Lucky

In her graphic book, “Lucky,” Gabrielle Bell tells stories of her life as a struggling twenty something trying to make a living as a cartoonist in New York. I couldn’t help but draw parallels between Bell’s book and the HBO TV show “Girls” in that the stories aren’t glamorous, and the protagonists display what women in their twenties are really like as opposed to what they are portrayed as in mainstream media. Women in their twenties aren’t the self assured, oversexed socialites on “Gossip Girl,” they’re neurotic, struggling and overthink-y.

The stark imagery Bell uses is effective in the sense that the bare lines force the reader to pay attention to the storyline instead of being distracted by color or a perfect replication of reality. Bell herself notes other’s take on her illustrations in her vignette about her art teacher, whose emphasis is more on fine art and detail. In one of the panels in the story, he uses her as an example of what not to do.

The introduction to this book goes a long way in explaining the motives of the author. The fact that she put the introduction into comic form is even more genius. To say “My ambition was to do more than a comic diary. I’d take each day and make it into a story,” prepare the reader for stories that are more meditations on everyday life than they are outlandish or in possession of a perfect narrative arc.