Dan Pussey

Few characters in alternative comics cut quite as close to the bone as Dan Pussey, Daniel Clowes's razor-sharp satirical creation who debuted in the pages of Eightball #8 in 1992. Born in the Copper/Modern Age from one of underground comix's sharpest minds, Pussey is Fantagraphics' darkly comedic lens on the comics industry itself — a figure whose collected adventures in Pussey! make for some of the most biting self-reflection the medium has ever produced. Over roughly fourteen years, Clowes returned to this character again and again, which speaks to just how rich and uncomfortable a vein he'd struck. If you love comics that dare to examine what comics are and who makes them, Dan Pussey is essential reading.