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''Ed the Happy Clown'' is a graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown. Its title character is a large-headed, childlike children's clown who undergoes one horrifying affliction after another. The story in is a dark, humorous mix of genres and features scatological humour, sex, body horror, extreme graphic violence, and blasphemous religious imagery. Central to the plot are a man who cannot stop defecating; the head of a miniature, other-dimensional Ronald Reagan attached to the head of Ed's penis; and a female vampire who seeks revenge on her adulterous lover who had murdered her to escape his sins. The surreal, largely improvised story began with a series of unrelated short strips that Brown went on to tie into a single narrative. Brown first serialized it in his comic book ''Yummy Fur'', and the first, incomplete collected edition in 1989, titled ''Ed the Happy Clown: A Yummy Fur Book''. Shortly after, Brown became unsatisfied with the direction of the serial; he brought it to an abrupt end in the eighteenth issue of ''Yummy Fur'' and turned to autobiography. A second edition titled ''Ed the Happy Clown: The Definitive Ed Book'' appeared in 1992 with an altered ending and most of the later parts of the series eliminated. The contents of this edition were re-serialized with extensive endnotes in 2005–2006 as a nine-issue ''Ed the Happy Clown'' series and collected as ''Ed the Happy Clown: A '' in 2012. The story is seen by many critics as a highlight of the 1980s North American alternative comics scene. Its has left an influence on contemporary alternative cartoonists such as Daniel Clowes, Seth, and Dave Sim, and has won a Harvey and other awards. Canadian film director Bruce McDonald has had the rights since 1991 to make an ''Ed'' movie, but the project has struggled to find financial backing. ==Background== Brown grew up in Châteauguay, Quebec, a Montreal suburb with a large English-speaking minority. He was an introverted youth attracted to comic books from a young age. He aimed at a career drawing superhero comics, but was unsuccessful in getting work with Marvel or DC Comics after graduating from high school. He moved to Toronto and discovered and the small-press community. By the early 1980s Marvel and DC had come to dominate comic-book publishing in North America, and comic shops became the main places of purchase, with a clientele of dedicated comics fans. During this time, a trend towards greater ambition and expressiveness was developing on the fringes, such as Dave Sim's long ''Cerebus'' series and the avant-garde graphics magazine ''Raw'' in which the serialization of Art Spiegelman's graphic novel ''Maus'' appeared. Brown was to find himself in the alternative comics scene that grew throughout the decade. Brown was feeling himself in a creatively stagnant period when he came across a book on Surrealism: Wallace Fowley's ''The Age of Surrealism'' (1950). The book motivated Brown to work on an improvised minicomic series which he called ''Yummy Fur'' and self-published from 1983. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ed the Happy Clown」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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