No one draws alienated misanthropes better than Daniel Clowes, except maybe Adrian Tomine. The art quality of these nine stories of isolation is superb. Most of the writing is equally good, but some stories are a bit overblown. My favourite stories were the first few in the collection: Blue Italian Shit, The Gold Mommy and the eponymous Caricature. ( )

Sad and weird as usual for Daniel Clowes. Excellent line work. ( )

No Ghost World, but pretty good. I enjoyed reading something else by Clowes. ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/800474.html

Caricatures bills itself as "nine stories", but in fact they are more extended character studies than actual narratives. I love the way Clowes takes us into his characters' worlds, and at the same time using the graphic medium, we can get an idea of how other people are reacting to them. Most of his viewpoint characters are male, though there is one sequence, "Green Eyeliner", with a female lead.

Almost all of the stories involve either experiencing or reliving an unhappy and isolated adolescence, and this could get old rather quickly, but I think he rings the changes on the theme with enough diversity to keep you engaged.

The one piece I found I had doubts about was the last, "Black Nylon", whose protagonist likes to dress up as a superhero; it wasn't obvious to me if he was a nutter in our world, where there are no costumed superheroes, or if he was a nutter in the standard comics setting where superheroes are a facet of daily life. I think it is probably the latter, in which case the piece jars with the naturalistic setting of the rest of the book. Playing such games with the reader is risky, but usually Clowes does pull it off, and the story (such as it is) often turns out to be about something different from what we first think it is going to be. ( )