Name: Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron
Rating: 4.5 (6 reviews)
ISBN: 9781683960157

Daniel Clowes

This is a redesigned reprint of Daniel Clowes's early, unsettling graphic novel.

Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron

Like a velvet glove cast in iron

Gavin

Incoherent, only seeming meaningful. But I read it straight through in one sitting, happily following the ratchet of images, characters, vague paranoid opaque dialogue, some of it very good or at least the dismembered parts of good dialogue.

Clowes now seems mean, misunderstanding, where as a teen I found his uglification of the ordinary deep (“the ordinary is ugly, underneath, man”). Now I see the beauty in certain moderate, conventional, consensus things. Now I see how rare and fragile they are.

The bizarre and fantastic adventures of Clay Loudermilk as he stumbles upon the mysteries behind a snuff film and becomes involved with increasingly bizarre characters should appeal to David Lynch fans. Adult.

Andrew Sztehlo

Dark, surreal, and disturbing, this early work by Daniel Clowes is more akin to a nightmare odyssey by David Lynch than his trademark downbeat oddities such as Ghost World and Ice Haven. There is little that makes sense and what plot there is is hard to decipher. But the strength of the work lies in Clowes command of visual storytelling. Clay Loudermilk’s American odyssey is a dark tour through the surrealist landscape and will stick in your mind long after you finish reading. It doesn’t quite have the emotional impact of Clowes later, bleaker work, but his brief experiment with the surreal works wonders.

Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron

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