David Chelsea in Love by David Chelsea

David Chelsea in Love Reviews

• 
  Hannah Garden

  Oh wow I haven't hated a book in a while, I kind of forgot what it feels like.
  
  I think I'm going to write about why I hated this?
  
  But not right this moment.
  
  For now I'll just say: I am a huge auto-bio nerd, and I *love* reading about relationships, which I sort of feel defensive about because I think people think I'm not smart or deep because of that being my favorite thing to read, but this book maybe illustrates for me what can be wrong with the genre, and maybe can soften my defenses against my perceived judgers, coz if this is what they think I'm into I'd be judging my dumb ass too.
  
  Guh.
• 
  Eli Bishop

  This odd little autobiographical book appeared during an odd little time in U.S. comics. The Art Spiegelman modernist gang was vying for respectability, and had good reviews and production values, but hadn't yet crossbred with the last wave of undergrounds to form today's small-press scene. Superhero publishers were coasting on the buzz from a few innovative books and timidly venturing into other genres. And then down in the weeds where no one looks but total geeks, there were a bunch of unconnected weirdos each with a black-and-white series in traditional flimsy comic format, each with a different idea of what alternative comics were. Many of these, even more than today, decided to write about themselves; Spiegelman's
  Maus was part of the reason, but
  American Splendor was lurking in the weeds before that, and
  Justin Green pioneered the "incredibly embarrassing confessional" version even earlier. Anyway, you could take this kind of thing in all different directions, rude or neurotic or hard-boiled, it all seemed like fair game. Some stayed in for the long haul and became important artists, like
  Julie Doucet and
  Chester Brown; some produced a brief run of memorable work, like
  Dennis Eichhorn; some just did one interesting thing and then more or less stopped. This is one of those.
  
  The book is about young David, aspiring illustrator in Manhattan from Portland in the '80s, pretentious and needy and horny, age 20 going on 45. (Autobio-review note: I first saw this book when I was 20 and in Manhattan, but after one look, I couldn't stand to read it; I identified too much, except he knew how to get laid a lot.) The "love" in the title is pretty much sex and arguments, with a series of careless and/or damaged women - almost everyone David knows is as selfish as he is, though some of them have a better grasp of the world. He bounces around between cities and beds and is constantly surprised by betrayals the reader sees coming a mile away, including his own. Once he gets into something like a feasible relationship, the book slows down and then leaves off in a hurry, with a postscript to let you know he's now wiser and married.
  
  This is all nearly as awful as it sounds, except that it's extremely well written and drawn, and funny - basically a compassionate-but-merciless satire of a particular floating world, a little like Martin Amis's
  The Rachel Papers and nearly as good, lacking only a plot. Chelsea has a great ear for dialogue, using it to sketch out the characters right away, and as obnoxious as they are, he gives you enough of their point of view to make it more than just "David vs. the Crazy Girls." And even without a plot, there's a good sense of time going by as other people in his crowd move on with their lives. It's all well supported by the art, which looked unusual then and still does: realistic and precise with a great individuality to the faces and bodies and environments, and skillfully laid out, but just unpolished enough to make it look like something made in an obsessive spree by a young guy not sure of what tools to use.
  
  In one funny scene that might or might not have been intended as self-satire, David tries to sell an early version of his comic to a magazine that's clearly supposed to be Spiegelman's Raw, and he can't understand why those snotty elitists won't publish his work. He doesn't get that they're just doing a totally different thing - his story would've looked ridiculously out of place in Raw. But there was a lot of that mistake going around then, the idea that "good comics" was just one big genre that would all fit together somehow. I'm glad it's not like that, and if misfit critters may hop out of the weeds with just one story to tell, I say bring them on.
• 
  Aneesa

  This review contains a lot of spoilers, and a long rant, which I admit that I wrote while on hold with my Internet "service provider."
  
  About halfway through this graphic memoir I was enjoying it because although it's gratuitous (I had to give up reading it on public transportation because it has too many sex scenes, but then, it does take place in the 80s) and frustrating, the writer showed so realistically how ridiculous he was at 21, 22, 23 (which is what made it frustrating). I felt like you could tell, by reading between the lines, by the irony (which he refers to in the text), that the author now has perspective. However, by the last few pages you learn that:
  
  1. he was actually writing the comic at the same time as the events were taking place, or very shortly thereafter, and
  
  2. he didn't have perspective.
  
  For instance, as the title implies, his character is in love with one girl throughout the novel, and because of the emotional roller coaster ride she takes him on, he prays for "indifference"--they constantly break up and get back together again and he longs for the time when they will break up and he'll be able to keep himself from wallowing and getting back together with her. Meanwhile, both when he's with her and when he's not, he has tons and tons of sex on almost every page of the book, with every female character he meets. When he finally realizes that he's "indifferent" to one of them, he rejoices as though he's experienced a miracle. His main love interest (who he has occasionally sought a monogamous relationship with, but inconsistently) seems to agree: when he tells her that he's dating two women at once (which he has basically been doing the entire book), she's shocked--could this be the David Chelsea she knows?!--as though he's changed. Even learned something. Neither of them have any understanding that he's been indifferent to everyone he knows, expect her, whom he never seems to get over (except in the epilogue, in which you learn he's now married to someone else).
  
