Cartoonist Dan Clowes has called this collection of short humor strips "filler," but it contains some of his most essential work. Perhaps it's contents could be considered filler by fans of his longer, later works by Clowes such as Ice Haven, Ghost World and David Boring, but the shorter works here are fully reallized, mature and brilliant, and the loving production and subtle colouring on many of the stories marks this as one of the strongest collections of comics short stories that I've ever read.

Readers of Clowes's masterwork Ice Haven will immediately appreciate the diverse art styles Clowes employs over the course of these tales, which prefigured Ice Haven's incredibly diverse stylizations. And as for the writing, while Clowes has certainly grown over the course of his career as a cartoonist, the stories in 20th Century Eightball include genuinely essential gems such as "Art School Confidential,"  the deliciously vicious "On Sports" and the Jack Chick parody "Devil Doll."

All these stories benefit from the superior production quality not found in their original comic book appearances -- the book features extremely heavy paper stock and a thoughtful application of colour on selected stories, each of which has a unique palette that enhances the work and deepens the reader's appreciation for the myriad of styles and stories.

This is a full-on blitz of the faux-hipster Clowes wallowing in his '50s stylizations, while skewering his targets with a scathing wit that most satirists could only hope for. "On Sports," manages to be both hilarious and convincing in its indictment of sports as a haven for repressed longings, while "Ugly Girls" (my favourite story in the book) finds Clowes shredding American standards of beauty -- while revealing volumes about his own tastes. "Girls," in fact, is a sort of explanation for, and distant cousin to, his later Ghost World, and finally solves the mystery of why Enid is the one that wins our hearts every time. "Playful Obsession" sums up everything ridiculous about Harvey Comics while paradoxically creating a wistful nostalgia that had me aching for a stack of Ernie Colon-drawn Richie Rich comics.

Clowes is an artist who often creates variations on his favourite themes (hey, it worked for J.S. Bach) -- and those themes are in plentiful supply here. Perversion, deformity, contempt and mockery run like rivers through the book, and if you've ever liked any Clowes story, you'll find something of value in here.