Wilson, the wildly anticipated new graphic novel by Daniel Clowes, has arrived - and so has the artist. Out on a national book tour, he will be at the Strand Book Store in New York tonight and at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival this weekend, then heads to the West Coast next week.

The acclaimed author of Ghost World and High School Confidential, among others, Clowes also took his turn in The Funny Pages of the New York Times with Mister Wonderful. In Wilson (Drawn & Quarterly 2010), we meet an opinionated middle-aged loner who loves his dog and quite possibly no one else. In an ongoing quest to find human connection, he badgers friends and strangers alike into a series of one-sided conversations, punctuating his own lofty discursions with a brutally honest, self-negating sense of humor.

Panels from Wilson by Daniel Clowes, left to right: Inspired by The New Yorker style of George Booth; a 50s gag cartooning style inspired by Charles Schultz; with reference to Will Elder, a Mad magazine cartoonist starting in the 1950s. See Clowes's "panel discussion" in New York magazine. Copyright the artist, courtesy Drawn & Quarterly.

After his father dies, Wilson, now completely alone, sets out to find his ex-wife with the hope of rekindling their long-dead relationship, and discovers he has a teenage daughter, born after the marriage ended and given up for adoption. Wilson eventually forces all three to reconnect as a family - a doomed mission that will inevitably backfire.

While this sounds nothing like a beach read, humor comes in big wallops on just about every other page. In Wilson, the artist shakes up the graphic novel format [if there is such a thing] by using different drawing styles throughout the book. From one page to the next, the story alternately turns grim and serious to hilariously funny; dark and shadowy to sunshine-bright and colorful. This scheme sounds a little crazy, but: have you seen anything by Clowes that doesn't work? If anything, this approach showcases the artist's formidable talent, both as a draughtsman and a storyteller.

Meet Daniel Clowes at the Strand Book Store tonight at 7:00 pm. David Hajdu, author of Positively 4th Street, Heroes & Villains and Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America will interview Dan on the Strand Stage. Strand Bookstore, 828 Broadway (corner of 12^th Street), 2^nd Floor, New York, NY. Can't make it tonight? Order a signed copy of Wilson and watch tonight's interview at home on TV!

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