  One of the reasons I was tricked into believing he was approaching the narration with perspective is that he realistically portrays a woman in an emotionally and physically abusive relationship, showing well the cyclical effects of it on her and those with whom she later tries to be involved. Of course he doesn't realize this at the time, being in his early twenties, but by the end of the book he still doesn't figure it out, instead coming to the conclusion that the reason she can love him one day and hate him the next "in perfect sincerity" is because she doesn't remember anything that's happened to them--she has no memory of her "mood swings." This false epiphany could have worked halfway or three-quarters through the book, but at the end it left me feeling like the book was more a reality show (about a narcissistic hypocrite at that) than a memoir, which necessitates reflection.
  
  Ironically, David Chelsea has since written another book actually entitled "Perspective," though he means that literally.
• 
  Patrick

  Incredibly lame, autobiographical graphic novel about a chode's infatuation with a really ugly girl. Dude, if everyone knows you're the main character, at least make the girl you're pining for hot.
• 
  Brendan

  Seemed more like lust than love to me. The ease with which people jumped into bed with each other was astounding. The primary relationship - David and Minnie - was half sex and half complaining about each other. I didn't really like any of the main characters. Certain minor characters were more likeable: a sister of David's, two of his friends.
  
  Chelsea could draw. But the writing was small and it often wasn't clear which box was next in order.
• 
  Newly Wardell

  have you ever been told in great detail about someone's sexual prime? its called David Chelsea in Love but it could have been I've had a bunch of sex yea for me. I'm so glad this kinda guy is from Portland. this is how one man views romantic love and i think thats the funniest part. his callous view of women includes menstruation and how it affects him. it's so self indulgent. but thats what i was expecting. Chelsea looked at the world and drew what was in a mirror. sucks because he is a truly great illustrator.
• 
  Amar Pai

  Very entertaining. After reading several love-memoirs from sad sack virginal cartoonists (cough Jeffery Brown cough) it was refreshing to read one from somebody who does get laid once in a while. This memoir is charming in its 80s-period-piece specificity, and Chelsea's on-again off-again relationship with Minnie is perplexing and fascinating in a train-wreck kinda way. Like most things in life, it's complex and not reducible to good guy/bad guy.
  
  I liked the sense of place this book gives you, for Portland especially. The cast of characters is interesting. Also, I enjoyed Chelsea's illustrative style quite a bit. It's a bit more formal than some of the other cartoon-love-memoirs I've read (e.g. "My Brain is Hanging Upside Down", Brown's books, "Box Office Poison", etc.) and I think the attention to detail really comes through. The story is communicated beautifully through carefully placed sequences depicting transit. I dunno, it just seemed better put together than these things usually are.
  
  I would recommend this as a stand-out in the genre. So weird that love-memoir-comics have become a genre!
• 
  Sara

  Chelsea's depiction of himself as both a lovesick romantic and a bit of a cad, plus a glorious absence of the cloying self-pity that can come with the autobio territory, made David Chelsea in Love one of the more interesting autobiographical graphic novels I've read. His somewhat hyperspecific focus on the words/actions of his friends and lovers never devolved into generalizations about the world at large (another plus)—or if they did, I was too enamored with the story to notice. I especially enjoyed his repeated mouthing off at the most emotionally inappropriate times. Always a comfort to know I'm not alone in that...
• 
  Lobeck

  David Chelsea in love is apparently an idiot. I didn't like a single character in this memoir. People behaved badly and treated each other poorly. And the story is pretty dull. On the up side, there was a fair amount of nudity and sex, always a plus. Chelsea also has some very interesting full- and partial-page layouts that really added a lot to the storytelling, though I didn't much care for the illustrations themselves.
• 
  Clay Cassells

  Cartoonist dates the most irritating woman imaginable and commits the experience to his strip in this narcissistic graphic novel. This confessional memoir becomes a grueling ordeal about halfway through, as I can only speculate this man's love life must have been back in the early 80s. I almost set this one aside (multiple times, actually), but pushed through in order to encourage you not to make the same mistake.
• 
  Robin

  Reading about David Chelsea's love life in his early twenties is painful. A lot of autobio love comics have sweet, humorous moments mixed in with the sad and "should've known better" moments, but this book is fairly bleak. Probably not something I would have finished were it not for how physically attractive Chelsea is in the steamier scenes.
• 
  Chris

  An engaging read, I enjoyed the way David Chelsea in Love didn't discriminate between its' protagonists; both David and Minnie seem equally awful throughout their courtship. By the end of this collection, much of the back and forth between the characters had become tiresome, but that's sort of the point, right?
• 
  D.M.

  This little gem is a lost item from the 80s/90s heyday of confessional comics. I was drawn to it by its truly lovely pen art, but the tales of Chelsea and his misfires in romance make for entertaining and occasionally angering reading.
• 
  Aliza

  Absorbing in that totally soap opera way, reminds me of Box Office Poison. The drawings really capture the characters and emotional twists of a single man's melodrama.
• 
  Noel

  meh. david is kind of obnoxious, so is minnie, none of their choices make sense, and (attempted) monogamy for people like both of them is a bad idea.
• 
  Adam

  Interesting, but ultimately limited by the subject matter, David Chelsea manages to show off a virtuoso style with some innovative narrative flourishes.