Truth is Fragmentary: Travelogues & Diaries

by Gabrielle Bell

Overview

Cartoonist Studio Prize Shortlist 2014

For an impoverished cartoonist, I do an awful lot of international traveling.

Raw, bare-boned, scathingly funny dispatches from the renowned comic diarist Gabrielle Bell, with biting cultural commentary mixed with her signature introspective, self-deprecating humor, and surreal digressions (from car-driving bears, through Zombie Apocalypses, to cute babies, and . . . more bears!) as she visits France, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Colombia, back to Brooklyn, and finally landing in upstate New York. In Truth is Fragmentary Gabrielle Bell proves she can be . . . funny!

Gabrielle Bell was born in England and raised in California. Her work has been selected for the 2007, 2009, and 2010 Best American Comics and the Yale Anthology of Graphic Fiction, and she has contributed to McSweeneys, Bookforum, the Believer, and Vice. The title story of Bell's book, "Cecil and Jordan in New York," has been adapted for the film anthology Tokyo! by Michel Gondry. Her latest book, The Voyeurs, was selected as one of the top five graphic novels of 2012 by Publishers Weekly. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780988901452
Publisher:	Uncivilized Books
Publication date:	07/01/2014
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	16 Years

About the Author

Gabrielle Bell was born in England and raised in California. Her work has been selected for the 2007, 2009 and 2010 Best American Comics and the Yale Anthology of Graphic Fiction, and she has contributed to McSweeneys, Bookforum, The Believer, and Vice Magazine. The title story of Bell's book, "Cecil and Jordan in New York" has been adapted for the film anthology Tokyo! by Michel Gondry. Her latest book, The Voyeurs, was selected as one of the top 5 Graphic Novels of 2012 by Publishers Weekly. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Editorial Reviews

★ 05/05/2014
Bell’s self-deprecating and intimate tales about living in New York and traveling to comics events around the world present her life unvarnished: knowingly hilarious without contrivance or self-consciousness. Bell is an exceptional cartoonist (even when she’s apologizing, in panel, for her inability to mirror the proper “look” of a person) whose dexterity with figures and body language illuminates her own nonadventures and insecurities. Her use of tiny ink-washed panels on an eight-panel grid provides a firm foundation even when magical realism invades. Her tales are both mundane in origin and full of wonder—often on the same page. The panels brim with detail, capturing Bell’s uneasy confusion in a foreign country or an awkward situation, mixed with flights of fancy (a talking bear, a baby-in-a-box delivery, “catbackriding”). In one brilliant four-page sequence, Bell escapes from a bathroom she’s locked in with comic urgency fueled by her discomfort with the party outside. Refreshingly revelatory and charmingly accessible, this book follows up the previous autobiographical comics Lucky and The Voyeurs and easily solidifies Bell’s reputation as one of the greatest autobiographical cartoonists working. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"Refreshingly revelatory and charmingly accessible, this book follows up the previous autobiographical comics Lucky and The Voyeurs and easily solidifies Bell’s reputation as one of the greatest autobiographical cartoonists working."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"Bell's work is bursting with heart. Her keen eye for detail and empathetic, introspective voice results in comics that are joyful, unexpected and often refreshingly hilarious."—Huffington Post

"[Gabrielle Bell's] comics brim with unpredictable, incisive observation, as she records not just the humming details of daily existence, but the fancies that fill life’s lulls as well."—The Globe and Mail

"[Gabrielle Bell's] work is strong because of its writing — this includes the way she structures a story from panel to panel. The tone is conversational, self-amused, unstressed and assuredly improvisational, like watching an excellent cook throw a meal together from what’s already on hand in the kitchen."—Paste Magazine

"As a collection of slices from a cartoonist’s life – including cameos by virtually anyone who is anyone in indie comics – Bell is personable and funny and there is no requirement to go further in order to enjoy her work. But the pleasure of Bell is that there’s so much that lies further if you want to delve beyond the amusing awkward conversations."—The Comics Journal

"[Gabrielle] Bell’s raw assemblage of international travel episodes, perpetual introspection, and examination of her own comics (within her own comics) is both absorbing and funny."—Hyperallergic

From the Publisher