Clumsy

Rating:
Summary: Very over-rated: I'd give it zero stars if I could!
Review: I bought this book on the strength of it's reviews (from many places as well as Amazon.com), which all seem to be positive. I have to wonder if the other reviewers have read the same book? I just don't see it. This book is boring and trite, with pointless, flat dialog and no real narrative to speak of. The artwork is so terrible I can't stand to look at it. It's not even cute-bad, it's totally without any illustration talent at all. Many 4th graders could draw better. Maybe it's supposed to be "quaint", and "honest" but the overall effect of the art is to make the book look like garbage. Brown should take a clue from Harvey Pekar and get someone else to do his illustration. If you insist on reading this, borrow it, don't spend a cent on this poorly done piffle.

Rating:
Summary: wonderful, wonderful, wonderful
Review: I can't say enough good things about this book. This love story, told in graphic-novel form, contains more true moments than you find in most contemporary fiction. Everything is pared down to its essence, including the delicate hand-drawn panels.

Funny, bittersweet, clever, naughty, perfect.

Anyone who has ever been in a relationship, especially a long-distance one, should read this book.

Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: low-fi masterpiece
Review: This is the best graphic novel I've read in a long time. I can't say enough good things about this book. Clumsy tells the story of a first love relationship through a series of small, everyday moments. It's the kind of thing that could easily become indulgent, but Brown's writing is so precise and poetic that you can't help being moved by it.

Most love stories focus on big dramatic developements--but that's not the way most of us actually experience love. Clumsy shows the whole arc of a relationship without resorting to a conventional dramatic structure. Clumsy is also one of the few artistic accounts I've ever seen of the quiet joys of intimacy, of just being with someone you love, sharing their time.

For the unassuming way the story's told, it makes remarkably compelling reading. I've given this book to many friends. Most tell me that they couldn't put it down. And every one of them has favorite moments, vignettes that remind them of their own experiences.

The drawing style is simple but by no means simplistic, as one reviewer suggests. Brown's style strikes me as a refreshing antidote to the overdrawn post-R. Crumb groutesqueries of too many other independent comics.

Oh, and buyer beware, the reader from Collingswood NJ who hated this book, saves his 5-star reviews for comics like THE HULK and THE PUNISHER.