The Complete Eightball, by Daniel Clowes

The Complete Eightball gathers works by cartoonist Daniel Clowes, such as Ghost World and Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, that, reprinted in their original serial arrangement, combine to create a hilariously disturbing world of irritating grotesques seeking easy solutions for life’s difficulties (with a sympathetically fallible character here and there). Something like Kafka by way of MAD Magazine, this collection examines the variety of ways Clowes's bizarre cast of characters attempts to cope with the profound absurdity of existing.