Comics I Bought This Week: August 20, 2009

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got two new comics plus a hard cover collection:

G-Man: Cape Crisis - 1

Ex Machina - 44

Eerie Archives Volume 2

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"George Sprott 1894-1975" by Seth.

Seth is one of my favorite cartoonists and I've liked almost everything he's done. So I was excited to see he had this new book coming out. Part of it was serialized in the New York Times magazine but since I'm not a NYT reader I had no idea it was there.

Nobody embraces the past like Seth does. He likes to examine the past and, at least through his characters, thinks everything was better in the past. This book is the examination of the life of a fictional Canadian small time TV host.

The story is written in the present but looks back on George Sprott's last day alive in 1975. From that starting point it also looks back at Sprott's life from childhood to seminary school to "Arctic Adventurer" to publisher to lecturer to TV show host. It's a long life and a long journey.

I've read interviews where Seth says his work is all about feeling. I agree with that. His stories are not about plot, character development, or thrills. They are usually about the fleeting feelings one has in life. And our fleeting thoughts about them.

George Sprott is not a particularly thoughtful man but even he, at age eighty one, wonders who he is and where he came from. What happened to the thirty year old George? He can barely even remember the 20 year old seminary school George. Where did he go? He sure remembers the girl who broke his heart when he was twenty but she doesn't really exist anymore either. Where does any of the past go? And then George goes right on existing in the present day. Until he doesn't one day.

Seth doesn't make your ordinary escapist comics. This is also not ordinary in its size. "George Sprott" is an 11x14 inch hardcover. I'm not sure how many pages, it looks like about 100 (just looked on Amazon they say ninety six) but there is plenty to see and read in this book.

I also like Seth's artwork a lot. He's got a simple lined cartoony style that is very effective. He knows how to say something with one line and make it the right line. That's very hard to do.

So here was I book that I was excited to get and it didn't let me down. It's beautifully presented and made me a bit sad at times. It got me contemplating the nature of the past and time in general. Good stuff. Give it a read.