Mister Wonderful: A Love Story (Pantheon Graphic Library) by Daniel Clowes

Mister Wonderful: A Love Story (Pantheon Graphic Library) Reviews

• 
  Sam Quixote

  Mister Wonderful is the story of Marshall, a damaged divorcee meeting another damaged divorcee in a coffee shop on a blind date. The book covers their evening, taking in their awkward first encounter, and their brief misadventures from there. It's nothing too dramatic – it is Dan Clowes! - but I don't want to give away the whole story here as it's quite a short book.
  
  If you've read Clowes before you'll be familiar with the characters - neurotic, nervous, awkward people struggling with basic things like polite conversation and self-expression. Marshall and his date are the same, Clowes-ian characters you've seen before in his other books like Ghost World, Caricature, Ice Haven, etc.
  
  While the book is a decent read, it's very much like Clowes' previous work and doesn't really do anything different to stand out from them. It's not as funny as "Wilson" but is interesting enough to make it worth checking out if you enjoy indie comics. Comparatively though, he’s done better and the book is about as close to a cookie-cutter Clowes book as you could get.
• 
  Anthony Vacca

  A short and embarrassingly honest look at the love life (mostly lack thereof) of two intelligent but emotionally hung-up and overwhelmingly self-depreciative people. After all, who wants to worry themselves with dating when its clear that you are the worst person ever to waste this world and everyone else's time? Daniel Clowes gets alienation, loneliness and awkwardness, though who the hell is happy with being able too admit that they can relate with lifelong feelings of inadequacy?
• 
  Michael

  Neurotisch und witzig wie Wood Allen in seinen besten Zeiten, und ich liebe Clowes Zeichnungen!
  Dazu das ungewöhnliche Format, das er für tolle Breitwandeffekte nutzt: für mich ein klares 5-Sterne-Comic, auch wenn ich damit preisgebe, dass melancholische Geschichten über wehleidige einsame Männer in der Midlife-Krise mich ansprechen - - - jedenfalls, wenn Clowes sie erzählt.
• 
  Derek

  I loved it. this is a heartwarming comic on second chances, on neuroses and peculiar intimacies with loneliness. Brilliant. Well told and relatable. Marshall and Natalie aren't any version of a love story we'd love to become, but it's not the worst thing in the world to be as authentically themselves as they are.
• 
  Sooraya Evans

  Overall, a boring story. I despise the main character so much that I was hoping he got hit by a bus at some point.
• 
  Gorab

  3.5
  Recommended for people who like reading conversations (more like monologues). This reminds so much of Woody Allen's way of talking.
  The art is catchy ... and was the reason for picking it up... and will be the reason for reading more by Daniel Clowes.
  
  What I loved:
  The presentation! The way dialogues were garbled out to lay emphasis on monologues. Very nicely portrayed.
  Funny dialogues.
  The few pages where the frames expanded horizontally from left to right, it was a delight.
  
  What I didn't like:
  Wish it was not that short :(
• 
  Helen

  This 2011 graphic novel about a blind date feels somewhat "dated" 12 years after it was created. The drawing is excellent, in the usual flat, matter-of-fact Clowes style, and the dialog is priceless - capturing the protagonist (Marshall) eternally self-defeating second-guessing, his unending neurotic interior monologue. The date (Natalie) is similarly "damaged" but in a different way; mutual friends have set up the date thinking they might be perfect for each other. To say more in a review would spoil the book for any readers of this review.
  
