Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron

Daniel Clowes’s surreal, unsettling masterpiece from Fantagraphics follows a man’s obsessive search for a woman he barely knew, plunging him into a nightmarish underworld of grotesque characters and cryptic conspiracies. First published in 1993 as a single, dense issue, this graphic novel distills Clowes’s early, raw energy into a haunting, black-and-white fever dream that redefined the possibilities of alternative comics. It remains a landmark of the medium’s literary and artistic ambition.