[photo courtesy of impossiblebooks.com]
Belly Wot Leaflet! 2012: Knoze Clippah! Edition & Belly Wot Leaflet! 2013: Cowabunga Schnauzer: Special Large-ish Edition
Comic, Marc Bell, Half-World Books, [email protected], $5 for 2012, $10 for 2013
Marc Bell is a respected dude. He’s been at this for a while, has a string of renowned self-published comics under his belt, and has edged into the world of “fine art” as well. So his reputation may precede him, but I hadn’t actually seen any of his work until I got these two issues of Belly Wot Leaflet!
These are cover-to-cover cartoon psychedelia: bright, creamy-paletted panels featuring squared-off heads, or heads-within-heads, gangly, humanoid bodies and smatterings of magazine collage. Each manlike head and face is an anatomical juxtaposition with classic comic strip features, but overcome and surrounded by creeping psychotropic strangeness. While tightly composed, there’s an acid-tinged quality to everything in here: random slogans and Windows PC references frame smiling, skinless faces; mistletoe ripped from a magazine’s pages is squirmed upon by an intestine with cartoonish eyes. Each piece is jointly adorable and unnerving.
The half-size 2012 edition is printed on flat finish white paper, each page a distinct piece. The larger print 2013 edition is on glossy magazine paper, helping the colours pop much more, and features the four-part “Headcase Dept.” series (featuring more of the aforementioned heads-within-heads).
Each of these invokes disoriented awe. These are incredibly detailed, engrossing and expressly weird works. Definitely check them out. (Joshua Barton)