Bellen No. 5: Happiness is an Elusive Bastard
By Box Brown
Self-Published

Love has wrought some horrible things in the world of sequential art. Without unwavering explorations into the emotion, the form would be robbed of such groundbreaking works as The Family Circus, Ziggy, and, of course, Love is… Absent these essential entries into the canon, it’s hard to say where the medium might by now, but one thing certainly seems for sure, America’s cube-dwelling Troll Dolls would certainly be a lot lonlier.

Great comics, like any other art form, are supposed to be drawn from misery, right? So naturally, their creators must regularly wallow in their own misery. The logic follows, for the most part—Maus, Jimmy Corrigan, pretty much everything Dan Clowes has ever committed to paper—all of these works are seemingly born of misery, pain, alienation, or some combination thereof.

Box Brown, for his part, operates under the assumption it is, in fact, possible to separate love from schmaltz within the confines of the medium. It’s a bold assertion, to be sure, but the Webcomic artist has two clear allies and inspirations in his pursuit: Jeffrey Brown, who is capable of embracing in all of its syrupy glory when not lamenting its loss, and James Kochalka, who unflinchingly smears his canvas with large brushstrokes of the stuff.

The key for both Kochalka and Jeffrey Brown, of course, is the realization that the success of such portrayals hinges on the artists’ ability to also embrace its inverse. What ultimately makes the Ziggies of the world so unpalatable is their inability to realize that, in life, love does not, in fact, cure all. In fact the stuff has been known, from time to time, in certain circles, to cause as many, if not more, problems than it solves.

Jeffrey Brown, for his part, has embraced this concept by focusing as much, if not more on the failures of his relationships—in fact, such events more or less formed the basis of Every Girl is the End of the World for Me. Kochalka, by all accounts a happily married man, relies more on subtle goings on of his day-to-day life—small fights, stupid verbal slips, and the unexpected impact of external forces.

Bellen, which revolves almost entirely around a relationship (its name a portmanteau of its two primary characters)—Brown’s own online description describes the strips succinctly as, “a comic about a couple,” which largely rules out the Every Girl is the End of the World for Me approach. Instead, Bellen relies more on a method. There’s the occasional fight, some introspective bouts of worry on the part of Ben, and even the occasional nuclear holocaust.

Finding the balance between the two is something the Brown has grown into slowly over the years, and with this fifth book, he seems to be hitting a stride, along with a simultaneously tighter and more diverse visual style that has improved immensely since his early strips.

As its name implies, Happiness is an Elusive Bastard finds the artist acutely aware that love does not, in fact, cure all. Sure it seems to help an awful lot—Brown’s strips, ultimately, can’t help but be endearing—but hey, who can blame a guy for being that happy?

–Brian Heater