Vernacular Drawings [Hardcover]

Seth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2001

Vernacular Drawings is a sumptuous, full-color, cloth bound coffee table book collecting the drawings of award-winning cartoonist Seth.

A broad range of subject matter is covered here, from portraits of early jazz greats and scenes of burlesque shows to an oddly intriguing gallery of successful insurance salesmen circa 1947. Nothing is out of place in Vernacular Drawings: there are portraits of R. Crumb and Django Reinhardt and an image of a glorious 1920's ballroom scene is followed by a dilapidated, circa 2000 industrial building. A bold portrait of a North American Indian is preceded by another of a Spanish matador. Seth's illustrations have been seen by millions throughout North America in publications such as The New York Times, Forbes, and The Washington Post, and he is best known as a cartoonist from his series Palooka-Ville and his award-winning book, It's A Good Life, If You Don't Weaken. Available exclusively in this cloth-bound edition, Vernacular Drawings is Seth's first "non-comics" collection, a lavish, full-color art book that will appeal to aesthetes everywhere.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Seth's artwork envelops you like a sweet fog." --Boston Phoenix

"Enormous, lusciously produced... a definite asset to any book collection." --Quill & Quire

"Opening this oversized volume -- heavy, somewhat bulky, covered with thick gray linen, embossed and stamped -- feels nostalgic in itself...Most of the illustrations in this sketchbook are purely anonymous people and places. seth has used them to create his own alternate reality: an oddly beautiful, wistful world, perfectly preserved, cobbled from our collective pasts." --Detroit Metro Times

From the Publisher

Seth's unique cartooning sensibility, characterized by his moody and atmospheric clear-line drawings and insightful storytelling, has been a welcome change in the often gritty medium of comics. His artistic formation can be traced to The New Yorker of the 1940's and 50's, where great cartoonists like Peter Arno and Charles Addams, through their wit and wry artistic line, have left there indelible mark on Seth's comic book work. In his first book, It's A Good Life, If You Don't Weaken (1996), Seth pays homage to these early influences, where he writes about his search for meaning in the life and work of Kalo, an old, obscure New Yorker cartoonist. Seth was born in 1962 in a rural Ontario town, and after moving to Toronto as an adult, he became an illustrator and his work was featured in such noted publications as The Washington Post, Details, Spin, The New York Times, and Saturday Night. In 1990, his comic strips began appearing in the pages of Drawn & Quarterly, and the following year saw the debut of Palooka-Ville, Seth's noted continuing comic book series.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly; First Edition edition (December 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1896597416
• ISBN-13: 978-1896597416
• Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 9.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,950,216 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Staggeringly beautiful!, March 2, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Vernacular Drawings (Hardcover)

One of the most beautiful books published in recent memory.
Even before opening the book, one sees that a great deal of care was taken in the printing of this book, the embossed cover, design, etc., ...and that's just the outside. Inside is page after page of drawings and paintings of innumerable subjects, seeming to defy any categorizing. An admirer of Seth's comic art may yet be surprised by his depth and skill as an artist outside of the comic realm. His mastery of the line is rivalled by his use of color and light. He writes that the book is composed of pages from his sketchbooks, things that he created for his own pleasure. And after poring over the book, one gets a sense that there is something personal in the subject matter, that indeed they are things that he drew for his enjoyment. Lucky for us, we get to enjoy it too.

5 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best comic artist to never make a fortune., August 21, 2003

By 

Alex Kwon (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vernacular Drawings (Hardcover)

It's some kind of sin that a hack like Todd MacFarlane can afford things like multi-million dollar baseballs on an empire based on his comic work when there are artists out there like Seth. MacFarlane's work is like a Harlequin novel, and Seth's is like Romeo and Juliet. There's art in every line, every detail, instead of being a force for sheer commericialism. Do yourself a favour: instead of picking up whatever garbage MacFarlane is peddling, go buy this book and Seth's trade, "It's A Good Life, If You Don't Weaken".