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Lloyd Llewellyn
#$@&! The Official Lloyd Llewellyn Collection
Trade paperback.
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
6 people are currently reading
229 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Clowes
105 books1,900 followersDaniel Clowes is an American cartoonist, graphic novelist, illustrator, and screenwriter whose work helped define the landscape of alternative comics and bring the medium into mainstream literary conversation. Rising to prominence through his long-running anthology Eightball, he used its pages to blend acidic humor, social observation, surrealism, and character-driven storytelling, producing serials that later became acclaimed graphic novels including Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, Ghost World, David Boring, Ice Haven, and Patience. His illustrations have appeared in major publications such as The New Yorker, Vogue, and The Village Voice, while his collaborations with filmmaker Terry Zwigoff resulted in the films Ghost World and Art School Confidential, the former earning widespread praise and an Academy Award nomination for its screenplay. Clowes began honing his voice in the 1980s with contributions to Cracked and with his Lloyd Llewellyn stories for Fantagraphics, but it was Eightball, launched in 1989, that showcased the full range of his interests, from deadpan satire to psychological drama. Known for blending kitsch, grotesquerie, and a deep love of mid-century American pop culture, he helped shape the sensibilities of a generation of cartoonists and became a central figure in the shift toward graphic novels being treated as serious literature. His post-Eightball books continued this evolution, with works like Wilson, Mister Wonderful, The Death-Ray, and the recent Monica exploring aging, identity, longing, and the complexities of relationships, often through inventive visual structures that echo the history of newspaper comics. Clowes has also been active in music and design, creating artwork for Sub Pop bands, the Ramones, and other artists, and contributing to film posters, New Yorker covers, and Criterion Collection releases. His work has earned dozens of honors, including multiple Harvey and Eisner Awards, a Pen Award for Outstanding Body of Work in Graphic Literature, an Inkpot Award, and the prestigious Fauve d’Or at Angoulême. Exhibitions of his original art have appeared across the United States and internationally, with a major retrospective, Modern Cartoonist: The Art of Daniel Clowes, touring museums beginning in 2012. His screenplay work extended beyond Ghost World to projects like Art School Confidential and Wilson, and he has long been a touchstone for discussions about Generation X culture, alternative comics, and the shifting boundaries between the literary and graphic arts.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 18, 2019
This is the fifth book Joe and I read together to talk about on our pretend podcast where we get together once a week to discuss a book, and I am looking forward to talking to him about it because these stories are VERY Joe Garden and if there’s one quality I am thrilled and bewitched by it is the quality of joegardenness.
So funny and weird and not of this time.
So funny and weird and not of this time.
July 10, 2008
Near-perfect funny comics from Dan, I mean DANIEL Clowes. Before he got serious, important, and dull like David Boring.
Lloyd Llewellyn is a martini swilling hipster who spends more time chasing strippers than he does solving mysteries. Every story is a gem, and you'll never forget The Eatniks, Howlin' Thurston or The Battlin' American.
Lloyd Llewellyn is a martini swilling hipster who spends more time chasing strippers than he does solving mysteries. Every story is a gem, and you'll never forget The Eatniks, Howlin' Thurston or The Battlin' American.
June 14, 2020
Signed and numbered first edition. Bought this fresh off the shelf while I was starting to read "Eightball". Got in with #4, turned on to Clowes by a friend. Thanks, Nate.
This volume is a redundancy in my collection, as I also have the complete Lloyd lluewllyn collection in hardcover "The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn"), also signed and numbered limited edition. (And eventually tracked down every original issue.)
But, how and/or why would I part with it? It's this constant tug of war in my mind. Need? Don't need! Keep? Divest!
Should you read it? Of course, it's wacky, way-out fun! No "Ghost World", but every artist starts somewhere.
When people ask me the question of who my favorite cartoonist might be, I shuffle between different answers, depending on who I think of first, or where I want the conversation to go next. Sometimes it's William Steig, sometimes R. Crumb, Basil Wolverton, Walt Kelly, George Herriman, Jim Woodring...but I land on Daniel Clowes more often than anyone else.
This volume is a redundancy in my collection, as I also have the complete Lloyd lluewllyn collection in hardcover "The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn"), also signed and numbered limited edition. (And eventually tracked down every original issue.)
But, how and/or why would I part with it? It's this constant tug of war in my mind. Need? Don't need! Keep? Divest!
Should you read it? Of course, it's wacky, way-out fun! No "Ghost World", but every artist starts somewhere.
When people ask me the question of who my favorite cartoonist might be, I shuffle between different answers, depending on who I think of first, or where I want the conversation to go next. Sometimes it's William Steig, sometimes R. Crumb, Basil Wolverton, Walt Kelly, George Herriman, Jim Woodring...but I land on Daniel Clowes more often than anyone else.
May 29, 2008
Not my favorite Daniel Clowes collection. I like him better when the weirdness slowly creeps out of the corners instead of just dancing across the page.
