Seth (cartoonist)

Last updated
Seth
Seth-cartoonist.jpg
Seth, c. 2014
BornGregory Gallant
(1962-09-16) September 16, 1962 (age 62)
Clinton, Ontario, Canada
Area(s)Cartoonist, writer, artist
Pseudonym(s)Seth
Notable works
Awards

Gregory Gallant (born September 16, 1962), better known by his pen name Seth, is a Canadian cartoonist. He is best known for his series Palookaville and his mock-autobiographical graphic novel It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken (1996).

Contents

Seth draws in a style influenced by the classic cartoonists of The New Yorker . His work is highly nostalgic, especially for the early-to-mid-20th century period, and of Southern Ontario. His work also shows a great depth and breadth of knowledge of the history of comics and cartooning.

Early life and education

Seth was born Gregory Gallant on September 16, 1962, in Clinton, Ontario, Canada. His parents were John Henry Gallant [1] and the English-born [2] Violet Daisy Gallant ( née Wilkinson); [1] he was the youngest of their five children. His family moved frequently but considers Strathroy, Ontario his home town. [3] He was inward, unathletic, and had few friends, and took to comic books and drawing at a young age. [2]

Seth attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto [4] from 1980 to 1983. [1] He became involved with the punk subculture and began wearing outlandish clothing, bleaching his hair, wearing makeup, and frequenting nightclubs. [2] He took on the pen name Seth in 1982. [1]

Career

Seth, then living in Toronto, first drew attention to his work in 1985 when he took over art duties from the Hernandez brothers for Dean Motter's Mister X from Toronto publisher Vortex Comics. [5] His run covered issues #6–13 (1985–88), after which he did commercial artwork for publications including Saturday Night and Fashion . In 1986 he met fellow Toronto-based Vortex artist Chester Brown, and in 1991 Toronto-based American cartoonist Joe Matt. [1] The three became noted for doing confessional autobio comics in the early 1990s, and for depicting each other in their works. [6]

In April 1991 he launched his own comic book, Palookaville , with Montreal publisher Drawn & Quarterly. By this time, Seth's artwork had evolved to a style inspired by The New Yorker cartoons of the 1930s and 1940s. [5]

He is also a magazine illustrator and book designer, perhaps best known for his work designing the complete collection of Charles M. Schulz's classic comic strip Peanuts . The books, released by Fantagraphics Books in 25 separate volumes (so far) combine Seth's signature aesthetic with Schulz's minimalistic comic creation. Similarly, he is designing the Collected Doug Wright , and the John Stanley Library.

Seth's illustration work includes the cover artwork for Aimee Mann's album Lost in Space (2001) and the jacket and French flaps for the Penguin Classics Portable Dorothy Parker (2006). [7]

Clyde Fans , the story of two brothers whose trade in electric fans suffers and eventually goes out of business from the failure to adapt to the rise of air conditioning, was serialized in Palooka-ville. Seth's short graphic novel Wimbledon Green, about an eccentric comic-book collector, was published in November 2005.

Graphic novels

From September 2006 to March 25, 2007, Seth serialized a graphic novel titled George Sprott (1894–1975) , for the Funny Pages section of The New York Times Magazine . [8] Selections from George Sprott were featured in Best American Comics 2009. In the liner notes of that publication, Seth announced he was expanding Sprott into a book, filling in gaps that were cut to meet the restraints given by NYTM. The book was published by Drawn & Quarterly in May 2009. [9]

Seth's affection for early- and mid-20th century popular culture and his relative disdain for pop culture since then is a recurrent theme in his work, both in terms of the characters (who are often nostalgic for the period) and his artistic style. [10]

Seth's artwork has landed on the cover of The New Yorker three times, which he said was a professional milestone he was happy to achieve. [11]

Seth collaborated with children's novelist Lemony Snicket on his four-part series All the Wrong Questions , starting with Who Could That Be at This Hour? released on October 23, 2012 and ending with Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights? released on September 29, 2015. [12] He also designed a series of book covers for the MIT Press's early 20th century science-fiction series Radium Age.

