Originally released in 1997 as a limited hardcover edition of
2,500 copies that sold out almost instantly, Ghost World has
subsequently gone through 18 softcover printings, selling in excess
of 150,000 copies in the United States, becoming one of the
best-selling and most revered graphic novels of all-time,
culminating in the 2001 Academy Award-nominated film.
To commemorate the tenth anniversary, Fantagraphics Books
released this deluxe, expanded Ghost World special edition in 2008,
combining the original graphic novel, the Oscar-nominated
screenplay adaptation by Clowes and Terry Zwigoff, as well as over
two dozen pages of rare and obscure bonus material in one book,
along with a new cover and introduction.
Ghost World is the story of Becky and Enid, two teenaged girls
and best friends facing the prospect of not only growing up, but
growing apart from each other. Clowes paints a tender picture of
this intellectually precocious, sexually adventurous (despite a
mutual lack of experience), and formative period in their lives,
filtered through a blue hue echoing a world lit by the cathode rays
of a television - a perfect metaphor for their post- nuclear
existence. Both naturalistic and nostalgic, Ghost World carves a
layered narrative out of the daily existence of these
fully-realized young women.
Ghost World: The Special Edition included the original, 80-page graphic novel; the out-of-print, Oscar-nominated 106-page screenplay; the little-seen comic strip created for the Ghost World soundtrack; and over 30 pages of rare ephemera related to the book and film, including covers to foreign editions of Ghost World, rare promotional art, pictures, sketches and much more.
