Seth

I came to the world of alternative and art comics a little later than most of my friends, but still I'd been familiar with Seth by the time Wimbledon Green came out in 2005. I'd always enjoyed and respected his work, but Wimbledon was the first time I fell in love with his work. To me, seeing Seth's well-known nostalgia rendered in a more joyful (and in the case of the character Jonah, outright self-parodying) manner, in a non-linear, almost documentary-style narrative filled with humor and action was a big new step in his work, even if Seth chose to write the book off as a sketchbook trifle in the introduction.


So while I was visiting NYC a couple weeks ago, a friend of mine whose fervor for Wimbledon Green equals if not outshines mine pointed out copies of George Sprott, Seth's new work (you may have seen parts of it serialized in the NYT Magazine), and we had to have them. Giddy as we were with our purchases, I only got giddier when I got back to Philly and saw that Seth was giving a talk at the Free Library. The talk was pretty fantastic- revealing, funny, and also refreshingly non-linear. And lucky you, the Free Library records all its author events and puts them online:
Seth and Adrian Tomine at the Free Library of Philadelphia, 6/9/2009

The talk also features Adrian Tomine, who has some truthful things to say about the conflicted feelings one can have about their earlier work.