Customer Reviews

Wimbledon Green

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had read about Wimbledon Green coming out and I have been eagerly awaiting it. I was not ready for what was inside. It is an understated masterwork. It deals with the life and times of Wimbledon Green, the Greatest Comic Book Collector in the World. His story is told from the many points of view including those of his friends and competitors.

What really made it work for me was that Seth creates another world not unlike are own and it is a world I would love to visit. In this other world comic book collectors are a little like the heroes they collect, they spend their time flying around the world in autogyros and double crossing their enemies. It parodies and and the same time glorifies the passion that really drive collectors. The artwork is throughout the book is stunning with everything done in loose ink wash sketchbook style. The entire book was created in a scant 6 months and at 125 pages that is quite amazing. The design of the book is top notch with beautiful end papers and an embossed foil cover.

But the thing that really stands out is how personal and intimate the entire book is. This gets back to the core of what comics should be, a place where stories are told and where the artwork serves those stories. And the stories in this book are ones worth reading over and over again.

Seth dismisses this book on its own cover: "A story from the sketchbook of the cartoonist `Seth.'" In other words: this isn't a full-blown graphic novel, just a little sketchy thing or whatever. And again, more specifically, in the foreward: "This book was created on a lark. Actually, it was never even intended to be a book at all - merely an exercise in my sketchbooks...the drawing is poor, the lettering shoddy, the page compositions and storytelling perfunctory." My high school English teacher told her class that Shakespeare didn't give a hoot about his plays - it was the sonnets he thought would win him immortality. I'm not sure if that's true (I've never heard or seen such a thing said about Shakespeare before or since, and that's after spending four years as an English major in college), but it rings true. Sometimes the things that an artist dashes off with his/her distaff hand can turn out to be more interesting than the things he or she labors over - maybe because they weren't labored over. I'm not willing to go quite that far with Wimbledon Green. I still think It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken and (possibly) Clyde Fans are more "important" works. But this one is better than Seth would have you believe, in part because it's just straight-up refreshing to see one of our most dour and fastidious cartoonists cutting loose, and being, mostly, silly. Okay: there is an attempt to darken and deepen Wimbledon's life story, late in the book, but, while that moment doesn't exactly fail, as a moment, it does fail to overshadow the light-hearted, entertaining spirit of the work overall. Besides: the drawing's great, the lettering's legible, and the storytelling works just fine. Seth's "good enough" is far better than most any other cartoonist's best efforts.

(the above is excerpted from my longer review at graphicnovelreview.com)

Seth has always had the ability to capture the everyday lives of people in a wonderful, nostalgic, and frequently amusing style. With "Wimbledon Green", Seth has brought his talents to new heights -- it's a truly funny, original look at the world of comic book collectors interwoven with a very intriguing mystery.

Like Dan Clowes often does, Seth tells the story through a series of independent strips that, over the course of the book, reveal the full story. And like Dan Clowes, Seth accomplishes that rare thing in satire -- he renders his characters fondly, but you can tell he's also skewering every aspect of the highly irritating and amusing world of comic book collectors.

I eagerly await every new work by Seth (and as fans know, they don't come out all that frequently!). This was well worth the wait. It's the type of book you only want to read in snippets -- it's so good, you want it to last. And you don't want to wait another 3 years for Seth's next masterpiece!

On the back cover of Wimbledon Green is a disposable band of paper with the `Praise For' section printed on it. Written on the bottom is the following... "The artist requests that this band be disposed of upon purchase". I found this intriguing and I'll return to this in a moment.

Wimbledon Green isn't so much a story as an analysis of the enigmatic character Wimbledon Green, "The Greatest Comic Book Collector" in the World. Seth creates an imaginary world with a menagerie of oddball comic collectors who discuss Mr. Green, his mysterious past, his quirky personality and his abrupt disappearance. The book is filled with short strips, some less than a page and other spanning a half dozen or more. Most are from the view of other collectors. There are some who loath Wimbledon, others who admire him and some who are just jealous of his collection. A few things in the book caught my attention. First, was a collector making fun of another for taking on the singular name `Jonah'. I assume this was a bit of self deprecating humor from the writer/artist known only as `Seth'. The second was an imaginary comic artist putting out drawings unworthy of his talent by skimping on the backgrounds. The irony of this one is that most of the frames in Wimbledon Green have sparse backgrounds and in many case none at all which is a shame because Seth is clearly capable of some wonderful landscapes and city scenes.

I was initially drawn to Seth thanks to his beautiful artwork with its clean lines, thick borders and retro feel. It reminded me somewhat of C.C. Beck. My issue with Wimbledon Green is that the bulk of the book consists of much more simplistic drawings. In fact the best artwork in the book is on the inner front and back covers which display some of the made up comics from Wimbledon Green including the `Green Ghost' and `Fine and Dandy'. The interior artwork consists of small one to two inch panels that often contain nothing more than a simple portrait drawing with a blank background. It was disappointing because I wanted more.

In the end it's clear that Seth considers himself more than just a comic illustrator/writer. Seth is an artist who takes his craft serious. My suspicion is that the band on the back cover is a compromise between the publisher who wanted a `Praise For' section and Seth who probably felt it marred the aesthetic beauty of the book hence the message to dispose of it after purchasing. From the quality binding to the heavy paper stock this is clearly a labor of love. It's kind of surprising then that the colors on the edges of the cover wear off so easily from just a single reading of the book. I admire Seth for trying to create something with a higher level of artistic flair. It's not a complete success but at the cover price it's worth the purchase if for nothing else than its unique charm.

