A painfully awkward blind date as only Daniel Clowes could view it. Funny, yet cringe-worthy; it encapsulates so many of our self-consciously paranoid thought processes and delusions. Very, very human.

Thankfully not about shark tank. The most upbeat and well-adjusted Daniel Clowes book I've read. It's kind of an awkward shape to read in hardcover. Part of me wondered if the Tim character was based on the author.

3.5-4 //

OK, so I used to love Dan Clowes so much that just seeing the way he drew the bum's teeth brought a smile to my face. And I enjoyed his technique of contrasting interior monologue with speech. It's still good. I dunno. Meh.

It was short and sweet and awkward and dark and funny and I really liked it.

I like Clowes' recent stuff about how awkward adult dating life has become. Sure the book is a bit short and simple, but any longer would be detrimental. This is not 'fantastic', but it's pretty good, at least enough for me to finish it fast in one sitting. The perceived situation is just bizarre enough to be both interesting and realistic so that the protagonist's monologue is believable and relevant to the reader.

This is sort of what a date feels like.

If you are new to Clowes, pick up Patience or Ghostworld instead.

Daniel Clowes's Mister Wonderful is a short, succinct comic told in an incredibly wide format about an older man on a first date. Divorced, shamed, and self-hating, Marshall lives monologue-to-monologue to the point where his internal diatribes literally blot out conversations around him. He panics when his date, a troubled blonde, is over forty minutes late. He yells at a homeless man when he gets nervous. He gets in a fight with an ex. Each of these spectacular missteps are prefaced with grand romantic fantasies of swooning women and movie-star dialogue--only to give way to a reality which is ugly and embarrassing.

This book will make you cringe. Marshall is, at first glance, an insufferable loner with a bad temper. But you want him to find happiness because there's something pitiable and even relatable about his broke single middle-aged misery. Clowes, as always, works wonders with his naturalistic dialogue and caricatured faces, using the super wide-set pages together for cinematic impact.

And yet the story feels too short. Just as you become invested, it ends. By the time Marshall stops wallowing enough for the reader to understand what's going on around them, Clowes shuts the book. So, while this was an enjoyable read--as anything by Clowes is--it rings a bit hollow.

Witty and heartfelt. This is a must-read for pessimistic romantics and those who fall for them.

Oh man, if my internal monologue were this bleak and dismal, I'd eat a bullet. Actually, I'd grow a pair. Navel gazing at its absolute most pitiful and boring. Do not want.