First Look at New Dan Clowes: "Wilson"

The first look I've seen at Daniel Clowes's upcoming Wilson is in the Comics Reporter, not, alas, here (send copies please, D&Q!), but that won't stop me from passing it along to you. I'm sure there must be a few of you out there who are as rabid Clowes-anticipators as Alex and me. Not sure how much of the review you'll want to read, but from what I can tell it seems to tastefully skirt any spoilers. By "from what I can tell," I mean that I only skimmed it myself. Spoilers or not, I want to experience the book for myself first, and all I really want to know at this point is: good or not? Here's all I had to read to make my day:

Wilson is a sharp strike right to the sweet spot of the brain where great comics are enjoyed; it's a late, great start to a 2010 that felt slightly quiet after the rush to publication by book like Footnotes In Gaza in the waning days of 2009. Like all the great steps forward in Clowes' long career, it mixes a fairly straight-forward reading experience with a skein of smartly-applied formal techniques that tease at what we're seeing, growing in clarity and force until they ultimately transform the book into a powerful meditation on a subject at which the reader of the first few pages could only guess. It's Clowes being Clowes, and Wilson all by itself makes 2010 a pretty good year for comics no matter what happens from here on out.

"Clowes being Clowes": say no more, and bring it on. --Tom