Stroppy

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By Mark Bell. Published by Drawn & Quarterly. Hardcover, 64 pages, Colour, 2015. The first full-length graphic novel from the author of Shrimpy and Paul: Who will win the All-Star Schnauzer Band song contest? Enter the strange and wordplay-loving world of the cartoonist and fine artist Marc Bell (Shrimpy and Paul, Hot Potatoe), where the All-Star Schnauzer Band runs things and tiny beings hold signs saying "It's under control."Our hapless hero, Stroppy, is minding his business, working a menial job in one of Monsieur Moustache's factories, when a muscular fellah named Sean blocks up the assembly line. Sean's there to promote an All-Star Schnauzer Band–organized songwriting contest, which he does enthusiastically and at the expense of Stroppy's livelihood, home, and face. Hoping for a cash prize, Stroppy submits a work by his friend Clancy the Poet. Mishaps and hilarity ensue, and Stroppy is forced to go deep into the heart of Schnauzer territory to rescue his poet friend.Stroppy is Bell's triumphant return to comics; it's also his first full-length graphic novella, one that thrums with jokes, hashtags, and made-up song lyrics. Densely detailed not-so-secret underground societies, little robots, and heavyweight humdingers leap off the page in full color. With Stroppy, Bell continues to explode the divide between fine art, doodling, and comics. “[Bell] charges full speed ahead toward a strange land of hallucinations and absurdity. [Readers] will howl at his relentlessly ingenious words and images.” —The Miami Herald“There's a fuzzy line between comics and fine art, and Marc Bell is determined to doodle all around it . . . [with] his absurdist tableaux.” —The Globe and Mail Show more