  Although the book is only 12 years old, the intervening years seem to have changed everything around, starting of course with the pandemic and the effects on interactions etc. Also, I am 12 years older, seem to be less into graphic novels in general these days, 2011 happened to have been the year in which I was laid off and my "active" or "daily" involvement with the world more or less ended (i.e. no need to commute to work, see people at work, etc). At that age, and in that post 2008 economic environment, with unemployment still at double-digits, I was essentially forced to retire permanently when I was laid off. Luckily, things turned out OK after all and I can't complain about how life turned out in this most recent stage of my life, which is indeed more focused on "retiring" as in "sleeping" than ever before. Still, with time to consider and think, you may consider what books say differently at different stages of your life. I found myself reading "Mister Wonderful" with a sense of nostalgia - looking back at a world that at least for me is long gone. The world of coffee shops, the struggle to make ends meet, the worry about impressing people etc. I still of course want to make a good impression but I feel I'm sort of past the never-ending social game, all that it involved, once upon a time. I've not only accepted my rather more "reduced" or "ascetic" existence but perhaps prefer it by now. Consumerism was part of that world and consuming mindlessly is now far, far in the past. Now, the watchword is practicality and frugality. It's not easy to exactly say what changed so much since 2011 - the times certainly changed. In 2011 there was no inkling that a political cataclysm would shake the US in 4 years time, with the 2015 announcement by Donald Trump that he was running for president, and the years - now 8 years - of subsequent socio-political craziness. 2011 was post-2008 and may have been about mass dislocation and unemployment, and Occupy, but it was still possible to take events seriously, the narrative hadn't completely gone off the rails, such that masses of people as well as score of politicians have adopted a myth of a stolen? victorious? election as reality. Almost as if that fiction has become the kernel of a new transcendent belief - real for some millions, but lacking reality for other millions. Indeed, the pandemic ended up dividing the population in similar ways: Some didn't take it seriously, refused to mask up or take the vaccines. Others followed the recommendations issued by the medical establishment. Yet thousands of people from both groups ended up getting sick, some very sick, some dying. As bad as things were in 2011 - the post crash years - they veered into sickening unreality became positively beyond belief since then. The prevailing sense that people have been lied to by the establishment, by cynical political demagogues, about everything to lesser or greater extents- that was largely missing in 2011. Looking back at that world, seems a bit quaint in light of the subsequent upheavals. Marshall and Natalie wrapped up in their loneliness, trying to establish a relationship - all well and good, because the framework of society hadn't yet fallen apart, despite the economic crash. There hadn't been a pandemic, lock down, shutdown of non-essential businesses and schools, and so forth. The paranoia about the virus wasn't the central concern - politics hadn't degenerated into a frenzied light opera dominated by a man with the selfish mentality of a spoiled adolescent. The George Floyd murder hadn't occurred, cities and polities were still intact, and the subsequent crime spike hadn't occurred. Perhaps things seemed more "normal" in 2011 because Obama was still president - "No Drama Obama."
  
  It is over ten years since this book was written - maybe every decade represents an era from invariably which shapes us. The post JFK assassination era was one such era, of social turmoil, in the 1960s through the 1970s. Perhaps it is silly to think one era is "calmer" or "saner" than another - perhaps all eras have their ups and downs. Still, it seems to me that things have flown apart, disintegrated, since 2015, more so even than after the 2008 crash. The rise of Trump raises more questions than anyone can answer - even though he did lose his re-election bid in 2020, he still remains the most powerful figure in the GOP. Academics whose views were shaped by the matter-of-fact, predictable thinking of academia, remain stumped by the rise of Trump. And especially how Trump can retain his popularity and power within the GOP, after obviously repeatedly professing falsehoods about the election for over two years. Does that mythos - of a lost election - represent some sort of replacement religion for millions, in the era of a general loss of faith, declining adherence to religion and even declining civic engagement? Is it one of the few things some people have to share in common, especially in an era of work from home, shop from home, etc.?
  
  In any event, the book, now 12 years old, concerned with interpersonal relations/loneliness, and for me, now at least ten years after I've retired from the "rat race" - it seemed a quaint story of a less troubled time. A nostalgic look back at a time when society seemed more cohesive, less fragmented, stressed-out etc. Still, I would recommend the book - it contains a number of laugh-out-loud passages, and is a mood-lifter in general.
• 
  Melki

  Spend a depressing evening with Marshall as he goes on a blind date with Natalie. You get to hear not only their dialogue, but Marshall's thoughts as he frets and dithers. They seemed a pretty hopeless and unhappy couple to me, but I wish 'em all the best.
• 
  Shawn

  Clowes returns to form after the disappointing experiment of
  Wilson. MR. WONDERFUL is equally experimental (in form I mean - story-wise, like WILSON, it's straight ahead Clowes territory), continuing the fascination with comic strip presentation formats begun with
  Ice Haven and examining how they affect storytelling. Here, in work originally serialized in THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE and online (which I started at the time, but never kept up with) we get a limited panel, horizontal structure which, like WILSON, is keyed around the idea of an ongoing story that terminates each week with a cliffhanger panel. Can you tell a thorough (if not particularly complicated), modern story in such a format?
  
