of their fall in the last panel -- "GASP! That's BEAUTIFUL!", or words to that effect.

― xero (xero), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 14:28 (twenty years ago)

i was wondering when dan would arrive with that one.

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 14:32 (twenty years ago)

that quote has saved me from many a depressing night...hooray for petty ego triumphs! Hooray for a black sense of humor! Hooray for 23 year old girls!

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 14:46 (twenty years ago)

Yes! Also, big hooray for Dan Clowes, whose work as a whole has saved me from many a depressing night over the years!

(I know the source of the quote but will not hog the thread any more than I already have.)

― xero (xero), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 14:53 (twenty years ago)

I knew there was a reason I didn't read Dan Clowes...it all seems solid until that bit Selzer quoted, which is either going to make me bawl at my desk or send me into a tailspin of rage.

― Laurel (Laurel), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 15:04 (twenty years ago)

I am dying for you to explain that, Laurel.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 15:05 (twenty years ago)

Oh, dear.

...Um, it's a completely uncharacteristic passage. I can't think of anything else in his work that is unambiguously positive and life-affirming in tone, and hardly anything that is even ambiguously so.

xpost

― xero (xero), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 15:08 (twenty years ago)

i wouldn't necessarily say that passage is unambiguously positive, it's kind of dark and bitter, and probably shouldn't be taken out of context.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 15:12 (twenty years ago)

Okay, "black sense of humor" and "petty ego triumphs" aren't exactly sunny (plus there's that sarcastic fainting-person bit), but overall I still read it as pretty straightforwardly life-affirming -- unique in all the Clowes stuff I've read -- which is why it's effective in the context it appears in.

― xero (xero), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 15:32 (twenty years ago)

And not to second-guess, but if what annoys is the over-the-top sentimentalization / objectification of "beautiful, sweet-natured 22-year-old girls who are bursting with love and would rather read than watch television," I can see that. (People do exist for whom such a description would not be utterly ridiculous, though.) I just mentally substitute a parallel but different clause, so reflexively that it doesn't even register as an effort.

― xero (xero), Wednesday, 26 October 2005 16:47 (twenty years ago)

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