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Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron

4.06 of 5 stars 4.06 · rating details · 3,377 ratings · 151 reviews

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 symbol
into the heel of Clay's foot; a horny over-the-hill suburban woman
whose sexual encount...more

Paperback, 200 pages

Published January 17th 1993 by Fantagraphics (first published 1993)

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Mar 20, 2012 Jacob J. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, graphic-novels, one-sitting

This book didn’t mean anything. Books that don’t mean anything have no right to exist. To exist is to possess meaning. Meaning cannot exist without existence. Existence is what gives meaning its meaning, and its existence. This book is meaningless, therefore nothing exists (especially not this book).

An Interesting Production:
A man undertakes a particularly ~~futile~~ meaningless endeavor to discover the origins of a fetish film. He encounters many ~~eccentric~~ meaningless characters with ~~ponderous~~ mea...more

10 likes · like · see review

May 19, 2013 Steven Huynh rated it 5 of 5 stars

Unlike the straight-forward and realist nature of Daniel Clowes' more popular work Ghost World, the earlier Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron explores dark and absurd themes. The plot begins with the protagonist setting out in search of his lost-lost wife after seeing her in a snuff film. The plot then follows the protagonist's many tribulations on his way to find his wife, including an obsessive, sex-driven woman with a mutated daughter conceived through a one-night rendezvous with a sea creatur...more

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Aug 14, 2012 Scott Smith rated it 4 of 5 stars

Definitely a complex book. I haven’t read too much of his oeuvre, but a good chunk of what I have read is very dreamscape in nature. This one pretty much pulled it together in the end to be a full-fledged low-key world of wonder, eschaton-sated numb-locked publicity pamphlet where all the characters turn out performances welcoming you into the days of death cults reminiscent of the Manson family, weather underground days and feminist women’s liberation fronts turned bomb brigades, the great ocea...more Definitely a complex book. I haven’t read too much of his oeuvre, but a good chunk of what I have read is very dreamscape in nature. This one pretty much pulled it together in the end to be a full-fledged low-key world of wonder, eschaton-sated numb-locked publicity pamphlet where all the characters turn out performances welcoming you into the days of death cults reminiscent of the Manson family, weather underground days and feminist women’s liberation fronts turned bomb brigades, the great ocean father who gives us a pristine spirit birth but we end up in the muck-bred shallows of limb-less fish struggling for the shore. Over the course of ten issues of the comic book ‘Eightball’ this graphic novel emerged, and it must have been a crazy ride for those receiving it in installments. I was only able to read about half last time I got it from the library, and it was amazingly surreal on first encounter. But I didn’t have time to finish it. This second time around, it was a fast read, and I think would give much on re-reading. I’m just not sure if I wouldn’t be giving much of what I re-‘read’ into it.

There’s a lot going on, but as in a dream (and I guess in life, too, if we’re being critical), one event does not necessarily follow upon another. Initially setting out to investigate an actress he finds intriguing in a pornographic movie he sees in an adult theater with some clues from an all-knowing seer in the mens room, he sets out on his quest upstate, after borrowing his friend’s car (the friend who currently has his eyes set out of his head so some deep sea crustaceans can eat out the bacteria that are plaguing him, the medical treatment for this particular eye ailment.

He is stopped by the police, given the choice of being beaten or arrested, and is subsequently beaten and ‘marked’ by a knife carving the shape of a cult or mysterious symbol which is then remarked on subsequently by various conspiracy theorists during the course of the remaining books.

The figure, ‘Mr. Jones’:

So, in this ‘main character’, if you can call the ‘person’ who is ‘leading’ this quest that, although it feels more like you are being dragged through these happenings, merely waltzing through these streets like some infamous patient etherized upon a table… you come to meet all sorts of unsavory characters, who are savored in the lush drawings and brought up again and again face to face with your confessional booth of a confrontation where the page asks you just what the hell is going on, or whatever… whatever you think, as you continue reading…

So, it is what it is. I would definitely read it, had I not.

And I may just, read it again.(less)

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Apr 03, 2011 Kirstie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Kirstie by: Zachary

Shelves: graphic-novels

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 feminist...more

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Dec 15, 2010 Elliot rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 know that thi...more

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Oct 20, 2010 Amy rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2010

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

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Mar 25, 2013 Ignacio Irulegui rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Un viaje freak a través de la pesadilla americana. Daniel Clowes nos regala una perturbadora visión de la realidad en la cual la paranoia se erige como criterio de organización de la narración. En el entramado underground de esta obra no falta nada: violencia, sexo, gore, pornografía snuff, mutantes, sectas homicidas y conspiraciones.
Como un guante de seda forjado en hierro expone el lado menos amable de la cultura estadounidense, descendiendo, en sus escenas deliradas, hasta los límites bizarr...more

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Jan 26, 2012 Jordan rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 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 instructional pamphlet of clues on how to better read or interpret his work (cough-cough, Mulholland Drive, cough-cough-COUGH).

