The
Well-Dressed Bear Will (Never) Be Found
Jarod Roselló. Publishing Genius, $14.95 paperback
(210p) ISBN: 978-0-9906020-4-0
In
Sandra Beasley’s poem, “To the Lions,” the speaker exhorts the lions to find
their true feral nature: “Time to stop lifting the wallet/ from the corpse’s
pocket./ Time to gather your most/ fuckable queens.” At the end of the poem, she delivers one last
command: “Stop this kitty kitty nonsense,/ this apologetic yawning./ Show us
why your tongue/ is covered in hooks.”
In the wake of Cecil the lion’s shooting by the now-internet-famous
dentist, and the subsequent backlash against prioritizing animal deaths over
human deaths (especially POC deaths), The
Well-Dressed Bear Will (Never) Be Found fits in perfectly.
There are two parallel
narratives in The Well-Dressed Bear Will
(Never) Be Found: the text, which tells the story of a persistent wrong
number, and the artwork, which tells the story of the Well-Dressed Bear’s
persecution. Although seemingly
separate, they occasionally merge within the artwork. The wrong number that rings, again and again,
evokes Murakami while the menacing streets filled with hooded figures and
helicopters beaming searchlights evoke a kind of noir/sci-fi mystery. Rosello does an excellent job in finding the
strange in the ordinary and making the unfamiliar familiar.
Though seemingly
disparate, both narratives do have thematic resonance. They both explore the complex issue of
identity, often through the lens of mistaken identity: the Well-Dressed Bear is
not Jonathan and does not know Jonathan, as the woman on the other end of the
phone insists, and the Well-Dressed Bear is not the criminal bear plastered on
billboards that the vague mob-like police are hunting. And yet, both the woman on the phone and the
police-mob are insistent, beyond all reason, that he is. Similarly, the Well-Dressed Bear, feeling the
negative stigma against bears in this world, occasionally puts on a mask that
turns him into a passing human—one that can walk through the world without the
tell-tale accent “which earned him years of teasing and bullying as a cub” or,
of course, without the furry face.
Both narratives also explore
our search for connection. In the text
narrative, the woman is seeking Jonathan, who may or may not be alive, who may
or may not actually exist, and through her varied emotions—anger, sadness, desperation—what
she truly seeks is connection. The
moment she thinks she is speaking to Jonathan, all she says is “I found
you. I found you.” And the Well-Dressed Bear, once he escapes
the police-mob (the title, after all, is true), finds a connection with an
unlikely group.
A couple of real-world
parallels spring to mind: the author, a self-identified Cuban-American,
explores the difficult nature of existing in a country that routinely
stereotypes and stigmatizes Hispanics. The
bear, after all, is not just a bear—he is a well-dressed bear, a respectable bear. Plus, the hooded figures look like aliens
wearing hoodies, and though initially figures of fear, they are ultimately the
catalyst for the Well-Dressed Bear’s search for identity and his place in the
world. The hoodie, from protests for
Trayvon Martin to the cover of Citizen by
Claudia Rankine, has become a powerful symbol for the growing #blacklivesmatter
movement.
Though a short read, as
most comics are, The Well-Dressed Bear
Will (Never) Be Found can withstand several readings, which is the
testament to a well thought out and layered book. Spend some time with a well-dressed bear in
this engaging and enigmatic tale. (August 2015)
Purchase The
Well-Dressed Bear Will (Never) Be Found HERE.
Reviewer bio: Melissa Reddish is the author of The Distance Between Us (Red Bird
Chapbooks, 2013) and My
Father is an Angry Storm Cloud: Collected Stories (Tailwinds Press,
2015). Her stories, poems, and reviews have appeared in print and online
journals. She teaches and directs the Honors Program at Wor-Wic Community
College on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. When not writing or teaching, she
likes to do stereotypical Eastern Shore things, like eat crabs smothered in Old
Bay and take her Black Lab for long walks by the river.
