Ed The Happy Clown

Ed the Happy Clown is the title character of a comics work by Canadian cartoonist, Chester Brown. The dark, surreal and largely improvised story started with a series of unrelated short comics that Brown soon went on to tie together. Ed is a large-headed, childlike children's clown, who is subjected to one horrifying affliction after another.

The story is a dark, humorous mix of genres which includes vampires, pygmy cannibals, Martians, Frankenstein's monster and others. Prominent is its use of scatological humor, nudity, sex, body horror, extreme graphic violence and potentially blasphemous religious imagery. Central to the plot are a man who cannot stop defecating; the head of a miniature Ronald Reagan attached to the head of the protagonist's penis; and a female vampire who seeks revenge on her adulterous lover who murdered her to escape his sins.

Originally serialized in Brown's comic book Yummy Fur, it was eventually collected in two differing editions by Vortex Comics in 1989 and 1992. The contents of the second edition were re-serialized in 2005–2006 as a nine-issue Ed the Happy Clown series from Drawn and Quarterly with extensive end notes. This series and its end notes were collected by the same publisher in 2012.

The story has had a substantial influence on a number of alternative cartoonists, and has won a number of awards, including a Harvey. In 2005, Time placed it at #7 on its list of the 10 best English-language graphic novels ever. Canadian film director Bruce McDonald has had the rights since 1991 to make an Ed movie, but the project has struggled to get financial backing.