July Diary

by Gabrielle Bell

July is the seventh month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It's a warm month. On average, it's the warmest month in the Northern hamisphere. It's also the month Gabrielle Bell decided to do a comic every day. 31 days, 31 comics. Why did she do this? You'll have to read the comic to find out. The book comes with several pages of Gabrielle's process comics.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics

40 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2012

About the author

Gabrielle Bell was born in England and raised in California. In 1998, she began to collect her “Book of” miniseries (Book of Sleep, Book of Insomnia, Book of Black, etc), which resulted in When I’m Old and Other Stories, published by Alternative Comics. In 2001 she moved to New York and released her autobiographical series Lucky, published by Drawn and Quarterly. Her work has been selected for the 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011 Best American Comics and the Yale Anthology of Graphic Fiction, and she has contributed to McSweeneys, Bookforum, The Believer, and Vice Magazine. The title story of Bell’s book, “Cecil and Jordan in New York” has been adapted for the film anthology Tokyo! by Michel Gondry. Her latest book, The Voyeurs, is available from Uncivilized Books. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
(source: http://gabriellebell.com/contact/)

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

These daily diary comics are funny, well-drawn, beautifully written little narratives. Bell decided in July of 2011 that she would do one entry per day for that entire month - generally one page each in a six-panel grid format, though a couple entries go longer. I've recently started doing my own diary comics (albeit on a much more sporadic basis), and I can appreciate how difficult it must have been for Bell to produce these on such a daunting schedule, even without an apparent regular day job. But she totally pulled it off - moving from the mundane events of life to often completely out of the blue flights of fancy, (esp. love the “Ghost cats” panel which concludes one strip)- and doing so with grace and style. There's also I find, a rather mysterious quality to the author. Even though she is writing about her personal life here, there's a sense that there are aspects of her inner life that remain unto herself. This is not a deficit, however, and in fact adds an alluring, almost opaque quality to these vignettes.

I have to mention also my special love for the physical aspects of this book: a slim (just 40 pages), jewel-like paperback with the thinnest binding and good quality paper that is a pleasure to hold and read. What can I say, I just love itty-bitty little cartoon books (one of the reasons I’m also a fan of the Big Plans series by Aron Nels Steinke). In form and content July Diary is a perfectly executed production.

[JC · Rating 3 out of 5]

I cannot remember if I bought this at Quimby's or AlleyCat but I have found it two years later during December in quarantine. It's nice to read something about warmer times in the winter. Well drawn and very self-aware; I really love this concept though I imagine it's really challenging to keep coming up with narratives daily. I can't even keep up when I say I'll journal for a month in a row. I like that it included the process comics, I'm not an artist but I read a lot of graphic memoir and liked to see what things look like when they first come out of someone's brain.

[2020 Popsugar Reading Challenge #21 - A book published the month of your birthday]

[Emilia P · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am pretty sure I read this. But just pretty sure. I may have read it in July. Gabrielle Bell, I love how mopey you are, and I marvel at how you get anything done, but am glad that you do! An inspiration to me, certainly. :)

[shirley · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up to 4 because I liked the concept, a lot.