Don’t know what it is about this Marco boy-o, he seems to be everywhere and nowhere, the disgruntled, disheveled nomad coming up behind you on the sidewalk. This book is a glorious mish mash o’ strips from his various serials, including Cardboard City from Halifax’s The Coast. Marc “Widow Maker” Bell leaps off the top rope, spewing forth his universe of sensitive sausage characters, although Shrimpy and Paul get short changed cause they have a book all to themselves (lucky bones!). Never mind, the extended family (Blimpy and Saul, Paul’s Texan cousin) make appearances instead. Always the dopplegangers with this one! It’s a veritable who’s who culled from the master’s imagination, including: Sue the Tooth, Ol’ Simp, Zine Boy and Zine Girl, Jimmy Society the miscreant rocker, Liam Baithwin-long as an aspiring rock journalist frustrated with the “P’tit Boojwah”, a house which is so bored it simply walks away, a band composed of pills which have a hilarious rock and roll overdose, and Big Boy who suffers from post-consumer guilt after sleeping with a prostitute. They sometimes narrate their own lives as if living in the third person, as in, “Jus hangin’ out in the old track pants lookin’ at my pretty nick-nack-o”. Any artist who can create a universe as chaotic, complex, original and funny as this one, and still remain quietly consistent deserves an ‘ol pat on the back. It’s like staring at your grandma’s nick-nick shelf while trying to control the emotional mood swings brought on by her expired pharmaceuticals, which you stole from her purse earlier. This book is goofy but strangely meaningful. (AB)
comic, 36 pages, $4, Marc Bell, Drunken Car Comics, 1016 Dalhousie Dr. London, Ontario, N6K 1M7