Model buildings

Seth's Dominion models on display at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island Seth Dominion Models.jpg
Seth's Dominion models on display at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

A selection of Seth's original models (studies for his fictional city, Dominion) has been exhibited extensively, most notably at the Phoenix Art Museum in 2007 [13] and the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2005 [14] and 2017. [15]

In 2008, Seth collaborated with the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery and RENDER (now the University of Waterloo Art Gallery), on an exhibition titled "The North Star Talking Picture House". For this exhibition one of the buildings from Seth's Dominion City project was re-built at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery as a walk-in theatre wherein visitors could sit and watch a program of black and white documentary shorts that had been produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

Seth is the subject of the 2014 documentary film Seth's Dominion , which received the grand prize for best animated feature at the Ottawa International Animation Film Festival. [16]

Personal life

As of 2004, Seth lived in Guelph, Ontario, with his wife [10] Tania Van Spyk, whom he married in 2002. [1]

Awards

Seth has won a number of industry awards throughout his career, and in 2011 was honoured by being the first cartoonist to win the literary Harbourfront Festival Prize. [17] In 2020, Clyde Fans became the first graphic novel ever to receive a Giller Prize nomination. [18] On June 17, 2022 Seth was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres [19] by the French government.

In 2024, Seth (and "Clyde Fans") appeared in a stamp series honouring Canadian graphic novelists. He was joined there by Chester Brown ("Louis Riel") and Michel Rabagliati ("Paul à Québec").

YearOrganizationAward forAward
1997 Ignatz Awards Outstanding Artist [20] Seth
Outstanding Graphic Novel or Collection [20] It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken
2005 Eisner Awards The Complete Peanuts Best Publication Design [21]
Harvey Awards Special Award for Excellence in Presentation [22]
2011 Authors at Harbourfront Centre Harbourfront Festival Prize [23] [24] Seth
2022 French Government Recognition of significant contributions to the arts, literature, or the propagation of these fields Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

Bibliography

Books and collections

YearTitlePublisherISBNNotes
1996 It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken Drawn & Quarterly 1-896597-70-X originally serialized in Palookaville #4–9 (1993–1996)
2000 Clyde Fans : Part One 978-1-894937-09-2 originally serialized in Palookaville #10–12 (1997–1998) [25]
2001Vernacular Drawings 1-896597-41-6 Sketchbook
2003Clyde Fans: Part Two 978-1894937603 originally serialized in Palookaville #13–15 (1999–2001)
2004Clyde Fans: Book One 1-896597-84-X Collects the same contents as Clyde Fans parts one and two, originally serialized in Palookaville #10–15 [26]
2005Wimbledon Green 1-896597-93-9
2009 George Sprott 978-1-897299-51-7 originally serialized in The New York Times Magazine in 2006
2011 The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists 978-1770460539
2012 Who Could That Be at This Hour? Little, Brown 978-0316123082 Written by Lemony Snicket
2013 When Did You See Her Last? 978-1405256223
2014File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents 978-0316284035
Shouldn't You Be in School? 978-0316123068
2015 Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights? 978-0316123044
2019 Clyde Fans Drawn & Quarterly 978-1770463578

Other

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Ware</span> American artist

Franklin Christenson "Chris" Ware is an American cartoonist known for his Acme Novelty Library series and the graphic novels Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (2000), Building Stories (2012) and Rusty Brown (2019). His works explore themes of social isolation, emotional torment and depression. He tends to use a vivid color palette and realistic, meticulous detail. His lettering and images are often elaborate and sometimes evoke the ragtime era or another early 20th-century American design style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chester Brown</span> Canadian cartoonist (born 1960)

Chester William David Brown is a Canadian cartoonist. Brown has gone through several stylistic and thematic periods. He gained notice in alternative comics circles in the 1980s for the surreal, scatological Ed the Happy Clown serial. After bringing Ed to an abrupt end, he delved into confessional autobiographical comics in the early 1990s and was strongly associated with fellow Toronto-based cartoonists Joe Matt and Seth, and the autobiographical comics trend. Two graphic novels came from this period: The Playboy (1992) and I Never Liked You (1994). Surprise mainstream success in the 2000s came with Louis Riel (2003), a historical-biographical graphic novel about rebel Métis leader Louis Riel. Paying for It (2011) drew controversy as a polemic in support of decriminalizing prostitution, a theme he explored further with Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus (2016), a book of adaptations of stories from the Bible that Brown believes promote pro-prostitution attitudes among early Christians.

