David Boring

April 14, 1961

Clowes was born in Chicago, Illinois, to an auto mechanic mother and a furniture craftsman father. His mother was Jewish, whereas his father was from a "reserved WASPish Pennsylvania" family; Clowes's upbringing was not religious. In 1979, he finished high school at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, where he earned a BFA in 1984. It was at Pratt that he met and befriended fellow cartoonist Rick Altergott, with whom he started the small-press comics publisher Look Mom Comics. According to Clowes scholar, Ken Parille, the cartoonist had an early response to a "graphic" comic when, at age four, he burst into tears and began h…