Books by Seth
Wimbledon Green: The Greatest Comic Book Collector in the World
by Seth
From the critically acclaimed cartoonist of Clyde Fans and It's A Good Life comes a humorous graphic novel on the obsession of comic-book collecting.
Taking a break from the serialization of his saga Clyde Fans and the design of The Complete Peanuts, critically acclaimed cartoonist and illustrator Seth creates a farcical world of the people whose passion lies in the need to own comic books and only in pristine, mint condition.
Meet Wimbledon Green, the self-proclaimed world's greatest comic-book collector who brokered the world's best comic-book deal in the history of collecting. Comic-book retailers, auctioneers, and conventioneers from around North America, as well as Green's collecting rivals, weigh in on the man and his vast collection of comic books. Are Green's intentions honorable? Does he truly love comics or is he driven by the need to conquer? Lastly, is he really even Wimbledon Green?
A charming and amusing caper where comic-book collecting is a world of intrigue and high finance. Part riotous chase, part whimsical character sketch, Wimbledon Green looks at the need to collect and the need to reinvent oneself.
Copies
No copies available.
It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken
by Seth
An Acknowledged Classic returns gorgeously re-designed.
In his first graphic novel, It's a Good Life, if You Don't Weaken–one of the best-selling D & Q titles ever–Seth pays homage to the wit and sophistication of the old-fashioned magazine cartoon. While trying to understand his dissatisfaction with the present, Seth discovers the life and work of Kalo, a forgotten New Yorker cartoonist from the 1940s. But his obsession blinds him to the needs of his lover and the quiet desperation of his family. Wry self-reflection and moody colours characterize Seth's style in this tale about learning lessons from nostalgia. His playful and sophisticated experiment with memoir provoked a furious debate among cartoon historians and archivists about the existence of Kalo, and prompted a Details feature about Seth's "hoax".
Copies
No copies available.
George Sprott: (1894-1975)
by Seth
First serialized in The New York Times Magazine "Funny Pages"
The celebrated cartoonist and New Yorker illustrator Seth weaves the fictional tale of George Sprott, the host of a long-running television program. The events forming the patchwork of George's life are pieced together from the tenuous memories of several informants, who often have contradictory impressions. His estranged daughter describes the man as an unforgivable lout, whereas his niece remembers him fondly. His former assistant recalls a trip to the Arctic during which George abandoned him for two months, while George himself remembers that trip as the time he began writing letters to a former love, from whom he never received replies.
Invoking a sense of both memory and its loss, George Sprott is heavy with the charming, melancholic nostalgia that distinguishes Seth's work. Characters lamenting societal progression in general share the pages with images of antiquated objects―proof of events and individuals rarely documented and barely remembered. Likewise, George's own opinions are embedded with regret and a sense of the injustice of aging in this bleak reminder of the inevitable slipping away of lives, along with the fading culture of their days.
Copies
No copies available.
Nancy: Volume 1: The John Stanley Library
by Seth, John Stanley
Classic comics from the writer of Melvin Monster
Created by Ernie Bushmiller, the beloved Brillo-headed Nancy starred in her own comic book series for years, written by arguably the greatest children's comics writer of all time, John Stanley. Most famous for scripting the adventures of Marjorie Henderson Buell's Little Lulu, John Stanley is one of comics' secret geniuses. He provided a visual rough draft for all the comics he wrote and then handed off these "scripts" for someone else to render the finished art. No matter what comic he was writing, he breathed life into his characters. In Stanley's comics, Nancy is no longer a crabby cipher but a hilarious, brilliant, scheming, duplicitous, honest, and loyal little kid-a real little kid. Her adventures with her best friend, the comically destitute Sluggo, involve moneymaking schemes to afford ice-cream sodas, botched trips to the corner store for Nancy's Aunt Fritzi, and comically raucous attempts to remove loose teeth.
Drawn & Quarterly is launching several kid-friendly volumes of Nancy and Nancy and Sluggo as companion volumes to Melvin Monster and Dark Horse's Little Lulu volumes. The books are designed by Seth (The Complete Peanuts; Melvin Monster; Clyde Fans; It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken).
Copies
No copies available.
Clyde Fans
by Seth
Appeared on 20 best of the year lists, including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, and more!
"Open Clyde Fans and let Seth take you into his time machine. There’s no room for nostalgia in Seth’s vision. The past is as sharp and painful as the present. In fact, the past is the present, conjured in words and pictures, existing in the spaces between what’s said and unsaid, what’s seen and unseen... In the end, as we close the pages on Simon and Abe, we might feel ― even for just a moment ― that we finally know what time looks like."―Brian Selznick, New York Times Book Review
Twenty years in the making, Clyde Fans peels back the optimism of mid-twentieth century capitalism. The legendary Canadian cartoonist Seth lovingly shows the rituals, hopes, and delusions of a middle class that has long ceased to exist in North America―garrulous men in wool suits extolling the virtues of their wares to taciturn shopkeepers with an eye on the door. Much like the myth of an ever-growing economy, the Clyde Fans family unit is a fraud―the patriarch has abandoned the business to mismatched sons, one who strives to keep the business afloat and the other who retreats into the arms of the remaining parent.
