For the film see Art School Confidential (film)

Art School Confidential is a four-page black-and-white

Black-and-white

Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...

 comic

Comics

Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...

 by Daniel Clowes

Daniel Clowes

Daniel Gillespie Clowes is an American author, screenwriter and cartoonist of alternative comic books....

. It originally appeared in issue #7 (November 1991) of Clowes' comic book

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 Eightball

Eightball (comic book)

Eightball is an alternative comic book series written and drawn by Daniel Clowes. The first issue was published by Fantagraphics Books in 1989, soon after the end of Clowes's previous comic series, Lloyd Llewellyn...

and was later reprinted in the book collections Orgy Bound and Twentieth Century Eightball

Twentieth Century Eightball

Twentieth Century Eightball is a book collection of comics by Daniel Clowes published by Fantagraphics Books in 2002. It consists of numerous short pieces originally published in Clowes's Eightball , and other venues...

. It inspired the 2006 film of the same name. A color version of the comic was included in the published version of Clowes' original screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 for the film.

The comic is a satire

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 of American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 art school

Art school

Art school is a general term for any educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. The term applies to institutions with elementary, secondary, post-secondary or undergraduate, or graduate or...

s, presented in the manner of a sensationalistic exposé and ostensibly based on Clowes' own experiences at the Pratt Institute

Pratt Institute

Pratt Institute is a private art college in New York City located in Brooklyn, New York, with satellite campuses in Manhattan and Utica. Pratt is one of the leading undergraduate art schools in the United States and offers programs in Architecture, Graphic Design, History of Art and Design,...

. (The story is signed "By D. Clowes, B.F.A.

Bachelor of Fine Arts

In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...

" and a Pratt Institute diploma

Diploma

A diploma is a certificate or deed issued by an educational institution, such as a university, that testifies that the recipient has successfully completed a particular course of study or confers an academic degree. In countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia, the word diploma refers to...

 appears on a wall in one panel.)

According to Clowes in a 2006 interview, "Art School Confidential" was

literally something where I had four pages left (in Eightball 7) and I had to turn the issue in. I said, "Well, I'll do something about art school that will amuse my 10 friends who went." I really thought nobody else would comment on it or even notice. As it turned out, every single one of my readers was either in art school or had some affiliation with it. They all responded overwhelmingly (and) were all certain I had gone to the same art school they had. The story took on a life of its own for a while.… People would Xerox it and put it up on the bulletin board at school. Somebody else would take it from there and Xerox it again. There were rumors that it had been Xeroxed so many times that nobody could discern the art style anymore. It became a kind of folk art.

The "tampon-in-a-teacup trick" referred to in "Art School Confidential" appeared in the 2001 film version

Ghost World (film)

Ghost World is a 2001 comedy-drama film directed by Terry Zwigoff, based on the comic book of the same name and screenplay by Daniel Clowes...

 of Clowes's graphic novel

Graphic novel

A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...

 Ghost World

Ghost World

Ghost World is a comic book written and illustrated by Daniel Clowes. It was originally serialized in issues #11 through #18 of Clowes's comic book series Eightball, and was first published in book form in 1997 by Fantagraphics Books...

.

Quotes

• "If you must go to art school for God's sake make the most of it ... Seldom if ever again in life will you be afforded the chance to scrutinize such an array of losers in an environment that actually encourages their most pretentious inclinations!"
• "Remember, the only piece of paper less valuable than one of your paintings is a B.F.A. degree."