cover image Stroppy

Stroppy

Marc Bell. Drawn & Quarterly, $21.95 (64p) ISBN 978-1-77046-205-2

Canadian cartoonist Bell steps back into the comics world after spending time focusing on the fine art pursuits that populated his 2009 collection, Hot Potatoe. This volume marks Bell's first graphic novella, but in many ways the book takes on a long form comic strip-like framing, right down to the title text at the top of each page, which offers contextual exposition. Stroppy maintains the familiar, old timey cartooning style that defined Bell's signature work, Shrimpy and Paul, combined with a love for goofy word play and progressively more complex scenery as the pages fly by. In fact, one suspects that Bell is, at times, less interested in his book's central plot involving a songwriting contest than in finding excuses to construct surrealist anthropomorphic Rube Goldberg machinery. Thankfully, the scenery is plenty interesting by itself. (June)