The Death-Ray - by Daniel Clowes (Paperback)

About the Book

Andy, a miserable high-schooler in 1970s Chicago, has only one friend, an angry fellow outcast named Louie. He's desperately in love with a girl he met in California who won't return his letters and he's filled with shame at the constant taunts of his classmates. When he achieves super strength from smoking cigarettes he uses it for neither good nor evil but in a brutal playground showdown.

Book Synopsis

A cartoonist's acclaimed take on the superhero genre--now in paperback.

Teen outcast Andy is an orphaned nobody with only one friend, the obnoxious--but loyal--Louie. They roam school halls and city streets, invisible to everyone but bullies and tormentors, until the glorious day when Andy takes his first puff on a cigarette. That night he wakes, heart pounding, soaked in sweat, and finds himself suddenly overcome with the peculiar notion that he can do anything. Indeed, he can, and as he learns the extent of his new powers, he discovers a terrible and seductive gadget--a hideous compliment to his seething rage--that forever changes everything.

The Death-Ray utilizes the classic staples of the superhero genre--origin, costume, ray gun, sidekick, fight scene--and reconfigures them in a story that is anything but morally simplistic. With subtle comedy, deft mastery, and an obvious affection for the bold pop-art exuberance of comic book design, Daniel Clowes delivers a contemporary meditation on the darkness of the human psyche.

One of Clowes's most beloved books, The Death-Ray is the winner of the Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz Awards.

Review Quotes

"Daniel Clowes continues to plot a lofty, lonely course through the subconscious of popular culture with this hilariously bleak graphic novel." --TIME Best of 2011

"48 pages densely packed with art, dialogue and ideas, The Death-Ray [is] supersaturated, a story delivered directly into your imagination..." --NPR

"Clowes once again shows he is a master of current-day absurdity -- with heart." --USA Today

"The Death-Ray reads as a cautionary parable and an acidic rumination on the travails of adolescence . . . Clowes demonstrates what the comic book can do and literary fiction can't." --The Observer

About the Author

Daniel Clowes is the acclaimed cartoonist of the seminal comic book series Eightball and the graphic novels Ghost World, David Boring, Ice Haven, Wilson, Mr. Wonderful, The Death-Ray, and Patience. He has had major retrospectives at the Oakland Museum of California and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
An Oscar-nominated screenwriter, he is the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN Center USA Award, and Eisner, Harvey, and Ignatz Awards, and is a frequent cover artist for The New Yorker. He is married and lives in Oakland, California.