Daniel Clowes on Creating <em>Wilson</em> and Translating Him to Screen
Daniel Clowes’s 2010 graphic novel Wilson was a masterful joining of two of its creator’s greatest talents—his blunt, savagely funny humor and his ability to elicit sympathy for the most outwardly miserable characters. Wilson is told in single-page vignettes, following its protagonist through his seemingly dead-end life as he strikes up irritating conversations with strangers, struggles to connect with various estranged family members (including a father, wife, and daughter), and dotes on his dog, the only creature on Earth he doesn’t have an embittered rant readied for.
Wilson might seem like an odd choice for a film adaptation because of its punchline-heavy narrative and intentionally choppy approach to storytelling (huge chunks of time often pass in between each page). But Clowes, who hasn’t written a film since 2006’s Art School Confidential (which was directed by Terry Zwigoff, who also made Ghost World in 2001 with Clowes), has returned to Hollywood with his irascible anti-hero, this time collaborating with the director Craig Johnson (The Skeleton Twins). As played by Woody Harrelson, the on-screen Wilson is a little more playful and charismatic than the character might seem on the page. But Wilson, which opens in theaters Friday, is still a singularly acidic work that tries to capture the dark humor, the misdirected passions, and the deep frustrations of Clowes’s character.
I spoke with Clowes about how he first created Wilson, then translated him to
