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81st out of 1,189 books
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Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron
Like a Velvet Glove... collects all 10 chapters of the serialized story Eightball.As Clay Loudermilk attempts to unravel the mysteries behind a snuff film, he finds himself involved with an increasingly bizarre cast of characters, including a pair of sadistic cops who carve a strange symbolinto the heel of Clay's foot; a horny over-the-hill suburban woman whose sexual enco
...morePaperback, 200 pages
Published
December 9th 1998
by Fantagraphics Books
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This is the first Daniel Clowes graphic novel I have read and it was recommended by my friend Zachary and a friend of his from college last time we were at Quimby's book store in Chicago together. This has a very fantastical nature to it and is dark and grim. It begins with a gritty film in an adult movie house, a toilet guru, and a dark adventure based around a historical symbol that appears innocent from the outset-like a pudgy face with a cute miniature hat on it...drunkards, commune femini...more
A quick scan of other Goodreads reviews lets me know that I am not original at all in being reminded tremendously of David Lynch's experimental films when reading Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron.
This terrifyingly creative comic should more than make up for the apparent cliche of my comparison, however. I'm relatively new to the medium (disregarding the manga that I read when I was a 6th grader obsessed with Japanese action cartoons), but even if I were a more experienced reader, I k...more
This terrifyingly creative comic should more than make up for the apparent cliche of my comparison, however. I'm relatively new to the medium (disregarding the manga that I read when I was a 6th grader obsessed with Japanese action cartoons), but even if I were a more experienced reader, I k...more
Reading this after having read his other, more famous, graphic novel Ghost World and it's sarcastic, funny and honest story about a pair of directionless teenagers, I was completely unprepared for the dream-like (perhaps nightmare like would be more accurate) surrealist world of Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. I'm all for a little surrealism but I cannot take this much, quite simply. After reading the novel I had no idea what it was that I'd just read, had no clue regarding how all its seeming...more
If you’re looking for a sweet little story, full of puppies and rainbows, this is not it. Daniel Clowes’ Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron is like a fever-dream nightmare noir, that’s both simultaneously fucked-up and sorrowful, and although it’s highly surreal, it somehow manages to make sense, in a super-claustrophobi-expiali-chaotic sort of way. So, naturally, it is easily comparable to David Lynch’s more experimental works, however, unlike Mr. Lynch, Mr. Clowes does not need to include an ins...more
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If Dan Clowes died after producing this warped masterpiece he would have gone down in history as some demented prophet. "Like A Velvet Glove" was produced mostly around 1990-1991 when companies like Something Weird Video were unearthing every disturbing B-movie ever created, and that's the vibe this book recalls.
A man watches a snuff film written by a pipe-smoking midget named "Precious". In pursuit to find out more about the movie he runs afoul of a Manson-type murder...more
A man watches a snuff film written by a pipe-smoking midget named "Precious". In pursuit to find out more about the movie he runs afoul of a Manson-type murder...more
Weird, gloriously, dangerously weird. If you liked "David Boring" but disliked how traditional and restrained it was, "Velvet Glove" is the answer. It can't really be explained, only enjoyed.
amy
rated it
Recommends it for:
people who like to press on sore spots and bruises on their arms and legs.
this made my head feel fizzy.
and it is one of my favorite titles ever, tied with 'if it werent for venetian blinds, itd be curtains for us all.'
and it is one of my favorite titles ever, tied with 'if it werent for venetian blinds, itd be curtains for us all.'
I would have loved this when I was in high school, but I read it for the first time today when I am as jaded as I can possibly get. Well, I guess I am just being nice by saying that. This just seems like Clowes trying to be weird for the sake of being weird. It's like he smoked a lot of pot and watched one Jodorowsky film after another and this was the best he could do- and I LOVE the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky. Where it seems the intention was to be disturbing, I was mildly irritated. Where ...more
Deeply, deeply disturbing.
If David Lynch were to write a comic book, this would be it.
If David Lynch were to write a comic book, this would be it.
The book that first asked the burning question: "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"
You don't know twisted until you read this.
When I began reading this, I had no idea it was going to take a turn into the surreal. Being an earlier work, the drawing style isn't as refined as David Boring,Ghost World, etc etc., but it's still beautiful. Reading this gives you the same feeling watching Blue Velvet might. It's wildly unpleasant and unsettling, its violence is wince-inducing. If you want a break from becoming emotionally invested in any characters and just want to have an icky (in the best way possible) experience, read it.
Daniel Clowes remains my favorite comic book artist. I've actually got the series as they were originally published in the individual Eightball comic books, as well as the bound collection. Velvet Glove is also my favorite of his various serials. In my early twenties this serial even inspired a brief pipe smoking stint. That's right I smoked a pipe for a few months! (and I do mean tobacco)
I'm sure that Clowes took the title from a line in the Russ Meyer's film "Faster Pussycat ...more
I'm sure that Clowes took the title from a line in the Russ Meyer's film "Faster Pussycat ...more
Emily Mittelmark
added it
Whenever I take this book down from the shelf and open it to a random page, I am reminded that the characters and situations in it are what's not supposed to exist in the world. It's very dark. The dog, Laura, struck me as a very intense idea. Clowes used dogs who were born without any orifices in other stories too, and it's a very good example of how a strange, impossible occurance can make a reader feel like their life is pointless and gorgeous and incredibly confusing.
Chumbert Squurls
rated it
Tired of re-watching David Lynch? This is one of the most perplexing and stomach churning odysseys ever written, very different in vein to anything Clowes wrote later. There are no pretentious hipster girls or zit covered creeps. This is the best thing Clowes ever did and will do, a raw masterpiece coming from the heart. This 140-some paged volume evokes the experience of being trapped in a fever dream, confused and disgusted. Worth every reading and rereading.
A particularly vivid nightmare, like Daniel Clowes's brain spilled ink-black directly onto the page. Surreal and sad, you'll waste your time trying too hard to grasp at plot points and resolutions--this books doesn't want to answer your questions. "Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron"--but what does it mean???[return][return]Exactly.
too consistent and tortuously self-referencing to be complete random absurdist incoherence, but the dreamlike pleasures of surreality keep it from becoming tedious and inscrutable.
maybe i'll do a post paralleling this with kenneth anger's "fireworks" concocting specious isomorphisms of "dream-derived imageries" between the two.
maybe i'll do a post paralleling this with kenneth anger's "fireworks" concocting specious isomorphisms of "dream-derived imageries" between the two.
Originally serialized in "Eight Ball," "Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron" is a long, nauseous tickle of a nightmare. A man is in a porn theater and sees an eerie fetish film...starring his estranged wife. He goes on a mission to find her and runs afoul of a Manson-esque cult and an underground network of men obsessed with a happy-faced advertising icon from the 1930s.
The story does not always make sense, but it doesn't need to. It feels like a dream, where thing...more
The story does not always make sense, but it doesn't need to. It feels like a dream, where thing...more
Daniel Clowes' crazy surrealist lucid dream of a comic - highly recommended as it's so interesting, but also his first long-form work. In my personal opinion I was more interested in this surrealist comic as an exercise or experiment, not as a resonant piece of literature.
I thought Daniel Clowes stuff was going to be like Adrian Tomine's Optic Nerve. Turns out it's like Optic Nerve, by way of David Lynch and William S. Burroughs. I dunno what the hell I read, but I found Tina to be a very compelling character.
Strange and meandering tale about a man named Clay Loudermilk searching for a woman from his past after he sees her appear in a fetish film that shares the book's title. Reads like an unsettling dream journal that you snuck a look at without asking.
Whooooa. Started out hilarious, then got real fucked up, then was hilarious and fucked up, then was sad. And fucked up. Cool to see some bizarro malformation conspiracy theory nutballness from Clowes, although I prefer him more in the mundane. Still: A.
This is the most clausterhobic, over-bearingly lynchian thing I've ever seen in the comic medium. A cast of freakish characters whose stories bump into each other without really interweaving. It's an intense, disorienting, noir-ish nightmare.
Zuhair Abdulla
added it
I'm not sure I can review this without actually reading it again. Still kinda confused by what happened, although I was completely engaged in it while reading. It's a really good book that I think I just need to give another shot.
I'm not sure what any of it means but I really enjoyed it. I had a nightmare the night after I finished. I am still disturbed by the character with crustacean tails emerging from his eye sockets. Read if you like David Lynch.
The artwork is great. The story demands more of me than I'm willing to give, though. It isn't bad, but it is filled with metaphors and subtext that I don't have the time to understand right now. It's dark, it's fun, but it lacks causation and a sense of reality.
This is without a doubt Daniel Clowes's finest hour, bursting with daring and originality. He is able to evoke the dystopic, dreamlike visions of David Lynch without benefit of motion, sound, or a giant screen.
This was an amazing story that I never wanted to put down. Beautifully crafted and incredibly unique story that featured a list of characters that kept me intrigued the entire time. A must read!
Clowes is a bit of an acquired taste. Can't say I loved it. But as a librarian, I needed to read it because we had requests for it. Too graphic for the high school library though.
I really don't get it.
I still laugh at the old lady turf war scene.
I really think this book's entertaining, even though I don't know what to take away from it other than being royally mindfucked.
I still laugh at the old lady turf war scene.
I really think this book's entertaining, even though I don't know what to take away from it other than being royally mindfucked.
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Daniel Gillespie Clowes is an Academy Award-nominated American author, screenwriter and cartoonist of alternative comic books. Most of Clowes' work appears first in his ongoing anthology Eightball (1989-present), a collection of self-contained narratives and serialized graphic novels. Several of these narratives have been collected published separately as graphic novels, most notably Ghost World. ...more
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