  WILSON ambitiously attempted to sketch out a man's entire life (albeit, the life of a schmuck) and while it succeeded in format,the subject matter, I believe, sunk it. Here, the attempt is to capture all the psychological nuances of the beginnings of a modern relationship between middle-aged, somewhat damaged (although not as damaged as they think) people. The trademark wry, dry Clowes humor is here (I specifically laughed out loud at the typical Clowesian response from the Homeless guy our hero previously punched out and now tries to reconcile with), as is the cynicism and self-deprecation bordering on self-loathing and the eye for subtle, human detail in action, language and thought. And yet, there's a lighter touch here (perhaps influenced by the original appearance location or perhaps just because Clowes has mellowed a little with age) that makes this book a winner compared to WILSON, if perhaps not a grand masterpiece story-wise. It IS a definite success in the structural experiment - a well-thought out manipulation of form are the thought balloons that obscure the spoken word balloons and some of the single-panel, double-page spreads are oddly humorous (the enormous car sound effect to signal our switch to an automobile) while others are striking in their impact (I'm thinking in particular of the spread of our main character walking home through dark, deserted streets lit only by cold neon signs - not only is it a beautiful piece of composition and color choice, it also hearkens back to the iconography of Clowes' early work on the 50's comedy noir magazine LLOYD LLEWELLYN (collected in
  Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn) and I would love to have a poster of it, or the original artwork, on my wall.
  
  So, after the disappointing, uneven, bitter WILSON, Clowes hits a solid grounder and gets to second.
• 
  Peter

  I laughed harder at this book than anything I've read in years.
  
  It's so heartbreaking and hilarious, and the artwork is some of Clowes's Best. My favorite new inventive element was the way he slapped squares of character thoughts directly over the dialogue, thus creating an inner monologue that trumped what was actually being said. Think of that moment in Annie Hall with the subtext in subtitles. This was similar, except the thoughts actually blocked out the dialogue, so that only a few sorry dialogue words could peek around the edges, trying to find some oxygen. The effect was a character so interior, so obsessed about making some kind of humiliating mistake that his inner monologue had destroyed his ability to fully engage in a conversation.
  
  Self-consciousness has been taken to a new level here. With Wilson, his last book, it seemed more rooted in a toxic kind of narcissism. This time around it comes from a more palatable form of desperation. Our hero really believes he might never find romantic love in any form again, and he'll do just about anything to make sure his last shot does not elude him. For instance, he will totally punch a hobo.
  
  The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is that I wish it were longer. But it already took him 4 years to write this. Apparently, I'm just greedy.
• 
  Ademption

  Clowes is gently mellowing from caustic misanthrope into a relatively gentler, cranky next door neighbor ("Get off my lawn, you damn kids with your cellular devices and youtubes!"). The self-loathing and misanthropy are still present but more restrained. He may be maturing, cashing in, or getting slighter in his offerings, but this short-story turned "graphic novel" via double-page spreads for every fourth panel works decently. And yet the format reminds me of
  Memories of My Melancholy Whores (i.e. a talented writer runs out of steam on his last book. So the publisher adjusts the font size and spacing as far as they can go in order to turn a short work into a "novel").
• 
  Damon

  Eh. This was another lackluster attempt. A couple bits of funny dialog, but overall there wasn't much here, and what is here is overly familiar and unexciting. Better than Wilson, but what isn't.
  
  I've been re-thinking Clowes lately - I can't imagine myself going back and re-reading Ghost World with much enjoyment, and maybe Like A Velvet Glove... would seem a bit dated? But there used to be SOMETHING there, right? Whatever it was that kept me looking forward to the semi-annual issues of Eightball? Maybe it's more that he's the same and I'm different, but he really hasn't done much in forever (except the Death Ray) that I thought was worth even remembering.
• 
  pierlapo quimby

  Sì, d'accordo, la storia d'amore di mezza età c'è ma siamo sempre in territorio Clowes e dunque non mancano, nell'ordine, lo sfigato irrecuperabile, la disadattata strafatta di anfetamine e zoccola, la bulimica che non può avvicinarsi all'ex per via di una certa ordinanza restrittiva e il perfido senzatetto: in poche parole la migliore umanità concepibile per un racconto illustrato del secondo decennio del ventunesimo secolo.
• 
  Marieke

  i think this might be the second comic book i ever read. it was fun. i'll read more.
  but since i'm a neophyte, i have no way of measuring this against others, so all i can say is that it was fun and i enjoyed it.
• 
  Cindy

  Loved it! Especially the meta-comics mixed in to the narrative.
  
