Maybe he and Dot are a couple and even have a child together (the baby at the end that she’s holding). Perhaps he’s at the island the whole time, visiting with his family, including the cousin he admires. So after I closed the book, a theory popped into my head. I was willing to let everything go! I just wanted to know the point of his story. The last few pages prepare you for an un-climatic ending, but what the-? It wasn’t even that I wanted to know anything about his father or mother or his many love interests or the dead woman or Whitey or the cops or the state of the world. But there isn’t anything definite in the book to confirm that we shouldn’t take all the events that occur at face value. Here’s this skinny, so-so teenage kid (named “Boring” or possibly “Borring” if the label on his prescription wasn’t a typo) who happens to attract all these hot chicks and have sex all the time? Oh, and his roommate is a lesbian? I mean, come on! The guy is delusional! I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he gets shot in the head twice and is taking pain medication. I feel like it could’ve been so much more, so much better, if it had just been given that extra push.įrom scene one, I thought the whole thing was in David’s head.

I mean, I am all for unconventional narratives, but this one seemed to put all these major plot points in the panels and shake them up and present a semi-plausible story (if we live in comic-book-land, that is), but then what? I kept waiting for the really deep creepy stuff to set in, the murky dreams and fantasies under the surface to pop up, but we only got peeks. I was surprised by the dark, jarring, choppy storytelling, but I was willing to go along with it-at first.

Of course the artwork is great (if you like the super-slick flawless look, which sometimes I do) and I’m still amazed at how Clowes manages to draw faces that remind me of real people, yet maintain the “cartoonishness” of an illustration.īut as for the narrative, I was left with more questions than I’m willing to let go unresolved. This book was a bit disappointing for me since I’d always seen it around thinking it would be one of the best (and “Ghost World” is one of my all-time faves), but I was let down.

David Boring by Daniel Clowes