I had read about Wimbledon Green coming out and I have been eagerly awaiting it is awesome i love it

I am surprised by how much I have enjoyed this little book, which is light-hearted but not cheap or tossed-off.

Storywise, Seth takes the approach that comic collectors are benign eccentrics and makes this book somthing of a valentine to collectors. I was expecting the usual alternative comics criticism of how foolish and misguided society is. While there's something to be said for that critique, Wimbledon Green is a refreshing alternative to the alternative.

Seth is also a versatile artist. He is capable of understatedly beautiful approach, such as in the Green Ghost and Fine and Dandy pages. For the most part, though, he is content with talking heads. He adopts the style to fit the story, which is part of his understated approach.

However, I do not want to give the impression that the story is simplistic. It has a large cast of characters, a central mystery about identity and a sense of humor that is gently self-mocking. My favorie example of the book's humor is when Daddy Doats asks Wimbledon and Bindle by what right they would steal his copy of the Green Ghost, which Doats has tracked down and paid for. Our hero can't doesn't even try to answer him; he laughs it off as absurd and irrelevant. It's a great moment because it ribs the audience for cheering on Green, an unapologetic thief, while also portraying collectors as amoral free-agents, playing a game in which all the participants know there are no rules.

The world's greatest comic book collector, profiled documentary-style by his colleagues, acquaintances and admirers: this is "Wimbledon Green", Seth's most enjoyable book. Through small panels done in single colours we hear about the great collector and his habits. How he came to be, allegedly stealing comics from unsuspecting members of the public, winning all the auctions, outfoxing his competitors with either money or other ways. We hear about the Wilbur R Webb collection, a fabled store of mint condition Golden Age comics. We hear the conspiracy theories about Green's true identity. And along the way we are treated to the obsession of comics collecting as memorably explained via the collectors, as well as Seth's knowledge of the era reproducing facsimiles of comics from that time. We learn about Green's favourite comic "Fine + Dandy" a limited comic run about hobos in the '30s. And in the middle is a racy Tintin-esque search for an elusive comic "The Green Ghost #1".

Seth's work is always among the best the indie comics world has to offer. Here he scales back the art to become more sketch-like with smaller panels like Chris Ware's work. The single tone colours of the pages, sometimes chrome, sometimes golden, sometimes a dull green, add to the atmosphere of the book.

Seth hints at darker secrets to Wimbledon Green, chiefly among them the identity as well as the scene at the end where a thug tears up some rare comics leaving Green in a ball on the floor sobbing - blackmail? It all adds to the richness of the story. And even if the world of comics collecting feels a bit stuffy, Seth throws in a hammy chase quest for Green and his competitors to go on to stir up the reader's attention.

Seth mentions in his introduction that this was a way of reconnecting to his youth which was spent with similar comic books and a way of remembering his recently deceased mother as she was when he was a child. The final few pages of the book deal with Wimbledon's own mother succumbing to dementia and the scenes bring a powerful resonance that is missing from the generally jolly tone of the book.

I read this a few years ago when it came out and I just re-read it today and am pleased to see that it still holds up really well. The book itself is a small hardback, about the size of a regular paperback, with wonderfully crisp pages bound nicely and with an embossed cover. The overall design of the book is really wonderful, as the inside of the book is such a treat. Seth's best book in my opinion, it's definitely the place to start for new readers looking to enter into Seth's melancholic world of comics. Hooray for Wimbledon Green!

This book is a delight. While the story is, on the surface, about comic book collectors, so much of the detail is fictionalized that I think it would be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in history and old things.

The creator, Seth, tapped into a wondrous streak of inspiration with Wimbledon Green.

Subtitled "The Greatest Comic Book Collector in the World", Wimbledon Green is a surreal study of the madness that overtakes collectors. The book is a collection of short, revealing interviews & anecdotes about the mysterious Wimbledon Green. Green is a fantastic figure, even to the fictional collectors, shopkeepers, admirers and rivals that make up the charming underworld of comic book collecting. No one knows who he really is - only that he's somehow better at collecting than they are.

Wimbledon Green is cover-to-cover charm - combining nostalgia, humor and genuine warmth to create a wonderful, magical world of collecting that is (sadly) much more exciting than the reality. Without becoming too gushy, this is probably the finest book I've ever read on the strange, loving relationship between collections and collectors, and a genuinely brilliant exercise of the graphic novel form.

Seth even admits that this work was in essence a series of vignettes which in the beginning had no cement to make a normal graphic novel. This may be true as to how Seth set upon his rather excellent depiction of Wimbledon Green. In the end his novel resembles his depiction of George Sprott. This series of graphic vignettes paint a picture of a comic book collector extraordinaire who devout's his life to the comic media of the 1940's through the 1960's. In essence this depiction of this fictional Wimbledon Green is in reality the very thought process and philosophy of Seth.
As in his other graphic depictions, Seth creates a graphic Hopper-like world which means singularity and ultimate loneliness. Don't get me wrong, Seth is not a cultural loner. Instead, he creates a thought process that is quite cozy and comfortable. His novels reflect life as it should be. Each man is an island, but we readers can identify with this act. Seth's novels tell us that the past represents a better time. Nostalgia is the major theme and essence in Seth's depictions of life as it should be. With Wimbledon Green it is no different. As has become as I call it Sethesque, in the forming of all major characters that of being unique men of the recent middle 20th century.
Seth has done it again. Five Stars!! No Problem!!!