  My only complaint was that it was too short! More Clowes=better.
• 
  Jack Silbert

  After the Clowes-lite Box Office Poison left me a bit cold, I had a hankering for the real thing. I thought I might have some unread Daniel Clowes in my apartment, and, indeed I did: Mister Wonderful. And it is wonderful.
  
  Clowes is older (even in 2011), and so is his protagonist Marshall. No worries, so am I! Marshall is somewhat of a misanthrope but also self-loathing, so it balances out. And he's divorced and it's been a while, if you don't count the sketchy prostitute he's spent some time with. Friends Tim and Yuki (judgmental, condescending friends, we later learn) set Marshall up on a blind date with Natalie. And this book is basically the story of that date.
  
  It's short, it's sweet, it's bitter, it's hopeful, and it resents itself for being hopeful. But... just maybe?
  
  The wide format allows for a few great two-page spreads -- one is just a sound effect that I read over and over because it made me laugh. But I love that Clowes has the luxury here to spread out his art, give us a little pause when he wants to.
  
  Mister Wonderful is classic Clowes that gave me a hankering for even more Clowes (Clowes-ure?). So I was pumped to learn a book came out in 2016, Patience, which I am impatient to read.
• 
  Felipe Rossette

  Absolutamente perfeito! Amo o estilo visual do Daniel Clowes e essa história me pegou de jeito. O ritmo é muito bem pensado; absolutamente o tempo todo consegui me identificar com o personagem principal e seus pensamentos que não param de tomar o protagonismo diante das conversas e situações. Pude me ver e lembrar de estar em situações muito próximas e com os mesmos questionamentos que mais atrapalham do que ajudam. Uma história muito cotidiana, humana e comum... Só queria que tivesse uma edição brasileira, definitivamente estaria na minha prateleira de favoritos.
• 
  Araydia

  This book was a very funny insight into our minds when we're with other people and our internal monologging. I enjoyed the story a lot!
• 
  Colin

  Daniel Clowes is great. This isn't really one of his better ones. Nice shape though. I like the wide-angle format!
• 
  Laura Linsi

  Very anti-climatic but also somehow anti-any feeling
• 
  Javier Avilés

  ¿Pasó ya la época de los autores deprimentes autoficcionándose o haciendo creer que su vida es tan deprimente como la que ilustran en sus obras?
  No sé.
  Posiblemente.
• 
  Alten

  Wunderbarer Comic, der in die Kategorie "Würde ich gern besitzen" fällt. Eine Blind-Date- und Liebesgeschichte über einen Mann mittleren Alters voller Selbstzweifel und eine 35-jährige Dame namens Natalie, die mit ihren eigenen schlechten Liebeserfahrungen zu kämpfen hat. Wie die anderen Clowes-Werke in einem charmant-anachronistischen 50er- und 60er-Jahre Comicstil gehalten, aber in der Gegenwart spielend.
  
  Die Buchausgabe ist wirklich gelungen und selbst das Vorsatzpapier mit seinen witzigen kleinen Zeichnungen ist schön und passt wunderbar zum Titel des Comics. Das Buch ist in einem ungewöhnlichen, schmalen Queerformat gehalten und weicht damit von dem konventionellen Quadratformat des "New York Times Magazine"-Comicstrips (2007 bis 2008 dort erschienen) ab.
  Witzig, emphatisch und geschickt mit dem Medium Comic umgehend, ist "Mr. Wonderful" ein Werk zu dem ich sicher noch öfter zurückkommen werde.
• 
  Petra

  A fun read looking at re-entering the dating world after a previous relationship has ended. There's baggage....lots of it. There's uncertainty and questions: how much should one reveal and when? how honest should one be? There insecurity about looks and appearance.
  The graphics were well done and added to the storyline.
  I enjoyed this book quite a bit.
• 
  ?0?0?0

