Teacher resigns after giving 13-yr-old student copy of Eightball

A high school English teacher in Connecticut was forced to resign after the parents of a 13-year-old girl complained that he gave her a copy of Daniel Clowes' Eightball, a comic book published by Fantagraphics.

Daniel Clowes wrote the screenplays for Ghost World and Art School Confidential. His comics books often deal with adult subjects, but are PG-13, not "lewd" or "pornographic." He has also started a new weekly comic that appears in the New York Times magazine on Sundays called Mister Wonderful, which you can read online.

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The parents of a freshman student whose teacher resigned after he gave her a sexually explicit illustrated book said Wednesday their daughter has been the target of harassment from fellow students, and they want the school district to do more to clarify the issue with other parents.

The girl's father, who asked that his family remain anonymous because it has already been the target of criticism, described the graphic novel that English teacher Nate Fisher gave the student as "borderline pornography."

The book, one of a series of comic book novels by Daniel Clowes, is called "Eightball #22." It includes references to rape, various sex acts and murder, as well as images of a naked woman, and a peeping tom watching a woman in the shower.

"It's not even like a gray area," the father said. "It's clearly over the line."

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