Page 45 Review by Jonathan
Collection of mostly new material from one of comics’ self-professed mildly neurotic and slightly depressed creators. Not quite up there in the excruciating ‘I’d probably rather not have known that but I’m glad you told me’ honesty stakes of say, Joe THE POOR BASTARD Matt, this is still a very amusing and simultaneously enervating look into the mind of a comics creator. Gabrielle perfectly captures the gently tortured soul of the OCD-afflicted procrastinator, we’re just fortunate that keeping a journal is one of her obsessions!
I wish I’d read the sections involving Anders BIG QUESTIONS Nilsen before he came to sign at Page 45 as I would have loved to ask him about his recollection of their conversations depicted here. I get the impression that if he’d been impolite enough to pro-offer an answer (which, knowing the mild-mannered, genial chap he is, I suspect he wouldn’t have), the response would have been ‘intense’. It’s alright though as I’m pretty sure that’s exactly the sense Gabrielle was intending to convey!
Unless you’re a serious aficionado and / or follower of her website, probably the only material in this collection you might have chanced across, if you were having a good forage in Mark’s alcove, is in her mini comic SAN DIEGO DIARY, detailing her experiences as an unexpected special guest (to her at least, she can’t understand why she was invited) at said Convention. I shall therefore, without further ado (other than the comment that I wish her publishers would get CECIL AND JORDAN IN NEW YORK STORIES and WHEN I’M OLD back in print forthwith) leave you with my review of that work...
“Those guys over there are discussing some movie rights deal. Everyone here is pursuing their fantasy, confined within this hypercapitalistic world...
“Is there anyone here who believes in creativity more than commodification? Who would walk away from the temptation and think for themselves?
“Like Alan Moore when he said, “I will not allow my name to be associated with this movie. This is not what I do.””
“Maybe only people who can afford to can make such a statement.”
“I don’t think so. I think somewhere in the world someone is happily drawing pictures in the sand on a beach and when the tide comes in and washes it away he draws a new picture the next morning.”
“That person doesn’t exist, capitalism reaches every part of the world.”
“I disagree, because I believe there is magic in the world.”
Ever imagine what a comic convention must be like for a lesser-known creator? For someone who isn’t one of the slavering fan-boy favourites? Well, wonder no more as Gabrielle Bell takes her friend Tom to San Diego to ‘enjoy’ the delights of Comic Con in all its gaudy glory. Insightful, amusing auto-biographical material finely pencilled in a style which is what probably Chester Brown would be exactly like after 6 beers. That is, of course, a compliment.
