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

Seth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2003

An Acknowledged Classic returns gorgeously re-designed.

In his first graphic novel, It’s a Good Life, if You Don’t Weaken--a 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".

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Seth] invites the reader to linger cozily in his ruminative, patient stories, each of which grows from Seth's obsession with the past." --The Village Voice

"Rich, evocative...characterized by small moments revealing the author's sharp eye for detail" --The Globe and Mail

About the Author

Seth was born in 1962 in a rural Ontario town. Seth lives in Guelph, Ontario with five cats, a gigantic collection of vintage records, comic books, and 20th century Canadiana, and his very patient wife. He regularly contributes illustrations to The New Yorker and the National Post and recently provided the entire album artwork for Sony records singer-songwriter, Aimee Mann.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 189659770X
• ISBN-13: 978-1896597706
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #183,195 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #30 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Publishers > Drawn and Quarterly

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving, understated short novel January 14, 2004

By SPM

Format: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.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Travelogue with excellent strokes June 10, 2002

By Hiromichi Hosoma

Format:Hardcover

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Deeply involving October 2, 2001

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

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.