{"id":620,"date":"2009-11-22T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-22T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/2009\/11\/the-seth-non-canadians-dont-see\/"},"modified":"2009-11-22T17:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-22T22:30:00","slug":"seth-non-canadians-dont-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/?p=620","title":{"rendered":"The Seth Non-Canadians Don’t See"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As everyone who follows his work knows, Seth is a proud Canadian. A major visual theme of his work is the landscape, both natural and man-made, of Southern Ontario; on a more literary level he\u2019s clearly been shaped by such Canadian writers as Alice Munro and Margaret Laurence<\/a> (anyone interested in investigating Seth\u2019s frequent narrative device of having an old person look back on life should read Laurence\u2019s The Stone Angel<\/em>); his cartoons are heavily sprinkled with Canadian icons (Mounties, igloos, hockey players); he\u2019s been at the forefront of the current effort to recuperate Canada\u2019s comics heritage, designing and co-editing a beautiful book devoted to Doug Wright, co-founding the Doug Wright Awards, and speaking often and eloquently about such forgotten cartooning Canucks as Jimmy Frise and Peter Whally.<\/p>\n

Seth\u2019s commitment to Canada also extends to the publishers he works with. Drawn and Quarterly is a Montreal firm, although of course one with an international reach. What non-Canadian readers might not know, however, is that Seth is also closely involved with several other Canadian imprints and magazines, often in his capacity as a book designer but sometimes as a writer. This work is often done for quite small presses, such as the Porcupine\u2019s Quill<\/a> and Biblioasis<\/a> (in my opinion two of the best publishers not just in Canada but in the world).<\/p>\n

Since Seth has fans all over the world, I thought it might be a useful service to call attention to some of the work he\u2019s done that non-Canadians wouldn\u2019t necessarily know about. If you care at all about Seth\u2019s work, all these items are worth tracking down. Even when working with small specialty presses, he lavishes on each task the same care and attention that he gives to projects for The New Yorker<\/em> and Penguin Books.<\/p>\n

1. For the journal The Devil\u2019s Artisan issue #60<\/a> (devoted to \u201cthe printing arts”), Seth wrote at length about the artist and book designer Thoreau MacDonald (the essay was earlier delivered as a speech at the Art Gallery of Ontario). This is very much of interest for anyone who wants background on the strip Seth did for Kramers Ergot<\/span> 7.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>2. For the latest issue of Canadian Notes and Queries<\/a> (#77) Seth writes at length about Doug Wright in an essay taken from the speech he delivered at the first Doug Wright Awards ceremony. This essay is essential reading, I think, for anyone who wants to fully appreciate the new Doug Wright book; and also for anyone who wants to get a grounding in Canada’s particular comics tradition, one that has its own distinct history.<\/p>\n

3. For Biblioasis, Seth designed and illustrated a beautiful novelty book called The Idler\u2019s Glossary<\/em> <\/a>(written by the intellectual jack-of-all-trades Joshua Glenn and introduced by the philosopher Mark Kingwell). The book is a defence of laziness and slackery in all its forms, a topic dear to Seth\u2019s reverie-loving heart. The drawings are done in the mode of the mid-20th century joke-books that Seth loves so much, the sub-New Yorker<\/em> style of broad big-nosed stereotypes.<\/p>\n

4. Also for Biblioasis, Seth has illustrated a new book by poet Zach Wells: Track and Trace<\/a>. I haven\u2019t seen this book yet but I\u2019ll pick it up later this week at the book launch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5. Finally, for Anansi Seth put together an absolutely nifty little book: Derek McCormack\u2019s Christmas Days<\/a>, witty reflections on the holiday garlanded with many pages of cheerful, uproarious cartooning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As everyone who follows his work knows, Seth is a proud Canadian. A major visual theme of his work is the landscape, both natural and man-made, of Southern Ontario; on a more literary level he\u2019s clearly been shaped by such Canadian writers as Alice Munro and Margaret Laurence (anyone interested in investigating Seth\u2019s frequent narrative device of having an old person look back on life should read Laurence\u2019s The Stone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1189],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-seth"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}