Gabrielle Bell

Named after a line from Tennessee Williams, Truth is Fragmentary is a collection of Gabrielle Bell’s autobiographical diary comics from 2010-2013, many of which were published online previously, including her yearly July Diaries. This is a great description of much of the web, particularly the fragments we share of our own lives on social media (whether reviews, pictures of food, or memoir comics) that may or may not reflect our true selves.

“For an impoverished cartoonist, I do an awful show more lot of international traveling,” Bell writes as she discusses the trips to Scandinavia, France, Switzerland, Colombia to promote her work, but her diaries also illustrate just hanging around her apartment reading or visiting friends, or using (or not using) the net. Discussing art with fellow comic writers, enduring awkward encounters with other people, forgetting things, eating with friends, daydreaming surreal encounters with zombies, bears, and alternate versions of her life, Bell shares her life in such an idiosyncratic way, I feel she is one of the most perceptive and affecting comic memoirists working right now.

Gabrielle Bell’s comics have always fascinated me and these are no different, they way that she can make the most banal aspects of day to day life interesting, or even beautiful, intimate and yet distant. I find much that resonates; as Bell reads the difficult works of the Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne, she shares this quotation, “I make silly and stupid remarks unworthy of a child, I have a dreamy way of withdrawing into myself and a dull and childish ignorance of common things,” (very familiar sounding sentiments) marveling that 16th century nobleman could have such identifiable ideas. Reading such things illustrates what is so fascinating about autobiography and reading, seeing how another person lives, thinks, and feels, what is different and what is the same. Bell wrestles with the contradictions of being a very private person who blogs and publishes very personal journals, sharing them online, the most public of venues. As she struggles to express in a panel in Colombia, the internet can be a contradictory place to share for writers and artists, hoping to put their work into the world but can also drain energy from other projects with real resonance.

There is much I identify with in Bell’s works, yet also much that seems guarded, unstated, both as she relates to her reader and to the other people in her life. How does one share one’s unique perspective yet make it accessible to others? How does our act of writing autobiography change us, and how does our act of reading other people’s? Is it easier to understand people through books than through interaction? As Bell expresses in her July 15th 2013 comic, interacting with other people can be exhausting, painful. As an introvert, I know this as well and I often feel like withdrawing from “other people tell me who I am supposed to be, other people tell me what reality is.” Does the internet allow one to escape more easily or does it trap one in constant connection?

In a way, my reviews are all autobiographical as well, as I try to reflect and define myself through the books I read, and the reactions and feelings I get from them. As Bell reads the work of Montaigne, or as I’m currently reading (aloud to myself) the difficult, intriguing poems of Robert Burns, I try to connect myself with the world through the lives of other people. Now, I attempt to share some of these ideas, in a little way, with others. show less

“The Voyeurs,” a series of memoir and semi-autobiographical comic stories by Gabrielle Bell spanning 2007-2010, may be my favorite collection of her work I have read so far. From her trips to France and Japan to her Brooklyn apartment to her encounters at Comic Con, Bell’s understated brand of melancholic, self-deprecating, and extremely humane humor is a masterful examination of the awkwardness of daily life and the human condition. Her art and writing is so adept at capturing show more expressions and feeling, and I especially love her use of slight magic realist elements (though this is a bit less prominent in “The Voyeurs.”) As a fellow introvert who simultaneously wants to meet people while staying in my apartment all weekend, I found much to ponder and to empathize with. I feel the title is very appropriate for semi-autobiographical memoir comics like Bell’s, as the readers get such an intimate, thoughtful look into the thought processes and life of another person, I find it very insightful. show less

I can't stand to be alone and I can't stand company.

I began reading Gabrielle Bell's online diary comic “Lucky” a few years ago, and had been meaning to seek out her books for some time. The other day while racing around the library tracking down all the books on my list, I saw this most recent graphic novel of hers out on display. I snatched it up immediately, thus vindicating my frustrating second trip in a row to the third floor. Although this does reprint some of the strips from the show more online comic, there is a wealth of additional material I hadn't read and it's nice to read it all packaged so nicely into one hardcover volume.

From the outsider's perspective, it would appear that Bell has a good life. She makes enough money to live off of her art (though clearly not as much as she'd like), which I'm pretty sure is the dream of most cartoonists, as I think it probably is of many writers, too. She lives in Brooklyn, where all kinds of cool stuff is constantly happening. And she has a circle of seemingly supportive friends. However, if we are to believe her autobiographical comics, Gabrielle Bell lives perpetually on the brink of an existential crisis. She constantly doubts her abilities and struggles with anxiety and depression. She is simultaneously drawn to and repelled by people (a problem that I can certainly sympathize with). This can make daily life difficult, and often makes one question one's ability to successfully navigate through life. She also likes to hide out in her apartment, becoming easily overstimulated on the city streets. When her friends try to console her, she is often inconsolable:

I don't want to go outside! Inside, outside, it's all the same, it's all ugly.

However, for someone who claims to hate moving around and prefers to stay in one place, Bell also seems to travel a lot. In this book, we see her on extended stays in both Japan and France. During the course of a long-distance relationship, she also ping-pongs back and forth between the East and West Coasts of the U.S. In fairness, during these trips she does frequently hide in her room and generally avoids sightseeing. Most of her travel also appears to revolve around promoting her comics, and probably seems unavoidable to her, given her complete dependence on her art for a livelihood.

In the pages of this book, there is always this constant push and pull between Bell's urges to get out in the world and her equally strong urge to retreat from it. She'll go out dancing one night but then spend weeks without leaving her apartment. As Aaron Cometbus declares in the introduction, Bell's true nature remains elusive and enigmatic, which is what keeps the reader reading, as we are always thinking that maybe in a few more pages we'll figure out her mystery. But such is not to be the case. Like all good writers of autobiography, Bell knows exactly how much to include in her pages and how much to leave out without completely giving herself away. She deftly plays on the sympathies of her readers without sounding whiny or too self-involved. There is a great art to this that so many writers fail to pull off. But with her it seems effortless.

There is not a lot of happiness or joy in this book. An undercurrent of sadness runs through it from start to finish. The epilogue is heartbreaking and when I finally closed the book I felt distraught. I was reminded once again of how people's lives often appear different from the outside, how all “success” in life is relative, and that we are all struggling in our own ways to come to terms with our own limitations. show less

An autobiographical notebook about an artist struggling to make ends meet in New York, while suffering self-doubt about her own work and the various low paid jobs she works in. I found it a fascinating glimpse of the life of a working artist. Her jobs were all related to her work like space junk is to an astronaut: life model, artist's assistant, jewellery assembler, freelance illustrator, art tutor; none of them what she really wants to be doing. Meanwhile she struggles with her own show more projects, her sense of isolation, her various housemates and bedsits. Her boyfriend Tom and many of her friends are similarly working poor artists in NYC. Hers is an uncertain existence, but she has an eye for observing odd social situations with gentle humour. show less