The story cuts to our protagonist, Clay, who, when viewing a snuff film at a porno-theater, sees his estranged wife on screen. He learns from the bathroom-stall psychic wise man that an independent outfit known as Interesting Productions made it. Clay borrows his fish-tails-coming-out-of-his-eye-sockets friends’ car, and the weirdo seedy mystery commences in search of further information. As he puts on his detective hat, Clay comes across corrupt cops who offer up an ass-kickin’ for freedom; a feminist cult whom believes in The Great Cleansing where there’ll only be women after the war, except Godfrey, their male leader, and are intent on pushing forth the cause; underground conspirators whom are desperately trying to find the meaning behind the Mr. Jones advertising figure, whose dopey, grinning cartoon face can also be found, mistaken, as say, a mole on Hitler and others of his ilk; a girl-woman who draws an endless amounts of ponies and is the brain-child behind all of the twisted snuff film plotlines; and a cast of characters along the way that include Laura the Dog without any orifices, Tina the Tuna-person, and an extremely hairy raging hitman just itchin’ to take some of his rage out on Clay. But will Clay find what he’s looking for, or will someone or something find him first, causing his pursuit to be all for not?

Immensely bizarre and totally entertaining, Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron is unlike most things read or seen. Mr. Clowes seems to have turned on some faucet to some deep, far back recess of his brain, and tossed aside any kind of filter because it was simply unnecessary for what he had in mind. The result he achieves is the worst kind of nightmare… where people, things, and places aren’t what they seem, are mutated in some disturbed form, and somewhat piece together but don’t. And as LAVGCII hits its climax, Clowes’ storyline branches all begin to converge in quick succession and the sensation is one of a tornado spiraling out of control, which further adds to the idea of a nightmare, when it’s all beginning to be too much to handle and you’re breaking into a cold sweat, and suddenly you shoot up, awake.

It’s so disturbingly creepy, it must be experienced.
(less)

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Dec 13, 2011 Andy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: american-nightmare, comix-novel

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 cult and a map hidden ins...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jun 15, 2012 Matt Kelland rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

"Incoherent but engrossing," says one of the reviews on the back. That's half-true, at least. It's certainly incoherent.

In my student days, I read a lot of trippy indie comics from the 60s & 70s, such as the Freak Brothers, Luther Arkwright, Fritz the Cat and so on. I think that says more about my state of mind back then than it does about the quality of the books - reading them felt like we were being rebellious, artistic, and independent, and half the fun was in finding them and showing o...more

1 like · like · see review

Mar 26, 2007 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels

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.

1 like · like · see review

Jun 07, 2007 amy rated it 5 of 5 stars 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.'

3 likes · like · see review

Jun 03, 2009 Damien rated it 2 of 5 stars

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

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Sep 30, 2007 Charlie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Deeply, deeply disturbing.

If David Lynch were to write a comic book, this would be it.

3 likes · like · see review

Aug 30, 2007 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars

The book that first asked the burning question: "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"

1 like · like · see review

Jun 04, 2007 Ash rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

You don't know twisted until you read this.

1 like · like · see review

Oct 07, 2009 Meg Powers rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: wildly-wonderfully-unpleasant, lechery, comics

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.

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Jun 21, 2011 Kathleen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics-sequential-art, will-re-read-sometime

My first comment is: I read this book today, and was floored at some moments and kinda confused about what was going on at other moments, and I really feel like I'm going to need to read this again. I can see why this is a total classic, but I feel I will need a second reading to be able to digest all the scatter of events. They kinda explode at you.

I was delighted by the surprise surrealism, and by the way he handles it, by the way it comes out of the blue at you in the story, and by the bizar...more My first comment is: I read this book today, and was floored at some moments and kinda confused about what was going on at other moments, and I really feel like I'm going to need to read this again. I can see why this is a total classic, but I feel I will need a second reading to be able to digest all the scatter of events. They kinda explode at you.

I was delighted by the surprise surrealism, and by the way he handles it, by the way it comes out of the blue at you in the story, and by the bizarre way reality is interlaced with dream in this world here.

The world described in this work is grim, full of hellish nastiness and sickness... And yet somehow it's all quite tastefully portrayed, if that makes sense. Very few others could do this: very few others could depict a little girl writing scratch film plots and make it funny and not sickening.