Abe and Simon Matchcard are brothers, the second generation struggling to save their archaic family business of selling oscillating fans in a world switching to air-conditioning. At the center of Clyde Fans’s center is Simon, who flirts with becoming a salesman as a last-ditch effort to leave the protective walls of the family home but is ultimately unable to escape Abe’s critical voice in his head. As the business crumbles, so does any remaining relationship between the brothers, both of whom choose very different life paths but still end up utterly unhappy.
Seth’s intimate storytelling and gorgeous art allow urban landscapes and detailed period objects to tell their own stories as the brothers struggle to keep from suffocating in an airless city home. An epic time capsule of a story line that begs rereading.
Copies
No copies available.
Palookaville #22
by Seth
A collection of wry, meditative comics from the cartoonist and Lemony Snicket illustrator
In what has become his calling card, the cartoonist Seth lovingly and exquisitely designs Palookaville #22, adorning the cover with green foil, and the interior with gatefolds and ornate endpapers. On sumptuous display is Seth's continual exploration of the past and the search for resonance in the dusty corners of his consciousness. In three separate sections, this bittersweet reconciliation with the past and bygone eras manifests both in his comics and his non-comics art.
Readers will return to the world of Dominion, where Abe and Simon Matchcard of Clyde Fans are engaged in a war of the words over the slow, painful disintegration of their family business. Their disagreement leads Abe to visit an old flame and further ensue in a battle of memories, in the conclusion of part four of Seth's long running and acclaimed narrative.
In chapter two of his autobiographical serial "Nothing Lasts", Seth revisits his small town Ontario childhood. He explores his town's library, drug store, and post office, places whose daily presence in his young life provided comfort and stability amid the school taunts, the many moves Seth's family endured, and his parents' unhappy marriage.
Each volume of Palookaville treats readers to a new facet of Seth's creative output. Volume 22 features a photo essay of the fictional history he created for the actual Crown Barber Shop in Guelph, Ontario, owned and operated by his wife Tania, complete with a comic on the art of barbering.
The Palookaville digest is the grand endeavour of one of Canada's greatest artists.
Copies
No copies available.
Palookaville #21
by Seth
A lavish volume with all-new autobio comics, from the author of It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken
Continuing the new semiannual hardcover format for Palookaville in volume 21, Seth presents two very different autobiographical pieces, and the continuation of Part Four of the ongoing Clyde Fans serial. In the latest dispatch from the beautifully crafted Clyde Fans, Abraham muses further on the ruins of his life. Then, in the first sustained sequence of the two Matchcard brothers, Abraham and Simon finally sit down together and begin to talk.
"Nothing Lasts" is the first half of a sketchbook memoir about Seth's childhood and adolescence in small-town Ontario. It is a wryly self-conscious, often moving visit to the attic of Seth's memories: from his first attempts at cartooning to the last time he kissed his mother good night, "Nothing Lasts" is a masterpiece of the graphic short story.
Finally, the third section of Palookaville #21 consists of entries from the comic-strip diary Seth has been keeping for almost a decade. He employs a mixture of hand-drawn panels and rubber stamps of his own work to tell anecdotes about moments from his life. Nothing from this diary has ever been made public before. This lushly designed collection of stories comprises an anthology of the different types of cartooning work Seth has done over his two-decade-long career.
Copies
No copies available.
Palookaville #23
by Seth
The conclusion of Clyde Fans, the iconic cartoonist’s most famous storyline
The most anticipated issue to date of Seth’s iconic comics digest, Palookaville 23 marks the culmination of twenty years of serialization: here, Clyde Fans comes to a conclusion. In this final chapter, we return to Simon Matchcard and the year 1957—exactly where we left off at the end of the first Clyde Fans volume. After his disastrous attempt at sales in the city of Dominion, we witness the out of body experience and ecstatic “vision” that sets Simon on his path of lonely isolation in the years to come.
But of course that’s not all—an issue of Palookaville always feels a bit like coming home—a comforting structure that promises new surprises and updates on old favorites. The next installment in Seth’s memoir, Nothing Lasts, follows him from late childhood to his high school years, from innocent crushes to adolescent brooding, all told with what has become Seth’s signature anecdotal approach to autobiography.
Readers will also be privy to highlights of Seth’s exquisite fine-art practice—paintings and drawings from two recent gallery exhibitions which transport us back to an era where style was snappier, moldings more orate.
As always, the three-part digest is carefully designed by Seth in a callback to classic 1940s textural book design. From one of Canada’s greatest artists, Palookaville 23 offers closure, while evoking excitement about what’s to come.
Copies
No copies available.