Patience

by Daniel Clowes

Overview

The most anticipated graphic novel of 2016: from the creator of Ghost World.

Patience is a psychedelic science-fiction love story, veering with uncanny precision from violent destruction to deeply personal tenderness in a way that is both quintessentially "Clowesian"and utterly unique in the author's body of work. This 180-page, full-color original graphic novel affords Clowes the opportunity to draw some of the most exuberant and breathtaking pages of his life, and to tell his most suspenseful, surprising and affecting story yet.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781606999059
Publisher:	Fantagraphics Books
Publication date:	03/21/2016
Pages:	180
Sales rank:	632,261
Product dimensions:	7.60(w) x 9.90(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	16 Years

About the Author

Daniel Clowes is a Harvey, Eisner, Ignatz, and PEN America Literary Award Winner whose comics and graphic novels have been translated into over 20 languages worldwide. He is also an Academy Award nominated screenwriter (for Ghost World), and retrospectives of his work have appeared at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Oakland Museum, and the Wexner Center in Columbus, OH. He lives in Oakland, California, with his wife and son.

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/22/2016
Clowes (Ghost World) plumbs the depths of science fiction in this intriguingly bizarre love story. Jack, torn apart by the mysterious murder of his wife, Patience, flings himself back and forth through time to discover and punish the real culprit. Not everything is at it seems, however—not even his beloved wife. This is a fascinating collage, repurposing elements from action thrillers, psychological horror, and romantic drama. Clowes skillfully anchors each psychedelic turn in human emotion. The SF elements here, as in his earlier The Death-Ray, are just vehicles for the dead-eyed cast to continue roaming through time for a happiness their own obsessions ensure they will never reach, and the future is no refuge from the cycles of abuse that Jack and Patience try to break out of. Patience herself is a wonderfully complicated character and the unraveling of her psyche is key to the story, as is the web of time travel that ensnares her husband. Another strong entry in an already stunning body of work, and one that will surely be hailed as one of the best releases of 2016. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Deeply felt and winding story of love and the limits of time nestled within an operatic science-fiction structure that is bursting with wild colors and page design."

Artinfo

"DAN CLOWES. American. A master. Perfect fusion of story and art. Clowes is an auteur. Period. A superb narrator. Patience is the rare time travel tale that fully delivers."

Guillermo Del Toro

"Each panel reminds us that every moment matters."

Slate

"Disturbing, convoluted, darkly comic and just plain dark, the book itself is a thing of beauty. The book's self-awareness and sympathy make it more than just an exercise in the mixing of genres, but it's in this unabashed mixing that Clowes creates a story that is as transcendent as it is upsetting — and affirming."

Chicago Tribune

"Some of the freakiest art Clowes has ever drawn."

New York Magazine

"Patience is incredibly captivating – a stunning marriage of text, image, and design, and a demonstration of Clowes' sheer mastery of the art of sequential storytelling. A must-have for any graphic novel section."

Booklist

"A world where time travel is as real as love. The humanity of this futuristic thriller is alarmingly palpable. It's final pages left me close to tears but filled with hope."

Lenny Letter

"A shadowy, lysergic trip down nostalgia lane. Full of Clowesian magic — visceral portraits, melting reality, and clean, beautiful artwork. Like riding a Robert Williams painted pony into the sunset, it's a trippy experience, and disconcertingly tender amid its bursts of violence."

The Portland Mercury

"Clowes’ latest work finds the graphic novelist at the height of his powers, employing all the mind-bending talent he can muster."

San Francisco Chronicle

"His most complex narrative yet."

WIRED

"A genuine, selfless love story that stretches out across space and time, and it isn't spoiling things to say you may well have your mind pleasantly expanded by the ending."

Mashable

"Tender and heartfelt, exciting and bizarre, Patience is interested above all in the stories we tell ourselves about love. Loyalty can be toxic, for all that we prize it. Patience isn’t always a virtue; sometimes, it’s just a time bomb in disguise."

The Guardian

"The greatest action in Clowes’s time-travel murder mystery isn’t the violence, surprise twists, or trippy visuals, it is whether Jack will choose to give into the lure of his past or accept the future he has created."

Hyperallergic

"Gripping to the very last panel. This is an essential purchase."

The Quietus

"A huge gorgeous slab of a book with drawings so sumptuous and vibrant I wanted to plaster them all over my walls."

Longreads

"I can’t think of another example in comics to compare to Clowes at this point in his career: never to my knowledge has an artist with so many phenomenal books to his name made such a shift in his style so dramatically and so successfully."

The Seattle Review of Books

"You cannot help but feel carried along by a true master of the form, a cartoonist working at the very height of his powers. Anew high watermark for the author, but also for the medium as a whole. It is not just his longest work, but his most affecting, and the powerful emotional punch of the closing pages is one that will stay with the reader for a long time."

The Independent

"A time-traveling love story by a beautiful, twisted genius."

Vice

"Daniel Clowes's new graphic novel is a time-travel thriller filtered through his own furiously warped sensibility. ... Nobody draws reality curdling around its edges like Clowes... and Jack's all-devouring quest for vengeance mutates his story from a sci-fi whodunit to psychedelic psychological horror."

Playboy - Douglas Wolk

"You turn a page and boom, an enormous spread punches you in the face."

The Seattle Weekly

09/15/2016
Patience and Jack are happily married and expecting a baby. But both have secrets—she has a dysfunctional past they haven't discussed, and he's not the office worker he claims. Then Patience turns up dead, apparently murdered by a former boyfriend. Devastated, Jack wonders if he can do anything now for his wife and child. And years later when he happens on someone with a time-travel device, he does do something. The award-winning Clowes (Mister Wonderful) sets his cast of unsophisticated characters into a high-tech premise but keeps the focus on the people rather than the science. Indeed, the contrast among the characters, their deep and universal emotions, and the sf trappings is jarring. Clowes's stolid, almost frozen drawing style captures a humanity caught in its unmet needs, powerless to understand or find satisfaction. The full coloring recalls classic superhero comics, edging over into psychedelic hues for futuristic sections. VERDICT This parable of enduring love, leavened with noir-tinged humor and quirky dialog about existential dilemmas, will appeal to aficionados of literary graphic novels and those who enjoyed Bryan Lee O'Malley's Seconds.—MC

Library Journal

09/01/2016
After his pregnant wife, Patience, is killed, Jack lives in misery for decades until he discovers a way to travel through time in hopes of stopping the murder. When Jack visits the past, he learns things about his wife and her years as a young adult that she has kept from him, including several physically violent and emotionally damaging encounters with previous men. While some teens will empathize with the despondent Patience, who feels like she is trapped by her circumstances, others will get caught up in the time chase. Clowes uses time travel as a vehicle to create vivid, mind-blowing images with a bright and colorful palette. With a classic like Ghost World under his belt, Daniel Clowes already has a legion of graphic novel fans, and although the subject matter differs here, his signature drawing style is recognizable. VERDICT This time-travel love story will pick up fans of slow-burning thrillers and graphic novels, especially those already familiar with Clowes's work.—Carrie Shaurette, Dwight-Englewood School, Englewood, NJ

School Library Journal