11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A moving, understated short novel, January 14, 2004
This review is from: It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken (Paperback)
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.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Completely mundane; completely compelling, January 21, 2001
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.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Travelogue with excellent strokes, June 10, 2002
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.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
