<<•>>  edited by Alvin Buenaventura  <<•>>   This swellegant follow up volume to last year's The Art of Jaime Hernandez brings us up close and personal to the life and work of one of the most influential contemporary comics creators.  High resolution reproductions of his comics work – original art as well as in published form illustrate an in-depth look at his life and appreciation of his work by an all-star line-up on contributors assembled by former art comics publishing magnate, Alvin Buenaventura.   The ball starts rolling with an all-new interview conducted by Kristine McKenna.  This is followed by a forty page gallery of work from the Eightball Years, 1989-2004.  Next up is an appreciation of Clowes by fellow Chicagoan comics master, the one and only Chris Ware!  Ray Pride then writes about the relationship between comics and movies in David Boring.  Two critical appreciations of Clowes's 21st century work by Ken Parille and Susan Miller follow.  Chip Kidd closes out the book with an analysis of how graphic design figures into Clowes's storytelling.  Clearly, Clowes fans will be delighted by this hefty oversize hardcover designed by Jonathan Bennett and published by Abrams ComicArts.  Here's hoping that its hefty footprint and eye catching cover will combine to lure casual browsers into the Clowesian perceptual plane, where they can then discover for themselves that unique combination of intellectual insight and comics craftsmanship which opens the mind onto fresh vistas where the world is revealed from new perspectives, unleashing reconceptualizations of reality and the inescapable conclusions that follow, leading ineluctably to an uneasy transition to a new sense of the workings of the machinery of civilization, and then, finally, to one's place in the scheme of things.