Patience (2016) Signed First Edition Reference

Patience (Fantagraphics, 2016) is Clowes’s most ambitious work — a full-color, 180-page time-travel thriller about a man who travels back in time to prevent his wife’s murder. The book represents a dramatic departure from Clowes’s typically mordant, small-scale character studies: it is grand, emotionally direct, visually psychedelic, and structurally complex. Clowes worked on it for six years.

First Edition Identification

Fantagraphics hardcover, 2016. The distinctive neon-orange cover makes first editions instantly recognizable. First printing identifiable by copyright page.

Signed Copy Market Values

• Signed first edition: $40–$100
• Unsigned first edition: $15–$30

Patience represents Clowes working at the peak of his powers in a mode entirely unlike his earlier work. It has been called his best book by several critics and may eventually supplant Ghost World as the critical-consensus Clowes masterwork, though the market has not yet reflected that assessment.