Embarrassing Older Work, Part Two (concluded)
Here is the last of my showable work from ten years ago. This was the year 2000 in San Francisco, at the end of the of the “dot com boom.” There was also a “housing bubble”, and a lot of people I knew were getting evicted or priced out. As I had no interest in computers and lived in a rent-stabilized apartment, I was mostly unaffected by these things, and so had a lot of time to draw comics about all the incidental details of my life.
Oh, and comics were not the respected literary-artform then that they are now. So when people asked me what I meant to do with my life, this didn’t count. These comics were a secret I was both ashamed and proud of, which is pretty much how I feel about them still.
Next week I’ll be returning to my regular semi-real-time-semi-autobiographical-comics.
Just click on the image twice to make it readable.
Lucky 
I think you and I have a different definition of embarrassing. This stuff doesn’t have the flow your work has now, or maybe even then had in the stuff you were publishing, but there’s some great panels that are too delicate for your current work. Like on the first post the third row from the top and all the way to the right, where that light post breaks up the bubbles thats a knock out. I also love the frame where everyone has been knocked off the bike – that is an eerie shot. It looks like a bomb is going to drop from the sky.
Not to say that these pages as a whole are bad, you’ve just set your bar so high. gnight.
jesus
G,
I absolutely loved your drawings and depiction of Bob B…That was hilarious what he said about Jesse Austin…Of course JA is always looking for the line, so that he could cross it…I knew them both that summer at Upward Bound…I taught left-wing economics…You were not in the class, but mysterious Sadie was…You are such a wonderful artist…I could look at your stuff all day…I love your quiet sentiments, and heartfelt cartoon people…They make me want to cry, and smile, and get it up and do something with my life…You’re drawings of Bob are totally on target…And his non-stop talk sounded just like him…You have a wonderful gift…I particularly loved the panel of you in the sun hat, watering the cottage plants in your fantasy…I am in Vancouver BC, teaching eco at BCU…Tell Sadie she was right about the strudel…Rita…
I tell you what, Rita, you don’t better give that Austin an inch. He don’t know the truth when it rides with him on a motor bike. Glad to hear you got a gig in BC.
Bob! I was looking for you.
Thank you Rita! I’m glad to hear this. I will tell Sadie about the strudel.
Tell Sadie I took her advice about the ring I found in the grass up by Founders. I gave it to my mother on a chain to wear around her neck. She wore it for three years then lost it on a tourist ride in the Florida swamps. The next day she met her second husband. She loves him and they have been getting along great ever since. I can’t stand him, he owns three car lots and is a non-thinking republican.
Gabby, I can’t get over how accomplished you are as an artist and storyteller. I am still tickled at your description of Bob. Where de he end up, anyway?
I love the bicycle in the rain, also the eerie forecast of the horror of terrorism from the letter bomb joke and the housing market crash that is mentioned during the eviction!
dear gabrielle,
don’t know if you’ll see this; but you’re my favorite comic artist– one of my favorite artists/authors– period. your stuff’s always fantastic! i would read your so-called old, discarded, embarrassing, why-didn’t-i-just-throw-this-out stuff– i would read anything you do! you’ve got a spirit and beauty to your work that touches me very deeply. so, thank you very much for sharing your stuff with the world.
jim piper
Thank you so much.
Well, Gabby, I’ll have to say you got me in your literary sights pretty good. I wear contacts now, but it was fun following the old me in your autobio work of old timers. I’m doing a doc film now of theater group that travels, entertains and informs migrant workers of their rights. Keep in touch.