I, like many others, always thought Hollywood was a shithole. An endless mass of trash and homeless, a place I never thought I would live, even on the outskirts. I thought this of L.A. before I moved here. That it was all the same, a gigantic sprawl of crap…And it is in some ways…But not in others…L.A. is not super walkable, but strolling around a neighborhood or city is the only way to truly experience it. Part of the problem is, in most areas of L.A., you either don’t want to walk around or there’s nothing much to see…Or both…Or you just become so accustomed to the lifestyle here you end up like all the other saps here and just drive everywhere.

I decided to break out of this a couple days ago and go for a nice walk to the comic book store down the street from me. A gorgeous November day. I cut through a swath of Hancock Park first, from Rossmore down Clinton then, blocked by the golf course, up Wilcox to Melrose. From Western all the way to Fairfax, Melrose provides something to see. For comparison, think of it as a mini version of Broadway in New York. Shops lining both sides of the street, people walking, and swaths of blocks which can sometimes all align. For example I walked a portion of it between Orange and Sycamore the other day that was all art galleries. Go further past La Brea and you get lots of restaurants and weird shops.

My goal that day was to go to Golden Apple Comics at the corner of La Brea. This is something I did often as a kid. Allowance firmly in hand, I would go for a walk to Earth Prime Comics in my hometown, Burlington, VT. Seven days of chores granted me five bucks which I would promptly spend on 5 or six comics. Most of them were $.75 back then. Still newsprint, but I remember Wolverine being $1.25 and being printed on glossy paper.

My goal the other day was just to go and peruse, perhaps to capture some essence of past magic, of my former self wanting to be a comic book artist but when given the opportunity, never going all the way. I browsed a bit, but the typical superhero stuff doesn’t interest me much anymore. Even the endless rolodex of Marvel movies has gotten tedious over the years.

As I went through the aisles, I came across the “fiction” section and there it was, Monica by Daniel Clowes. Another of his big hardcover releases, this one from 2023. I had no idea he had even done anything as of late. I plucked it and bought it and walked it home feeling that same type of energy I did as a young boy walking home with my brown paper bag full of comics. A sort of uninhibited joy and anticipation.

Daniel Clowes started off doing a comic called Eightball which spawned a couple of movies during the height of his popularity, Ghost World and Art School Confidential and a little later, Wilson. I’ve never had to sit and describe his work but if I were pushed I would have to say it’s fantastically odd at times and funny at others. His work, A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, published in Eightball, is one of the oddest stories ever written and drawn and then in pure juxtaposition many of his other stories, starring characters like Dan Pussey, are just hilarious. His past couple of big releases have been more about one single person and can either be straight down to earth (well, ish) like Wilson or Ice Haven or totally off the wall and whacky like The Death Ray and Patience. Monica sits a bit in the middle but remains a very Clowes esque story which is at times depressingly sad, funny, and just plain weird but his best trait is his ability to capture, via the medium of “sequential art,” the human condition as well as any great fiction writer and what I mean by that is there is a lot to be interpreted between the lines that the reader’s mind works at without anything ever having to be said. It’s truly phenomenal stuff if you ever give it a chance.

To me, walking around the neighborhood, especially a great neighborhood like the good stretches of Melrose, gives me another view of L.A., of Hollywood. Like I said before, I always envisioned Hollywood as this massive shithole, and in many parts it is, but now to me it’s a place where I can walk and discover. Shit, just about five blocks down the street is another comic shop called Mega City One (great reference) and if I have the time I’ll make the trip.