One of the nicest things one can say about an artist is that their work is confounding. It may seem like a backhanded compliment, but it expresses a willingness to engage because one senses that the message being broadcast is important. That feeling of bewilderment crops up time and again with Marc Bell. To describe his art as stunning is superfluous because of how obvious that is; it is the message that makes one pause, raising questions about whether one isn’t trying hard enough to get it.
Nothing in Bell’s world resembles our own, as anyone familiar with his collection Hot Potatoe (2009) will attest to. Like that mix of comics, drawings, mixed media, and reframed texts, Raw Sewage Science Fiction is an anthology of what he has been working on since. The tongue is still firmly in cheek, reiterating his earlier description of ‘fine ahtwerks’ that give free rein to a boundless imagination. More neologisms are coined, strange and wondrous new characters stand in for their creator, and there is still a healthy disrespect for narrative, chronology, or linguistics. It makes for an irreverent package that earlier fans will applaud even as new audiences scratch their heads.
There are many things that make Bell’s work compelling, not least his almost obsessive need to speak a language of his own making. It makes a reader or viewer put in a bit of effort and meet him at a level playing field whose boundaries have been set by him. It’s like being invited, temporarily, as a guest into an unusual world.
Bell is presumably aware of how overwhelming his work can be. In an interview conducted a decade ago, he said, “I’m working on some comics now, and I’m really trying to make them clearer, but it’s kind of a struggle for me, because my stuff ends up being a little confusing, no matter how I do it. I mean, that’s kind of the charm of it too.” That charm emerges not only from the quirky characters who people his stories, but from the recognition that this is an artist trying to give shape to a constantly shifting imaginary landscape.
Another interesting thing about Raw Sewage Science Fiction is how the real world of art galleries and installation art seeps into the aesthetic of an indie comix tradition, both of which are spaces that Bell has occupied for a while. It makes for an experience that is freeing, allowing him to step into stories in the guise of a character named Chop Salad, or use everything from grocery lists to in-flight magazines as backdrops for doodles, in a manner that makes one suspect he is making it all up as he goes along.
What helps are the appendices, where Bell slows down enough to explain some of the terminology, issue clarifications, and list sources, with an imaginary interview and pop quiz thrown in for good measure. It’s where we learn how his ‘Hoser-Glyphs’ came into being, for instance, based loosely on Maya glyphs but called ‘hosers’ because they were created in Canada, where the term refers to a foolish or uncultivated person.
Raw Sewage Science Fiction isn’t something to get through in a hurry. It is to be pored over and dipped into at will, which is when its many treasures start to reveal themselves.
Marc Bell (W/A) • Drawn & Quarterly, $29.95
Review by Lindsay Pereira