May 26, 2021
This is Clowes indulging in that 20 year nostalgia gap, kind of like how I wanted 70s bell bottoms in the 90s. So, through this sort of homesick generational lens, we get a series of absurd stories about a freewheeling private eye and his misadventures.
The loose (LOOSE) narrative here, or at least the framing device, is that Lloyd Llewellyn is trying to put together a book. Of what, I’m not sure, since he doesn’t seem to do any investigating in any of the stories. I wasn’t expecting this to necessarily be noir or anything, but it would have graciously given Llewellyn something to do.
Wanting him to have something to do kind of misses the point, though. He’s the sort of guy who thing happen to, not the sort of guy who does things. He has just enough urges and inclinations (drinking and women, mostly) to stumble into situations that allow Clowes to do what he does best in this collection: the piecemeal introduction of a unique, broad cast of weird-ass characters.
With Llewellyn as a lightning rod for these fucked up people and places, the stories do achieve the sort of irreverent humor Clowes seems to be going for. It’s not as funny as Wilson or even Pussey if we’re talking about that style of his work, but it’s still pretty funny.
I believe all the LL stuff is amongst his first published work, and he’d mature enough afterwards to mix real emotional stakes with his bizarre tales, making him one of my favorite writers and comic artists ever. At this point in his career, however, he’s just getting warmed up.
The loose (LOOSE) narrative here, or at least the framing device, is that Lloyd Llewellyn is trying to put together a book. Of what, I’m not sure, since he doesn’t seem to do any investigating in any of the stories. I wasn’t expecting this to necessarily be noir or anything, but it would have graciously given Llewellyn something to do.
Wanting him to have something to do kind of misses the point, though. He’s the sort of guy who thing happen to, not the sort of guy who does things. He has just enough urges and inclinations (drinking and women, mostly) to stumble into situations that allow Clowes to do what he does best in this collection: the piecemeal introduction of a unique, broad cast of weird-ass characters.
With Llewellyn as a lightning rod for these fucked up people and places, the stories do achieve the sort of irreverent humor Clowes seems to be going for. It’s not as funny as Wilson or even Pussey if we’re talking about that style of his work, but it’s still pretty funny.
I believe all the LL stuff is amongst his first published work, and he’d mature enough afterwards to mix real emotional stakes with his bizarre tales, making him one of my favorite writers and comic artists ever. At this point in his career, however, he’s just getting warmed up.
April 2, 2024
Daniel Clowes gives us a character that is an homage to vintage newspaper comics, and also golden age comics of days gone by.
As I was reading this, I kept expecting Clowes to take a weird left turn or create some kind of subversion of the genre... however it never really comes. Don't get me wrong, this book is weird. There's aliens, monsters, dream people, you name it, it's in here - but at the core of the book, its kind of a straightforward golden age comic. Even the way the characters talk and the way the narrator narrates, it all feels very old school. And in the homage part of Clowes' goal - he succeeds.
But it's just not my cup of tea. I found myself skimming through most of the book as it was, for me, a slog to read through. Just like golden age books, there is SO MUCH exposition that the page sometimes seemed overfilled with words. And it's a lot for a short story on rockabilly alien monsters, for example.
Your mileage may vary with this one. If you like pre 60's comics, you will probably like this more than me.
As I was reading this, I kept expecting Clowes to take a weird left turn or create some kind of subversion of the genre... however it never really comes. Don't get me wrong, this book is weird. There's aliens, monsters, dream people, you name it, it's in here - but at the core of the book, its kind of a straightforward golden age comic. Even the way the characters talk and the way the narrator narrates, it all feels very old school. And in the homage part of Clowes' goal - he succeeds.
But it's just not my cup of tea. I found myself skimming through most of the book as it was, for me, a slog to read through. Just like golden age books, there is SO MUCH exposition that the page sometimes seemed overfilled with words. And it's a lot for a short story on rockabilly alien monsters, for example.
Your mileage may vary with this one. If you like pre 60's comics, you will probably like this more than me.
April 23, 2020
If you don’t love Lloyd Llewellyn, Baby, you’re dullsville!
October 4, 2023
Very good. Clowes would of course.become much better with Eightball.
January 9, 2008
Dan Clowes in his lighter mode is quite a pleasure. Lots of hilarious meta-whatnot, which makes me laugh. I don't know if it makes you laugh or not. I also love his art. Kind of a nice break from dudes in tights, too, despite the presence of the Battling American.
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May 22, 2013This has been out of print for a long time and is very hard to find. A friend of mine bought it for me as a gift. It wasn't quite up to par as some of his other work but considering most of his work is pure genius, that's not an insult. It was good, not great.
May 3, 2008
My hero! Lloyd Llewellyn, the hippest cat to ever scrawl across a page.
June 7, 2013
Oh, Lloyd.... I hate him deeply. I love him tenderly. He is by far my favorite of Clowes characters. If you like his other work, please check out Eightball, where Lloyd appears. You won't regret it.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews