Eightball (comics)

Eightball is an alternative comic book series written and drawn by Daniel Clowes. The first issue was published by Fantagraphics Books in 1989, soon after the end of Clowes's previous comic series, Lloyd Llewellyn. It has consistently been among the best-selling independently authored comics.

Early issues of Eightball featured a mixture of very short, often crudely humorous comics ("Zubrick and Pogeybait", "The Sensual Santa"), topical rants and satires ("Art School Confidential", "On Sports"), longer, more reflective self-contained stories ("Caricature", "Immortal Invisible"), and serialized works. The first extended story to be serialized in Eightball was Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, which ran in issues #1 through 10. Glove was followed by Ghost World (issues #11 through 18). Beginning with #19 each issue of Eightball has been devoted to a single storyline, as opposed to the more eclectic format of the earlier issues. Issues #19 through 21 serialized the graphic novel David Boring, while issues #22 and 23 each consisted of a collection of short, fragmentary stories in diverse styles and formats that meshed into a unified narrative ("Ice Haven" and "The Death Ray", respectively). Also, the issues of Eightball beginning with #19 have been published in full color in a larger magazine-sized format.

Eightball #18 included a bound-in copy of Clowes's pamphlet/minicomic Modern Cartoonist.

Book collections

 * Lout Rampage! (Fantagraphics, 1991, ISBN 978-1-56097-070-5) — Short stories
 * Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron (Fantagraphics, 1993, ISBN 1-56097-116-9) — Graphic novel
 * Pussey!: The Complete Saga of Young Dan Pussey (Fantagraphics, 1995, ISBN 978-1-56097-183-2) — Stories featuring Clowes' character Dan Pussey
 * Orgy Bound (Fantagraphics, 1996, ISBN 978-1-56097-302-7) — Short stories
 * Ghost World (Fantagraphics, 1997, ISBN 1-56097-427-3) — Graphic novel
 * Caricature (Fantagraphics, 1998, ISBN 978-1-56097-329-4) — Short stories
 * David Boring (Pantheon Books, 2000, ISBN 978-0-375-40692-8) — Graphic novel
 * Twentieth Century Eightball (Fantagraphics, 2002, ISBN 978-1-56097-436-9) — Short stories
 * Ice Haven (Pantheon, 2005, ISBN 978-0-375-42332-1) — A reformatted version of the contents of Eightball #22

Film adaptations
Ghost World was adapted by Clowes and director Terry Zwigoff into a 2001 feature film of the same name, for which Clowes and Zwigoff were nominated for an Academy Award for screenplay writing. Additionally, the 2006 Clowes/Zwigoff film Art School Confidential was loosely based on a short story of the same name which appeared in Eightball #7.

Controversy
The comic generated controversy when a high school teacher in Guilford, Connecticut gave Eightball #22 (Ice Haven) to a student as a make-up summer reading assignment. The parents of the student had concerns about the book's appropriateness. The superintendent of Guilford High School said the book was inappropriate for 13-year-olds and placed the teacher on leave. The teacher resigned before the matter was fully investigated.