ON TIME, NPR AND USA TODAY'S BEST-OF 2011 LISTS! WINNER OF 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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"Daniel Clowes continues to plot a lofty, lonely course through the subconscious of popular culture with this hilariously bleak graphic novel." —TIME Best of 2011
"48 pages densely packed with art, dialogue and ideas, The Death-Ray [is] supersaturated, a story delivered directly into your imagination..."—NPR
"Clowes once again shows he is a master of current-day absurdity — with heart.”—USA Today
"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
16 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format: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.
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.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Jankanz
Format:Hardcover
Just by reading the harsh reviews on the ond hand and the glowing ones on the other, it is clear that this comic isn't for everyone. I loved it but I don't have any issue with those who hated it. I get the impression that Clowes creates work that interests himself, like most great artists should. I don't think he ever set out to titillate everyone under the sun, just those with a sense of humor like his own.
Many more people liked "Watchmen" because they felt it was what superheroes would be if they existed, aged, died as in real life. I enjoyed "Watchmen" but I think "Death-Ray" comes much closer to what they'd really be like - self-obsessed heroes of their own narratives - just like the rest of us.
Many more people liked "Watchmen" because they felt it was what superheroes would be if they existed, aged, died as in real life. I enjoyed "Watchmen" but I think "Death-Ray" comes much closer to what they'd really be like - self-obsessed heroes of their own narratives - just like the rest of us.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
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.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
"There's Always Some Prick Who Needs a Lesson"
Dan Clowes' oversized and brightly-colored 'The Death-Ray' (2011) is an interesting morality tale and unusual spin on the superhero comic book genre. Read more
Published 1 month ago by J. E. Barnes
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great, sometimes falls flat.
I've read all of the other collected works of Daniel Clowes, and although The Death-Ray isn't my all-time favorite, it's really good. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Jenny
5.0 out of 5 stars
He thinks he's better than everybody, but he's definitely not.
Before I bought this book, I hadn't realized that I had already read this story in Eightball #23 back in 2004. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Johnny Heering
1.0 out of 5 stars
Utter Drivel
This gobbledygook that is passed off as literature amazes me. This book lacks any semblance of depth. Read more
Published 12 months ago by ObamAisAfraud
1.0 out of 5 stars
I hated this book
I decided to give it a try after I saw it in my Amazon recommendations for the millionth time. I didn't like any part of the book (story, art, color,...). Read more
Published 14 months ago by A. Hashemi-Haeri
4.0 out of 5 stars
The bread and butter comic book genre through the lens of Clowes
Clowes takes on various peculiarities of the superhero mythos in this surface-simplistic but extremely dense tale of a normal kid who discovers he has superhuman abilities and the... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Sibelius
4.0 out of 5 stars
Clowes back at it again
Today I just finished reading another title by Clowes called David Boring. I thoroughly enjoyed that book possibly more than this one. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Winchester
4.0 out of 5 stars
retro-fit
though the graphic novel is not to long, it has classic taste applied to a new age blend, i enjoyed it very much, wasn't cheesy at all.
Published 16 months ago by M. collins
1.0 out of 5 stars
Clowes is a has been
I wondered if this had anything different from the earlier release and found it doesn't. Clowes has become a sort of money machine saving up for retirement, printing stuff the... Read more
Published 17 months ago by reading guy
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not bad, but not his best
"The Death Ray" is the kind of story you'd expect from Daniel Clowes. If you have already read "David Boring," and "Ghost World," and liked them, you will get more or less more of... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Jefferson Wolfe
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