Daniel Clowes’ New Book Monica Depicts the ’60s Cults, Romance, War and Mom!

Published on October 30, 2023 | Published By: Denise | In Career , Interesting Facts

Daniel Clowes talks about his new book ''Monica.'' source: The Orange County Register

Cartoonist Daniel Clowes’ new graphic novel “Monica” is a multi-genre story.
His new writing is inspired by both his childhood in the ’60s and his mother.
Find out what revelations Clowes made about his special upcoming book.

Table of Contents

Daniel Clowes gets candid about his new book Monica

Daniel Clowes had always wanted to write a book with two Army grunts, Johnny and Butch, smoking cigarettes in their foxhole in Vietnam as they risked their lives the deadly situations where bullets flew and mortar rounds bombed.

On a recent call with The Orange County Register, Clowes spoke from his home in Oakland about his book, Monica. He said,

“These characters are kind of living in another era,”
“Unaware of what’s going on back home.”

The cartoonist who is famous for writing graphic novels like Eight Ball, Ghost World, Wilson, and Patience, said,

“I thought that was such a strong idea because it was a real separation of two very distinct worlds,”
“You have these two naive guys, thinking they’re fighting World War II. They think they’re still in this bygone 20th-century era.”

He added,

“But back home, everything is changing. Everything they’re counting on is completely different.”

His new book Monica starts with that chapter. The writer, 62, wanted to include the 60s in his book, and what better than the Vietnam War fits perfectly with the script?

Daniel Clowes — Clowes is known for his graphic novels. source: TOCR

Apart from that, he really wanted to write a book about his beloved mother and the eight chapters that focus on the life of Monica, which is also the title of the book. Monica’s mother Penny was derived from Clowes’ mom.

He said,

“I didn’t want to do just straight autobiography or biography,”
“I wanted to have the room to kind of not feel like I was beholden to the facts, which is why I think I always do fiction.”

In the book, Monica was born to an unmarried Penny, Johnny’s high school lover and fiancee. She waits for Johnny as he is still fighting for his life in that foxhole.

Clowes said of Monica,

“I needed a narrator for the story and realized early on it was the baby,”
“She was the one sort of telling what it was like to grow up in this world.”

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How did Daniel feel drawing inspiration from his family for Monica?

In a lengthy interview, Clowes revealed how his mother’s lack of interest in parenting influenced the book. He revealed that his mother was a very distinctive character and unlike anybody’s mother.

Daniel recalled the times when others would talk about their respective mothers and he would end up thinking she was nothing like them.

When asked if there were any challenges writing something that is related to his own family, Daniel said,

”When I began the story, my mother was very much alive and I worried about her response to it. You know, she was very defensive about her choices and never accepted that it might not have been great for me.”
”That was very painful for her, so she always kind of argued against it.”

Somewhere in the interview, Clowes also revealed how he felt after finishing his dream book. He admitted that he spent so much time thinking about his late mother while writing the book.

He concluded,

”I have very mixed feelings. Towards the end of working on the book, I found, under all her junk, a bunch of letters she had written to a friend. It kind of underlined and listed all the answers to all the questions I’ve had growing up. It ended up being a revelation, so I tried to give that to ‘Monica’ too, a little bit.”

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