The Plastic and the Glory of Seth

Seth is an interesting case. Sometimes I feel like I love his book covers more so than his actual books. His art is so pristine, so gracefully curvaceous, that I sometimes want to crumple it up, just so it can be a little bit messier and a lot more real.

Take, for example, this Dorothy Parker cover for Penguin. It's the perfect match, really. Surface sophistication with a bitter little centre (did Seth make her a little bit drunk? I think so.) Like all good covers, it economically sums up both the content of a book and the worldview of its author.

Now, compare with Wimbledon Green. Wimbledown is a beautifully-designed book in all ways. The foil on the cloth cover, the comfortable weight in your hands, you really couldn't ask for a more beautiful object to look at and to hold. But to read? As much as I like Seth, I sometimes feel as if his art is too perfect. Something a little more raggedy gives you space to fill in what's happening in between panels, whereas Seth's art is so pristine that each panel ends up frozen.

Then again, there are worse things than ending up in a stasis that's so damn pretty. And I think Seth does well when he works from a topic that is closer to his heart, like illustrating his father's stories in Bannock and Black Beans, or, uh, writing in shades of acute depression, as he does in Clyde Fans. It's when he follows the path of his cartooning idols, with elaborate plots and Chris Ware-style formatting, a little too closely that things begin to feel overly mannered.

Normally, I wouldn't be writing semi-critically about Seth. He lives in my hometown and I feel a certain amount of Guelph solidarity with him. However, my mild concerns with his work are becoming more acute ones I hold for art comics as a whole. Just as comics are breaking into popular and academic respectability, the stories many of their creators tell are becoming more artificial. Without a strong interest in the work of Doug Wright or a strong stomach for autobiographical blather (the black and white books I think of as the "Straight White Guys Buying Milk" genre), I'm not sure how much interest the Drawn and Quarterly catalogue will hold. And with the choice of vision seemingly split between looking at the past (Seth), or at one's own navel (Jeffrey Brown), I wonder who in comics is looking towards the future.

I started this post after reading a post at the excellent Comics Comics. I may not agree with all of their evaluations, but they're always convincingly phrased and educational. Jeet Heer, who wrote about Seth for that blog, also has an excellent piece in this month's Walrus about Stuart McLean. So good that it almost made me re-evaluate my intense, flaming hatred for The Vinyl Café. Almost.