<i>The Vinyl Cafe</i> Canadian radio and podcast variety show

The Vinyl Cafe was an hour-long radio variety show hosted by Stuart McLean that was broadcast on CBC Radio and was syndicated to approximately 80 U.S. public radio stations through Public Radio International. It aired on Sunday at noon EST and Tuesday at 11:00 pm EST on CBC Radio One and Saturday at 9 am EST on CBC Radio 2. The program was also available as a CBC podcast, although the podcasts usually contained just McLean's stories and essays for studio episodes because of copyright restrictions on recorded music. CBC Radio also aired a separate weekday afternoon program, under the title Vinyl Cafe Stories, which consisted of two previously recorded Dave and Morley stories per episode.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hunt Emerson</span> English cartoonist

Hunt Emerson is an English cartoonist. He was closely involved with the Birmingham Arts Lab of the mid-to-late 1970s, and with the British underground comics scene of the 1970s and 1980s. His many comic strips and graphic novels have been translated into numerous languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drawn & Quarterly</span> Canadian publishing house

Drawn & Quarterly (D+Q) is a publishing company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, specializing in comics. It publishes primarily comic books, graphic novels and comic strip collections. The books it publishes are noted for their artistic content, as well as the quality of printing and design. The name of the company is a pun on "drawing", "quarterly", and the practice of hanging, drawing and quartering. Initially it specialized in underground and alternative comics, but has since expanded into classic reprints and translations of foreign works. Drawn & Quarterly was the company's flagship quarterly anthology during the 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Kuper</span> American alternative comics artist and illustrator

Peter Kuper is an American alternative comics artist and illustrator, best known for his autobiographical, political, and social observations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bryan Lee O'Malley</span> Canadian cartoonist

Bryan Lee O'Malley is a Canadian cartoonist, best known for the Scott Pilgrim series. He also performs as a musician under the alias Kupek.

<i>Its a Good Life, If You Dont Weaken</i> Graphic novel by Seth

It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken is a graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Seth. It appeared in a collected volume in 1996 after serialization from 1993 to 1996 in issues #4–9 of Seth's comic book series Palookaville. The mock-autobiographical story tells of its author's obsessive search for the work of a fictional forgotten cartoonist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doug Wright (cartoonist)</span> Canadian cartoonist (1917–1983)

Douglas Austin Wright was a Canadian cartoonist, best known for his weekly comic strip Doug Wright's Family. The Doug Wright Awards are named after him to honour excellence in Canadian cartooning.

Sandy Carruthers is a Canadian artist best known for his work as the first illustrator of the original Men in Black comic book series, and as creator of the webcomic series, Canadiana: the New Spirit of Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russell Patterson</span> American cartoonist

Russell Patterson was an American cartoonist, illustrator and scenic designer. Patterson's art deco magazine illustrations helped develop and promote the idea of the 1920s and 1930s fashion style known as the flapper.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doug Wright Award</span> Annual award for Canadian cartoonists

The Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning are literary awards handed out annually since 2005 during the Toronto Comic Arts Festival to Canadian cartoonists honouring excellence in comics and graphic novels published in English. The awards are named in honour of Canadian cartoonist Doug Wright. Winners are selected by a jury of Canadians who have made significant contributions to national culture, based on shortlisted selections provided by a nominating committee of five experts in the comics field. The Wrights are handed out in three main categories, "Best Book", "The Spotlight Award", and, since 2008, the "Pigskin Peters Award" for non-narrative or experimental works. In 2020, the organizers added "The Egghead", an award for best kids’ book for readers under twelve. In addition to the awards, since 2005 the organizers annually induct at least one cartoonist into the Giants of the North: The Canadian Cartoonist Hall Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame</span> Award

The Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame, formally known as Giants of the North: The Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame, honours significant lifelong contributions to the art of cartooning in Canada.

