Ghost World: A Supposed Voice for My Generation That I Just Couldn’t Stand

A Review By: Amelia

Do you ever read something just because other people say it’s great? Enlightening? The voice of a generation? Well, I normally don’t. I don’t buy into hype but with Ghost World I did. It’s a graphic novel that’s been on the market for years and years, and people keep reading it and telling everyone who hasn’t read it how wonderful it is and I decided that I would finally read it so I could be one of the people who love it… unfortunately, I don’t love it. I don’t even like it! And here’s the review to tell you why.

Ghost World is a graphic novel about two unlikely best friends that live in a small town and face growing up and growing apart. They speak like real teenagers do (at least according to the thirty somethings from major magazines that originally reviewed it), they act like real teenagers do, and they bored me half to death… just like real teenagers do!

The author of this rather non-entertaining comic is Daniel Gillespie Clowes. He’s an American cartoonist and screenwriter. Much of Clowes's work first appeared in his comic book Eightball, which anthologized self-contained serialized narratives. These stories have been collected and published as graphic novels, such as Ghost World and David Boring.

There are two main characters in Ghost World: Becky and Enid, and neither one are really all that likely. They’re two disillusioned, bitter, miss-matched, constantly complaining/bitching/judging friends who live in a small town and hate pretty much everyone and everything. Think Daria and Jane from MTV’s cartoon Daria, but without the humour, passion, intelligence, and all-around charm that the television show presented us with. Becky and Enid don’t really show any character growth and by the end of the comic (which comes fairly quickly thanks to only having eighty pages) you’ll be more than happy to have these two characters done and over with.

I wish I could say something nice about the art style here since I can’t say anything nice about the plot

or characters of the piece, but I just can’t. The art style is drab with black and white lineart with light blue for any shadowing. It has unappealing character design, locations without any detail, and facial expressions that make you cringe and laugh all at the same time.

Ghost World is a graphic novel I guess I just didn’t get. There wasn’t one thing I liked about this comic. There was little to no plot, the dialogue was painful to read, there was no character development, and the art wasn’t anything sensational.

My final thoughts on Ghost World are not kind thoughts. I didn’t think it was funny, insightful, or the quote-unquote voice of a generation. The comic is only 80 pages long, and only takes about forty minutes to read, but honestly, don’t waste your time. I know a lot of people will disagree about everything I’ve just said, but this is how I feel–Ghost World isn’t that great! It’s not even good!