A POSTMODERN COMIC OF A NICOTINE-FUELED TEENAGE VIGILANTE THAT WON THE EISNER, HARVEY, AND IGNATZ AWARDS
Teen outcast Andy is an orphaned nobody with only one friend, the obnoxious—but loyal—Louie. They roam school halls and city streets, invisible to everyone but bullies and tormentors, until the glorious day when Andy takes his first puff on a cigarette. That night he wakes, heart pounding, soaked in sweat, and finds himself suddenly overcome with the peculiar notion that he can do anything. Indeed, he can, and as he learns the extent of his new powers, he discovers a terrible and seductive gadget—a hideous compliment to his seething rage—that forever changes everything.
The Death-Ray utilizes the classic staples of the superhero genre—origin, costume, ray gun, sidekick, fight scene—and reconfigures them in a story that is anything but morally simplistic. With subtle comedy, deft mastery, and an obvious affection for the bold pop-art exuberance of comic book design, Daniel Clowes delivers a contemporary meditation on the darkness of the human psyche.
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"It’s like Holden Caulfield with his phaser set on kill. Phonies beware." —Time
"The Death-Ray reads as a cautionary parable and an acidic rumination on the travails of adolescence . . . Clowes demonstrates what the comic book can do and literary fiction can’t." —The Observer
"The Death-Ray reads as a cautionary parable and an acidic rumination on the travails of adolescence . . . Clowes demonstrates what the comic book can do and literary fiction can’t." —The Observer
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Be my saviour, and get out the gun!,
This review is from: The Death-Ray (Hardcover)
Meet Andy, a quiet, lonely boy growing up in the 70s who has one friend and is being raised by his grandfather who is likely developing Alzheimer's. One day by chance Andy smokes a cigarette and discovers that nicotine activates "super powers" where he gains super strength. Couple that with his father's legacy leaving Andy a handheld "death ray" once he realises his super powers, and Andy goes from being an awkward teen to having the power of life and death in the palm of his hand.
Andy is your typical Clowes-ian character - awkward loner, angry at the world, cynical yet disarmingly open about their bizarre world views, and prone to strange acts in public. Quirky in a word, and Andy is very much in the vein of other Clowes characters from Ghost World, Ice Haven, Mr Wonderful, Wilson, and so on. The book follows the story of Andy and his strange friend Louie as they try to find real world applications to Andy's Death Ray, at first picking out school bullies, then moving onto targets in the wider world. It can be read as a straight story with Andy actually having real super powers and the death ray really is a death ray but Clowes seems to be inviting interpretation in these incidents. Andy "blacks out" when he gets super powers, realising afterwards that he's pummelled someone's face into a bloody mess and the death ray works by "popping" someone out of existence in an instant - are the two connected? Is Andy in fact just an out and out psycho "popping" people out of existence with his hands? Or maybe it's a far more depressed version of "Kick Ass", especially as Andy makes a costume to wear, and Clowes is showing how lonely and empty being a superhero is and how superpowers don't make you happy. Either way it's a pretty interesting, if gloomy, read with Clowes' great art and imaginative layouts. A must for fans of Clowes, though this appeared in his comic book series "Eightball" a few years ago so if you're a subscriber to that you've already got this, but fans of indie comics will find plenty to enjoy here as well.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Keeping the faith,
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This review is from: The Death-Ray (Hardcover)
I grew up rabidly devouring comic books as a kid. (As a child of the 90's I could still get Star Wars and Sonic the Hedgehog comics at the local grocery stores and gas stations.) But as I grew older, fewer and fewer comics grabbed my interest and I lost touch with the comics community. In college I really became interested in postmodernism and "snobby literature." I hadn't picked up a comic book in years when a friend handed me his copy of David Petersen's Mouse Guard. Needless to say, it awakened the passion for comics that I hadn't felt in years.I guess what I'm trying to say is that every so often a comic book comes along that is so freaking cool that it reminds me of what it felt like to sit on my living room floor and revel in the sheer awesomeness of outlandish costumes and word balloons. The Death-Ray is one of these books. The oversize edition lets you really pour over the artwork, the story quality has the right amount of depth, and the premise has a pitch perfect blend of whimsy without seeming overly silly. Check it out if you need your faith in the graphic medium restored.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The entire story is relatively short, but it's certainly packed with gravitas,
By
This review is from: The Death-Ray (Hardcover)
Andy's a do-nothing kind of teen, orphaned and living with his grandfather in Chicago in the 1970s, and he's not very interested in much of anything at all. He pals around with his best friend, Louie, and he pretends that he's got a great relationship with his "girlfriend" (whom he rarely sees in person but sends letters to frequently). But when he smokes his first cigarette, he discovers he's been engineered by his scientist father to develop some killer superpowers when exposed to nicotine.The powers are killer indeed: He develops the titular Death Ray, which allows him to eliminate anyone without a trace, because of his bodily interaction with cigarettes. He can get away clean with wiping out anyone, which he knows is an awesome power--and responsibility. But what he does with that power is something else entirely. Like much of Clowes' work, The Death Ray speaks to (and about) the sluggishness and disaffectedness of Generation X. It harks back to a simpler time, and even the artwork is evocative of 1970s comics greats (although it is certainly all distinctively Clowes). The Death Ray was originally published in Eightball #23 in 2004 and it's been reprinted by Drawn & Quarterly in this handsome hardcover edition. The entire story is relatively short, but it's certainly packed with gravitas. The plot is straightforward, but things get complex and complicated as Andy gets older. Dealing with that angst and seeming powerlessness is Clowes' utmost strength, demonstrated in so many of his brilliant works, and well executed here as well. Reviewed by John Hogan
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