David Boring

Critically lauded comics artist Clowes follows up his masterful Ghost World with this sometimes enticing, sometimes baffling, graphic novel about a postadolescent antihero. David Boring is one of Clowes's signature types--affectless, indifferent to his future and disdaining the small town he left behind. He shares an apartment in ""the city"" with Dot, a wisecracking lesbian friend, to whom he recounts his passionless, fetishistic sexual conquests; he falls in love with Wanda, a girl who's just his type, only to have her vanish. When Boring's visiting hometown acquaintance is murdered, he becomes the main suspect. Then Boring himself is shot in the head. Convalescing on the resort island where he spent part of his youth, Boring and the other vacationers find themselves stuck there indefinitely after terrorists' germ weapons render the mainland U.S. uninhabitable. One subplot concerns the Yellow Streak, a superhero comic that Boring's father drew long ago; another concerns the Eerie Boy, who keeps invading our antihero's dreams. Clowes (Eightball) alternates moving scenes of personal alienation and despair with bizarre transitions, portentous plot twists and an unconvincing mix'n'match of genres. Clowes's faux-na f drawing style is as effective as ever, and his fans will certainly enjoy it. The same fans may feel the ambitious narrative tries to do too many things at once. This is, however, serious and innovative work; and it's never boring. (Sept.)