Another thing-- It's maybe just me, but I feel like what really makes this a classic is that it kinda leaves you in an altered state-- I would even say I kinda felt transported into another life-perspective... And this might sound weird, but I was getting the feeling while reading it that I was getting a view of what it's like to be a man-- or at least it seemed that way. It's very intimate and psychological around the central character, and he is being attacked by strange things both human and not human the entire while, and he's ultimately got this completely gruesome, horrifying opponent after him... I'm sure I've seen countless movies and books written from the 'male perspective' but somehow, reading this, I found myself empathizing with him in a different way, and it seemed just kinda like I was getting this view of the 'male experience' or something... Or maybe that's just me he he :) I feel like the main character is very isolated, flung about by the world out of control, surrounded by shocking sexual and violent material designed to stimulate him (or manipulate him?), and that he feels vulnerable at some level, and he has this relationship with sex that consists partly of fear & dread. And the world he's in offers him plenty of sex, but it doesn't make him feel secure or fulfilled or confident, and he seems almost victimized by the porn he sees and the sex he is freely offered. Maybe he comes off as more feminine for that reason... Maybe that's why he was so easy for me to relate to, in some backwards upside-down spinning kind of way :)

Spoilers here:
And the woman in the work is very distant, though she seems to take a central role in his thoughts. They both come to horrible fates, and are fated to each other in that way... She and all the other women seem out of reach, though not because they are impossible to understand. All the people he really talks to are other men, and they largely also seem lost and privately vulnerable, confused. (He does have interactions with a few women, one of whom is notably a monster, deformed and with a mystical back-story--) I feel like the fact this work is so very focused on the subtle levels of lostness and loneliness, that it is capable of depicting graphic sex in a way that stays sympathetic to all involved, including those turned on by the sickest of the sick.

That's what I'm thinking sets this apart: Clowes is sympathetic to EVERYONE, even monsters and villains and horrible persons; everyone has a story, everyone is messed up, no one's a saint, and everyone deserves the chance to be seen in up-close detail.

That's the sense I'm left with anyway.(less)

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Sep 15, 2009 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels

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 Kill, Kill" which...more

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Aug 25, 2012 Jake Kilroy rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel

I get it. It's nonsense. It was like a fever-dream nightmare. It worked exactly like the subconscious process, sort of touching but not really. But I don't care. I didn't care about anything. Sure, it's meaningless, sure, that has an availability to the reader as something beautiful and unique. But it's too random to have motivation and compassion for any of its own value beyond the weird and surreal. This why they make a joke out of college student films in movies. It wasn't for me. I thought i...more

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Jan 28, 2009 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.

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Mar 13, 2013 Anna Prejanò rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Surrealista nel contenuto ed espressionista nella forma, con tavole dove i bianchi sembrano incisi e graffiati nel nero e i dettagli curatissimi non soffocano ma esaltano la scena, questo capolavoro mi ha fatto un regalo che desideravo da tempo: l'enorme piacere di vedere le atmosfere lynchiane a supporto di una narrazione solida, rotonda, che non si vergogna di essere comprensibile e di addomesticare l'assurdo come il cane mutante Laura, tutto pelo e niente orifizi.

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Dec 31, 2011 Chumbert Squurls rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, grotesque, mystery, noir, one-of-a-kind, surreal

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.

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Feb 26, 2013 Benjamin rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm still not quite sure what just hit me. Gripping, but impenetrably bizarre.
Little flashes of meaning or patterns bubble to the surface, but ultimately I'm left with just a big "wtf?". Like the protagonist, a reader is very much just wandering through a warped world (half-voluntarily) and having all conception of normality assailed and eventually ripped apart. Why? Fuck if I know.

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Jan 11, 2013 Jason rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read2013

This book includes a dog without orifices, knickknack new world order theories, bondage and snuff films, a waitress that looks like a potato, cult leaders, hit men, and bathroom gurus. I don’t have the faintest idea what the story is about, but it was still engaging in a Clowesian way. Not my favorite book by him, but I could stare at his artwork all day.

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Feb 23, 2012 Geoff Sebesta rated it 5 of 5 stars

utterly incomprehensible excellence. I can see why it is so influential. I would call this nearly "pure" storytelling, in that you can absolutely follow what is going on and it makes absolutely no sense at all but it gives you the *feeling* that it would make sense if you were wearing the right glasses. It's probably a trick, but it's a good one.

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Feb 13, 2012 Ajpileggi rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is probably the book I am most likely to force people to read. It's a tad horrifying to most, yes, but I absolutely love it. Everything about it is amazing. It strike this perfect balance of macabre strangeness with a complete indifference to itself. It may note be for everyone, but if your like me, it will be everything you hoped for and more.

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Jun 22, 2012 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars

A bit nonsensical, often absurd, raising many questions but answers none; however, all the existential ponderings that made Ghost World so enjoyable, but this time with less angst. Clowes manages to create a graphic novel that is really reminiscent to comic book origins, yet with a style that I found to be extremely refreshing.

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Dec 08, 2010 Daniel rated it 5 of 5 stars

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.

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Jan 06, 2013 Gillian rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I finish a book by Daniel Clowes, I always feel like the world around me has altered slightly when I put it down. Everything feels a little too bright or real. His art style, storytelling, and ideas make me feel like I'm one of his characters. This book is probably my favorite of his.

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About Daniel Clowes

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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