Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email


2020 January 17 • Friday

Gabrielle Bell's July diaries are so good that it's a shame we only get them once a year. Maybe we could lobby her to do another month in addition to July?

There's something inherently interesting about autobiographical comics but of course you're going to be more impressed by some than by others.

Gabrielle Bell is one of the best in the world, synthesizing comics' roots with its more recent developments and infusing the result with her precise observations of her unique inner and outer worlds.

Her latest is My Dog Ivy* and that asterisk is a brilliant touch that directs you to a small sub-subtitle, *It's Not My Dog.

The cover alone should encourage you to pick up the book. The use of color and space is extraordinarily exciting.

Inside is the story of Bell housesitting for friends of hers and taking care of their pets, particularly Ivy the dog.

The book presents, I believe, one comic per day of July, and miraculously Bell is able to make each page a stand alone story, all of them even with basically a set-up and a pay-off, perfectly structured.

Fans of her work will be relieved to find that she's still one of the greatest articulators of ambivalence, anxiety and longing that has ever put pen to paper.

And in addition to her brilliant linework, she's very funny.

If you haven't read her yet, now's the time!