Character of the Week: Enid Coleslaw

This week's character of the week is my all-time favorite comic book character, Enid Coleslaw. Daniel Clowes' Ghost World is my favorite graphic novel and I have read it dozens of times. I actually have two copies of it, I have the normal copy, and the special edition copy with the screenplay that I got signed by Clowes at Fantagraphics! I also have a few issues of Eightball, so I guess I have three ways to read Ghost World.

I just love Enid because while she is very clever and funny, she is also flawed and seems like she could be a real person. Shes sort of like the girl who you really want to be friends with, but once you are friends with them you can't really stand them. I also just love her relationship with her best friend Rebecca. She sees herself as somewhat superior to her, and yet the two of them have this somewhat possessive relationship with eachother.

 You are always seeing the two of them together, and even when you don't, they seem to be talking about eachother. Enid is definitely the more dominant one in the friendship, and she is the one that realizes that they don't need to be friends forever, and she really starts seeing this when she is applying to college. Enid always acts like she doesn't care what people think, even though deep town she really does. This really shows when she changes out of her punk look after talking to Johnny Apeshit, and when she sells her car after people, like Rebecca, make fun of it, calling it a "goth dorkmobile."

In the 2001 movie version, Enid is played by Thora Birch, who does an amazing job. She is great at the sarcastic and bitch sides of Enid, as well as the vulnerable and lonely sides as well. Even though I do love Thora in the role, I am curious about how the movie would have turned out with Christina Ricci, who was originally going to play Enid. I think that she would have been fantastic in that role and I was really excited to see a drawing that Daniel Clowes did of her as Enid.

Anyways, Ghost World is one of my favorite movies, and a good chunk of the reason I love it is because of Thora Birch's portrayal of Enid Coleslaw. Here are some of the best scenes in the movie.