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The cover of a 2005 reprinting

Ghost World (written from 1993 - 1997) is a set of comics stories by Daniel Clowes, usually presented as a graphic novel.

The comic centers the day-to-day life of Enid and Rebecca, two cynical, intelligent teenage girls who are best friends during the mid - late 1990s. They have recently graduated high school and spend their days wandering around their unnamed city criticizing pop culture and the people they encounter while wondering what they're going to do with the rest of their lives. They are attracted to boys, in theory, but also unhappily entertain the possibility that they might be lesbians. Their friendship is very close, but as the book goes on tensions between them build, especially over Enid's plans to move away to college. Eventually, the two girls go their separate ways.

Clowes describes the story as the examination of "the lives of two recent high school graduates from the advantaged perch of a constant and (mostly) undetectable eavesdropper, with the shaky detachment of a scientist who has grown fond of the prize microbes in his petri dish."^{[citation needed]} The story is presented in spot color.

Enid Coleslaw (her father had it legally changed from "Cohn" before she was born) and Rebecca (Becky) Dopplemeyer are two cynical, intelligent teenage girls who are best friends in the 1990s. They have recently graduated high school and spend their days wandering around their unnamed city criticizing pop culture and the people they encounter while wondering what they're going to do with the rest of their lives. They are attracted to boys, in theory, but also unhappily entertain the possibility that they might be lesbians. Their friendship is very close, but as the book goes on tensions between them build, especially over Enid's plans to move away to college. They also have a quiet friend named Josh; throughout the book the two girls enjoy teasing him, but they are also attracted to him and eventually a romantic triangle of sorts forms. Originally chronicled in Clowes' acclaimed comic series, Eightball, the full length graphic novel was first released in book form in 1997.

A scene in the middle of the story features Clowes (referred to as David Clowes) in a cameo, as a cartoonist that Enid admires and with whom she is infatuated, but finds creepy and a "perv" when she actually sees him. The comic ends with Enid and Rebecca separate; while they speak half-heartedly of "getting together sometime," the easy intimacy they once knew is long gone. Rebecca is now in a relationship with Josh and seems on her way to settling into a "normal" life, while Enid, having failed to get into college, is as much of a misfit as ever and finally leaves town alone to start a new life.

Some readers interpret the final scene as a metaphor for Enid’s suicide. This interpretation can be supported by a few subtle indications in the text: ‘Norman’ at the bus stop, the cemetery pictured in the table of contents, Enid’s hearse for sale, and a panel depicting Enid’s father and Carol looking very mournfully at an object not pictured. However, interpretation and significance is ultimately left up to each individual reader.

The novels were written in the early 1990s, and during the book's creation, Clowes moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and he has said that the town in the story is a visual combination of both places. Clowes drew some inspiration from The Peter Sellers movie The World of Henry Orient, in which two curious young girls stalk a middle-aged man who is having an affair. In the book, Enid and Rebecca are obsessed with various strange people in the neighborhood, including a couple they dub "The Satanists" and a psychic named Bob Skeetes.

Many readers have tried to interpret where the title Ghost World comes from, Clowes said it comes from something he saw scrawled on a building in his Chicago neighborhood. Some of the references in the book (Sassy, etc.) date the book very specifically to the '90s, which Clowes has said was intentional. He wanted it to date the way that throwaway cultural references in Catcher in the Rye root the novel in a time and place.

The series was a major departure for Clowes, who had previously populated Eightball with considerably more outlandish material. Clowes has said in interviews that he chose two teenage girls for his protagonists partly because he could use them to express his more cynical opinions without readers taking the characters as author surrogates.

With one exception, in which a small amount of yellow was included, the comics as they originally appeared in Eightball employed only two colors; the early chapters were in black and dark blue, then black and a lighter shade of blue later on, and black and light green for the final two chapters. The graphic novel reprint uses this light green and black color scheme throughout.

The character design also changed significantly during the original run of the story, with characters' faces becoming cleaner and less detailed, indicative of a shift in Clowes's changing aesthetic in all his comics, eschewing the minute facial details that had long been one of his trademarks, for more simplified designs. The character of John Ellis, for example, had significant shading and cross-hatching on his face in the original comics, where in the book he has a simpler, uncluttered design. Another striking example is a panel on the second page of the first chapter that shows Rebecca reading a magazine. In the original comic, her eyes and chin are shaded in, her hair reaches her shoulders, and she appears to be scowling. In the graphic novel, this panel was redrawn, softening and lightening Rebecca's features. Enid's appearance was also reworked in this panel, and in several others in the first chapter of the book.

The graphic novel includes five new drawings on the copyright, table of contents, aknowledgments, and other prefatory pages. These new drawings are tableaux of events in the characters' lives that take place prior to the story, including their high school graduation, and a graveyard visit, presumably either for Rebecca's parents (who are never seen or mentioned in the story, though the girl lives with her grandmother) or Enid's mother (who is similarly absent). Interestingly, the graduation scene, which shows the two girls in caps and gowns, and Enid giving the finger, was recreated in the film version.

As with Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, the chapters of the story were given names in the novel, and a table of contents was added to reflect this.

• The main character's name, "Enid Coleslaw," is an anagram of "Daniel Clowes".

• As a kind of coda to the book, Becky and Enid make a cameo appearance as old ladies in Clowes' Dan Pussey collection. Pussey is a self-important, nerdy superhero comics artist, and the book ends in the future as Pussey dies alone and unloved, with Becky and Enid as two bitter crones in his rest home going through his possessions. When they discover his stash of "silly books" (comic books), they wonder, "What would a grown man want with such foolishness?"

• Currently, 3 different versions of Enid are available in doll form. One from Fantagraphics with artwork by Clowes depicting Enid having various adventures, another "Little Enid" from the Eightball comic, and an Enid/Rebecca pairing with the likeness of voodoo dolls. The price ranges from USD$10-35.

• Clowes has said he chose the pale blue coloring for the book because he wanted to reflect the experience of walking home in the twilight, when every house has a TV on and the living rooms are bathed in a ghostly blue light.

• Clowes originally created the first chapter without any plans to continue it.

• Clowes made various changes to the artwork between the original issues and the book collection, perhaps most notably changing Becky's face early in the story so it more closely matches her appearance at the end.

• The song "Ghost World" from Aimee Mann's album Bachelor No. 2, with references to high school graduation and "bailing this town," appears to be inspired by the graphic novel.

• Hardcover Edition: ISBN 1-56097-280-7 Fantagraphics Books (December 1, 1997)
• Paperback Edition: ISBN 1-56097-427-3 Fantagraphics Books; 4th edition (April 1, 2001)

Film poster

The book was made into a 2001 movie, Ghost World, directed by Terry Zwigoff (also known for his award-winning documentary about underground cartoonist Robert Crumb). Thora Birch played Enid, Scarlett Johansson played Rebecca, and Steve Buscemi played Seymour (a composite character, based on elements from the comic characters of Bob Skeetes, Bearded Windbreaker, and Josh). Christina Ricci was at one time considered for the role of Enid, but by the time the project started to come together she had become too old for the part.