Pure Pajamas
Bell is a cartoonist’s cartoonist, not in the sense of being technically perfect but because his work sums up an entire tradition. Just as Mark Newgarden (We All Die Alone, 2005) brings big-nose gag cartooning to a giddy peak, Bell brings dream-journey comics to an acme of strangeness in this collection. Visual echoes of masters of the form—Winsor McCay (Little Nemo in Slumberland), R. Crumb, Jim Woodring (Frank), and others—are constant, and the spirit of E. C. Segar (Popeye) infuses everything; indeed, Bell’s newer stuff (from 2000 on) can seem to be a series of dazed, dazzling variations on the famous Popeye animation, Goonland (fine-art influence may come from Philip Guston’s late figural paintings). Early on, however, Bell essayed an art-brut style (see “Stupid Goddamn Shitty Day”) and told comprehensible if minimal stories. But the newer the piece is, the more some characters are ambulatory furniture and foodstuffs (especially sausages), and the less narrative sense it makes. Whether any of it’s funny is a matter of personal humorous taste. Weird good-looking, though. --Ray Olson