I found this leaflet (click for the complete version) in an early issue of Seth’s Palookaville. I like the way Black Eye and Drawn And Quarterly at that time tried to cross-market their respective titles, only to completely merge a couple of years later.
Above are the representations of Seth & Chet (Brown) by Seth & Chet respectively (from Palooka-ville 5 and The Little Man). I’m a great fan of both of them, but I was wondering if part of their appeal stems from the fact that their comics somewhat interlock, since they (at least used to) constantly refer to one another.
Come to think of it, these again are Seth & Chet, this time by buddy Joe Matt (from Peep Show 13, in my opinion the best of the series). I think it’s quite quaint that you never see Matt in the other two’s comics. Or did I miss something ?
All artwork © the respective creators
This flyer for the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT, was designed by Seth. I particularly like Seth’s rendition of very different cartoon characters and archetypes, and the Inky Solomon strip. That’ a classic…
I received a huge package from he-knows-who yesterday, full of comics ephemera goodies. I had almost chucked out the envelope, when I noticed a small, folded piece of paper at the bottom. It turned out to be this cute promo piece for Seth’s Wimbledon Green (which, incidentally, is one of the best comics-about-comics around, if you ask me).
The late nineties were a golden time for magazines, especially magazines that were combining technology and business subjects. Red Herring, Business 2.0, Fast Company, they kept on bulking on until they were as heavy as a phone directory. And then the bubble burst, and the magazines either disappeared (and, let’s face it, today’s Wired is only Wired by name) or slimmed down considerably.
Still, it was cool while it lasted, and it gave illustrators nice new outlets for their work. Such as the illustration above, which was published in Business 2.0 in 2000 and came with an article on small business promotion on the web. I particularly like the contrast between the glitz of that subject, and Seth’s trademark toned-down colors.
In 1997 Marvel Comics was bankrupt, which prompted Highwater Books to release a benefit issue of their antology Goober Skeber, with alternative and small press cartoonists doing strips featuring Marvel heroes. A sort of Bizarro Comics avant la lettre. Even Wired wrote about it at the time.
Seth did the cover, which only makes you dream how an actual X-men comic by him would have looked…
After reading Charlie Gower’s post on tantramar about the cover Chris Ware did for Rousseau’s Candide, I checked out the Penguin Deluxe website for other covers by cartoonists. Most of them are fairly recognisable, such as covers by Art Spiegelman, Seth, Roz Chast and Anders Nilsen respectively :
Not only do these covers immediately jump out as different than all the other book covers you see on the shelves, the cartoonists never even tried to shy away from their trademark style (which is not to say that I don’t like them - I think this is a very interesting project, and the books are more beautiful than most).
What struck me, though, was that I’d not recognised two covers as being by cartoonists, namely those by Frank Miller (for Gravity’s Rainbow) and Tomer Hanuka (for the Marquis de Sade). They looked to me as covers made by bona fide book designers, not cartoonists trying something else for a change.
I’m not really sure what I prefer - the books that sport covers that have a high “comics ephemerist” value, or the other ones. I do know though that, if Frank Miller were to look for a different profession after comics and movies, book design would be a very valid alternative.
Seth drew this beautiful portrait of a blues guitarist for the february 3, 2003 issue of the New Yorker.