  As a fan of every book (and the adaptation of "Ghost World") this author has written, it came as a crushing disappointment that "Mister Wonderful" is simply awful. The narrator has no traits to admire and that is the point but unlike in other Clowes stories, this existentialism feels false and chic, the whole white guy in glasses bemoaning that no one loves him while giving no one a reason to engage with him. Our protagonist for no reason (other than he can see himself homeless one day) hates the poor (and the rich), and also brushes off his date's eating disorder as, "yeah, well, it only lasted about 2 years in the 80's" as if that is nothing. What is nothing, is Natalie, the female love interest who is not a character so much as a man's projected fantasy of the blandest next-door neighbour type chick who does not exist. Natalie's motivations are not believable by any stretch of the imagination and believe me I was trying to enjoy this comic but I just hated it - take the great Seymour from "Ghost World" remove all the charm and the humour and you have Mister Wonderful - scratch that, that is not even fair to Seymour, this is a comic book without characters or ideas and I don't understand how Mr. Clowes thinks he can get away with crap like this simply because he inserts one clever device (the internal monologue we all have during social dates) and his dismissal of people is astounding - take for instance the opening third, where our protagonist waits for his date and a women his age, not the younger blonde, Natalie, but someone his age no older no younger and he goes on about, "Please don't let this be my date", how can we possibly be expected to follow this story to the end and not wish doctor's were not being so tight-assed about benzodiazapines these days because this is one experience that will piss any person with sense off while comforting uppity yuppies who think they are virtuous simply by "caring" about environmental issues.
• 
  Tressa

  If you’re more inclined to enjoy graphic novels of the Everyman rather than Superman, then you might want to check out some books by Daniel Clowes. Clowes is responsible for superbly getting it right about pseudo-intellectual, angsty teenagers faced with graduating into adulthood in his 1998 graphic novel, Ghost World. The 2001 movie stars Thora Birch, Scarlett Johansson, and Steve Buscemi.
  
  Clowes’ newest graphic novel is Mister Wonderful, a woe-is-me tale that takes place the evening of a blind date between a broken middle-aged man and woman who have little self-esteem and a lot of baggage. Before becoming a book, Mister Wonderful was a serialized comic strip in The New York Times Magazine.
  
  Marshall had a “shockingly happy” childhood, but adulthood hasn’t been so kind to him. His wife slept around with all but one of his friends—the “but one” being the man who set him up on the date—so in the end he had neither wife nor friends. After a six-year dry spell he took up with a crank addict who robbed him blind, and now here he is, waiting for the woman of his dreams who is 49 minutes late.
  
  What's interesting about dates arranged by friends is that some of the inspiration that spurs a couple on to see the date through comes from knowing that there must be a good reason that your friends thought you would be perfect for one another. There is an interlude in the middle of Mister Wonderful where we humorously see that's not the case for Tim (Marshall's friend) and his wife, Yuki (Natalie's friend).
  
  Marshall is so used to living inside his own head that his thought boxes have overtaken his life, even covering up the voice of his Ms. Right. The evening unfolds about how you’d think it would.
  
  If you're feeling low and in the mood for some schadenfreude, then Mister Wonderful just might cheer you up.
• 
  Jason Pettus

  (Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
  
  I've been a big fan of comics artist Daniel Clowes since around issue #5 or so of his originally self-published Eightball, and have tried to be a regular reader of all his work ever since then; but while I'm a great admirer of his darkly surreal, more narrative work like Ghost World or David Boring, I confess that I've always had a low tolerance for the other type of work Clowes regularly does, which can only be described as pointless exercises in neurotic masturbation, which back in Eightball thankfully usually limited itself to little four- or eight-page fillers at the ends of occasional issues. And that's what makes his new Mister Wonderful so unfortunate, because it's eighty entire pages of this masturbatory material, a literal one-joke gag about a balding schlub who endlessly worries over several hundred thought bubbles that his blind date is too attractive and witty for him. And with this originally being published serially in The New York Times Sunday Magazine last year, that makes it doubly unfortunate, because that makes this the only exposure to Clowes that many of the Updike-loving crowd over there is ever going to get, which means it's going to be harder than ever to convince these people to take comics seriously. I mean, kudos to Clowes for adding another impressive-looking hardback book to his publishing oeuvre; but for fans of his who are patiently waiting for another masterpiece like Velvet Glove, it's recommended that they skip this trifle altogether.
  
  Out of 10: 7.0
• 
  Loyd

  With Mr. Wonderful, Daniel Clowes covers much of the same dour territory as his books Ice Haven, Wilson and The Death Ray, with one notable exception: a happy ending. Well, let's say it's as close to a happy ending as Clowes ever ventures.
  
