- [Narrator] This is Batman.
This is Superman.
You know them because you love comics.
Well, this is “Ghost World” and
“Eightball” and “David Boring,”
and they're comics, too;
and their creator is really important.
So, pay attention 'cause
you're about to watch
a really great story about
one of the most influential
people in the world of comics.
Oh, and it's narrated
by Woody Harrelson.
- One, two, three, four.
- [Woody] Six, eight, 12, 15.
Okay, this is the cover of
the 2010 graphic novel “Wilson.”
I star as the endearingly
cantankerous main character
when the story was adapted into a movie.
Wilson's author is Daniel Clowes.
Dan is many things.
(dramatic orchestral music)
His work would go on to
change the trajectory
of comics in popular
culture as we know it.
(light folk music)
Dan was born in Chicago
on April 14, 1961.
Coming of age in the 1970s,
Dan spent his formative
years surrounded by
his hippie classmates.
But while they were listening
to the Grateful Dead
and Jefferson Airplane,
Dan was dedicating himself
to different pursuits.
- To be into comics when
I was in high school
was like the lowest thing
you could possible be into.
I mean I can't even think of anything
that would have been more pathetic.
- [Woody] He felt like an outsider.
Like he truly laid claim to
it in a way no one else did.
Drawing was his outlet.
(intense string music)
Dan graduated from high school in 1979
and he came into New York
City to attend art school.
His very first published
comic was arguably a disaster.
(exploding)
- The sales got low enough
where the publisher said,
"You know, I think we're just
gonna cancel this comic."
I felt like, “Okay, I
had my shot; that's it.”
- [Woody] It would be a second comic
that would change Dan's career.
It was 1989.
Dan released “Eightball,”
a collection of comics
of varying genres, lengths,
and drawing styles.
Readers loved it.
No one had ever seen a
comic told like this.
- You know I was doing the kind of comics
I always wanted to read, and I thought,
there's gotta be other people like me,
and it turned out that I wasn't such
a strange person after all.
(exciting music)
- [Thora] That's me, Thora Birch,
and that's a clip from a movie
adaptation of “Ghost World.”
As this tale of teenage
doldrums made its way
from comic to film, it
became the work that brought
Dan's name recognition into
the level of a cult celebrity.
- I felt like I had sort of
gone to a different level
where people took me more seriously.
You know, it was more than “just
the guy who draws comics.”
- [Thora] Beyond what it did for Dan,
“Ghost World” helped to
change the perception
of graphic novels and comics as a whole.
- Publishers were struggling,
and all of a sudden people
were doing graphic novels,
and they said, “Oh, these
are actually selling,”
so it just became this
kinda weird growing time
for graphic novels.
(big band music)
(typewriter clicking)
(calm music)
- [Woody] Post “Ghost
World,” things got busy.
His work has been translated
into over 20 languages.
His writing would go on to be adapted
into two more movies,
“Art School Confidential,”
and the aforementioned “Wilson.”
And what helped make all this possible,
and what made Dan so
beloved among so many people,
are his characters.
- Whenever I read somebody talk about
“all his characters are sad losers,"
and I think, “really, are they?”
I've always felt that your
goal when you're doing a story
with real characters is
that you have to find a way
to love them no matter who they are.
- [Woody] With proper social
tact forever eluding them,
they are endearing outsiders,
just as Dan once was.
- I don't know what, you know, what the
future will hold at all.
I never think about that stuff.
I just hope I can keep,
you know, scribbling away for a few more years
till the Alzheimer's kicks in.