Seth, in comics, may refer to:

Palookaville is a comic book written and drawn by cartoonist Gregory Gallant, better known as Seth, and published by Drawn & Quarterly. The first issue appeared in April 1991 and remains ongoing, with irregular publishing dates. The comics are generally portrayals filled with lost, lonely characters searching for meaning, often reaching back into the past.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Collier (cartoonist)</span> Canadian alternative cartoonist

David Collier is a Canadian alternative cartoonist best known for his fact-based "comic strip essays."

<i>Clyde Fans</i> Graphic novel by Seth

Clyde Fans is a graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Seth.

George Sprott: (1894–1975) is a graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Seth, published in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Cho (illustrator)</span>

Michael Cho is a Canadian illustrator and cartoonist. He has been nominated for a number of awards and his work has been positively reviewed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian comics</span> Comic originating in Canada

Canadian comics refers to comics and cartooning by citizens of Canada or permanent residents of Canada regardless of residence. Canada has two official languages, and distinct comics cultures have developed in English and French Canada. The English tends to follow American trends, and the French, Franco-Belgian ones, with little crossover between the two cultures. Canadian comics run the gamut of comics forms, including editorial cartooning, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, and webcomics, and are published in newspapers, magazines, books, and online. They have received attention in international comics communities and have received support from the federal and provincial governments, including grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. There are comics publishers throughout the country, as well as large small press, self-publishing, and minicomics communities.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Hoffman & Grace 2015, p. xvii.
  2. 1 2 3 Hannon 2015, p. 92.
  3. "It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken", Wikipedia, 2021-06-20, retrieved 2022-03-12
  4. Thalheimer 2010, p. 5602a1=Hoffman.
  5. 1 2 Bongco 2000, p. 199.
  6. Bell 2006, p. 150.
  7. Thalheimer 2010, p. 561.
  8. "Sequential | Canadian Comics News & Culture". Sequential.spiltink.org. 28 August 2006. Retrieved 2012-11-09.
  9. "Drawn & Quarterly". Drawn & Quarterly. Retrieved 2012-11-09.
  10. 1 2 Miller, Bryan (June 2004). "An Interview with Seth". Bookslut. Archived from the original on 2018-12-29. Retrieved 2012-11-09.
  11. "Dorothy Parker Society". Dorothyparker.com. 2006-03-15. Retrieved 2012-11-09.
  12. Sacbee.com Archived 2012-02-11 at the Wayback Machine
  13. "Phxart.com". Archived from the original on March 11, 2008.
  14. "Present Tense 31: Swing Space". Art Gallery of Ontario. Retrieved August 14, 2019.
  15. "Every Now Then: Reframing Nationhood". Art Gallery of Ontario.
  16. Brownstein, Bill (9 October 2014). "The life of Seth, animated". Montreal Gazette . Retrieved 10 October 2014.
  17. Smith, Kenton (2011-12-23). "Cartoonists, too, wish things otherwise". The Globe and Mail . Retrieved 2012-01-06.
  18. Deborah Dundas, "Thomas King, Emma Donoghue make the 2020 Giller Longlist in a year marked by firsts". toronto Star , September 8, 2020.
  19. Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, “Canadian cartoonist Seth wears his French knighthood with ease”, The Globe and Mail , June 17, 2023
  20. 1 2 "1997 Ignatz Award Recipients". Small Press Expo . Retrieved 2011-12-27.
  21. "The Eisner Awards: Complete List of Past Winners—2005 Eisner Awards". San Diego Comic-Con International. Archived from the original on 2011-04-27. Retrieved 2011-12-27.
  22. "2005 Harvey Award Winners". Harvey Awards. Archived from the original on 2010-11-09. Retrieved 2011-12-27.
  23. Medley, Mark (2011-09-21). "Seth wins 2011 Harbourfront Festival Prize". The National Post . Retrieved 2011-12-27.
  24. "Seth wins Harbourfront Festival Prize". The Globe and Mail . 2011-09-21. Retrieved 2011-12-27.
  25. "GCD :: Issue :: Clyde Fans Part One". www.comics.org.
  26. "GCD :: Issue :: Clyde Fans: Book One". www.comics.org.
  27. "My Man Godfrey Blu-ray". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved 29 December 2018.

Works cited