  Marshall and Natalie, a couple approaching middle age, meet on a blind date and stumble through an awkward, embarrassing, stressful evening together. Secrets are revealed, past relationships snap at their heels, strained affections are formed, and despite the shrapnel of forced companionship flying through the story, the couple manages to find common ground, and—dare I say it?—a chance at love.
  
  Clowes' typically exquisite art and book production, his unique sensibility and approach to story are as strong as ever. He has an uncanny, expert use of the comic medium as a vehicle for disarming personal stories. His characters are still self-centered as always. Marshall's internal monologue word balloons often overlay and hide Natalie's words like discount stickers in a clearance sale, cleverly illustrating how Marshall seldom pays full attention to what his date—or anyone else—is saying. The effect reveals his desperation and self-doubt, unlike previous Clowes "heroes" who seem oblivious to their sins.
  
  I came away from Mr. Wonderfull feeling positive and sympathetic, unlike Clowes' last novella, Wilson, which left a scummy ring around the tub. Even if I'm fooling myself, I'm sticking to it.
• 
  Kevin Wright

  Maybe this says more about me than it does about Dan Clowes, but I can't decide if he's a pessimistic misanthrope or a clear-eyed realist. At any rate, he seems to have mellowed in his more recent works and actually sympathizes with his characters instead of relentlessly mocking them. This is a realistic love story in the sense that both characters have emotional flaws and relationship baggage to deal with. It seems to end on a happy note, but I suspect that the author's pessimism has only grown more insidious. Considering the fact that Marshall's violent temper helps win Natalie over, I imagine that the sequel wouldn't end well.
  
  Artwise, Clowes is on top of his game. In keeping with his more sympathetic tone, he's softened his caricaturist style and simplified his linework to approach something akin to Charles Schulz. In fact, many of Clowes' male protagonists seem like middle-aged versions of Charlie Brown. It's interesting to see Clowes play with narrative in the comic strip format and I like the device of placing Marshall's interior monologues over other characters' word balloons to show that he's too pre-occupied with his own thoughts to pay attention to what people are saying.
  
  I can't say I *enjoy* reading his stuff, just because he writes such bleak stories, but I do appreciate, if not envy, his "grim, somewhat paranoid perspective on the human condition."
• 
  Aedan Lake

  "She looks far too wholesome and undamaged to have been set up with the likes of me."
  
  A cute little comic following a couple meeting on a blind date, having been set up by mutual friends. Mister Wonderful is Marshall, a bundle of neuroses and and self-hatred (I would expect no less from the author of "Ghost World"). Once his date is revealed to be the entirely too-perfect Natalie, he has to contend with her doubts, her ex, and more than anything else his own relentlessly destructive internal monologue.
  
  Set (mostly) on one extended night of unfortunate coincidences, the comic follows the two as they awkwardly court and learn about each other. Clowes has a gift for writing awkwardness, and drawing it: while Marshall's self-hatred takes centre stage, Natalie is a model of repressed poise, endearingly oblivious both to Marshall's doubts and his elevation of her onto a pedestal. Meanwhile, the world they inhabit is full of understated grotesques - figures that drift by at a party, snarking merrily, men who oafishly yammer into bluetooth headsets or grunt out casual misogyny - bitter background gags offsetting the self-absorbed but likeable leads.
  
  A breeze to read and a pleasure to return to (have read it twice today).
• 
  Jason Salas

  While the story itself does not have the depth of
  "Ghost World", the humor and uncomfortable social behavior is still there.
  
  The "hero" Marshal embarks on his first date in six years since his divorce. What follows is not so much a love story but a joining of souls. The pacing is light and engaging. The artwork is clean and beautiful. The laughs are woven in seamlessly. I also liked the fact that the any obscenity was masked in the old "#@%?" format instead of the blatant in-your-face cuss word format of other titles. It's actually interesting to try and guess what the character would say depending on the situation. Classic.
  
  I give this title four stars instead of five simply because it was so short. I would have loved to see the relationship drawn out over a more chapters, get a better feel for the characters now that they found love in such seemingly run of the mill yet odd circumstances.
  
  This is a graphic novel (naturalist) so it is not for everyone. Also, it's not as feel-good as your everyday happy ending fare. Still it's a fine representation of what Clowes does. And he does it to perfection.