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 Mood Comics.\n', '

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 hitting his head against a wall after seeing a cover of a Strange Adventures comic book that depicted a family dying of heat. Later, he received "piles of 1950s and 1960s classic titles like Archie and The Fantastic Four" from his older brother, who also introduced him to the work of legendary cartoonist R. Crumb.\n', '

Clowes\'s first professional work appeared in 1985 in Cracked, and he contributed to the magazine until 1989, working under a variety of pseudonyms, most prominently "Stosh Gillespie", and, toward the end of his tenure, under his own name. Clowes and writer Mort Todd co-created a recurring Cracked feature titled The Uggly Family. In 1985, Clowes drew the first comic to feature his character Lloyd Llewellyn. He sent the story to Fantagraphics\' Gary Groth, and his work soon appeared in the Hernandez brothers\' Love and Rockets #13. Fantagraphics published six magazine-sized, black and white issues of Lloyd Llewellyn in 1986 and 1987, and The All-New Lloyd Llewellyn, the final Llewellyn comic book, appeared in 1988.\n', '

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