It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken

Rating:
Summary: Whine and Cheese
Review: A "picture novella" ostensibly about Seth's investigations into the life and career of obscure cartoonist Kalo, It's a Good Life . . . is really an enormous, juvenile rant. Seth natters endlessly on his obsession with comics, his childhood, failed relationships, inability to cope with change, and hatred for hipsters (who he calls "phonies" but then calls himself "the biggest phoney of them all" in a transparent attempt to ensure that the reader doesn't hate him too much for it.) One feels sorry for Seth's friend Chet, who is an underdeveloped sounding board for Seth's angst, not unlike a second-class role on a daytime soap opera. The most telling line here is Seth's "actually, Chet, let's stop talking about this. This is a profoundly futile and stupid conversation." For those readers who are in college or never mentally left, this might be an interesting read. I hope the rest of us have gotten beyond it.

Rating:
Summary: Whine and Cheese
Review: A "picture novella" ostensibly about Seth's investigations into the life and career of obscure cartoonist Kalo, It's a Good Life . . . is really an enormous, juvenile rant. Seth natters endlessly on his obsession with comics, his childhood, failed relationships, inability to cope with change, and hatred for hipsters (who he calls "phonies" but then calls himself "the biggest phoney of them all" in a transparent attempt to ensure that the reader doesn't hate him too much for it.) One feels sorry for Seth's friend Chet, who is an underdeveloped sounding board for Seth's angst, not unlike a second-class role on a daytime soap opera. The most telling line here is Seth's "actually, Chet, let's stop talking about this. This is a profoundly futile and stupid conversation." For those readers who are in college or never mentally left, this might be an interesting read. I hope the rest of us have gotten beyond it.

Rating:
Summary: Travelogue with excellent strokes
Review: If you have read Joe Matt's incredible confession "Peep Show", you might remember his friend Seth's words "I'm working on an autobiographical comic book, but it's not finished yet...". Now here comes the comic, but in a very different style from Joe's (so Joe had no need to feel like part of some insidious TREND).

The story traces the life of an old cartoonist Kalo, and it wraps over Seth's own life. The drawing touch of the cartoons in good old era also wrap over Seth's style. We can see the trace of Kalo and old cartoonists not only in the story, but on Seth's joyful drawing touch on rain, trains, trees, hairs, wires, a kite, a bog roll, and even the smoke of cigarette. This comic is about how our thoughts move when we draw lines. Don't stick at a single frame or single sentiment in the depressed monologue. Feel how the sequence of frames and lines are traveling with the sentiment traveling, and you can notice here is a new way of travelogue.

Rating:
Summary: A moving, understated short novel
Review: In the 1990s, many non-superhero comics were autobiographical. Cartoonists told their own stories, revealing the details of their mundane habits, obsessions, love lives, and their work. Seth did it, too, in the second half of the decade, and his story is one of the most elegant and honest.

Taking his obsession with gag cartoons and newspaper strips as a jumping-off point, Seth tells his story about looking for meaning in a rapidly changing world. You get the sense that he's worried about being pretentious (or boring), so he spices things up with conversations with his friend Chester, dating a cute brunette, visiting his mother and brother, ice skating, and smoking lots of cigarettes. There's some travel and a little detective work, too.

The images are not always tied to Seth's thoughtful narration. At times, he gives you landscapes to look at while he writes about his life. This could be disorienting, but it works very well. The words and images create an emotional effect that wouldn't exist if he narrated what you were looking at. His style is a personal variation on gag cartoons from the middle of the century, which turns out to be the perfect style for Canadian cities and suburbs.

If you're looking for something special --- maybe you want to read non-superhero comics, or you want a short novel with a twist to it --- try this book. It's perfectly suited for adults who feel a little out of place in the world.

Rating:
Summary: Deeply involving
Review: Seth is one of my favorite comic artists today. He manages to combine a distinctly personal drawing style with an involving and timely storyline, in this series about a man (based on himself, presumably) who loathes the post-modern and seeks out the past through a 1950s New Yorker cartoon artist, whose work is an inspiration and source of joy. That's the basic plotline, but the story also involves the reader in the main character's personal thoughts and his relationships, how they sometimes lead to a life lived by his convictions, but often alone.

Rating:
Summary: Completely mundane; completely compelling
Review: This "picture novella" tells the true story of Seth's sporadic investigations into the life of an obscure cartoonist of the 1940's. There's nothing big or important about this tale. It's just Seth, who became interested in a trivial detail and followed up.

Seth's story arouses my sympathy. It becomes important to me because it's important to him. He meanders through his life, completely aware that he's lost and his quest is stupid, but what else is there to do? The world is going to hell and everyone's crazy; the only sane reaction is to seek out fragments of the past and find a pathway that somehow leads us back to before things went wrong. Seth is a comic book philosopher and wistful time traveler. As Seth himself admits, you've got to be something of a "navel-gazer" to appreciate his tale. If you're not, then stay away. But if you empathize with this quixotic pursuit, you may be glad you found this book.

Rating:
Summary: IRONICALLY HONEST
Review: this is definitely one of the finest graphic novels i've read. as the world is in a frenzy over the hype that is the new millennium, there is at least one man who dreads this passing of the old millennium. this man is no other than the author, seth (whose real name is gregory gallant).

this book (collected from his comic series palookaville) is about a world that is moving too fast, changing too fast and losing it's sanity too fast. it's about the author's meditation on the past, and his disdain and hopelessness in a world that has become too 'modern'. whatever happens to the charm of the old: old buildings with authentic architecture details, hand-painted restaurant signages, etc.

all this is told subtley through the author's search for a forgotten and obsure cartoonist who used to draw for the old new yorker magazine.

the book could make a grown man cry, and it will make you think twice before you decide to buy the next latest hi-tech gadget which you might not need.