La G. N. B. Doble C: La Hermandad de Historietistas del Gran Norte

by Seth

Cuando vayan a Dominion, en la Milverton Street no podrán evitar fijarse en una llamativa hilera de bellos edificios antiguos. El que tiene la fachada de piedra rosa y conocidos personajes de la historieta canadiense en la entrada es la sede de Dominion de la Magna Hermandad de Historietistas del Gran Norte. Erigida en 1935, ahora es el último bastión del en otros tiempos prestigioso club, exclusivo para socios. Durante años, dicho edificio, repleto con lámparas art decò, sencillos muebles hechos a mano y pasillos llenos de retratos en blanco y negro de los mejores historietistas canadienses, fue el punto de encuentro de los profesionales de la activa comunidad de cómics del «Gran Norte Blanco».

Seth abre su cuaderno de bocetos a un invisible mundo de cómics canadienses, algunos ficticios, otros no, algunos cómicos, otros agridulces, pero siempre fascinantes en esta imaginativa exploración de la historia de la historieta canadiense. Si "Wimbledon Green" homenajeaba a los coleccionistas de cómics, "La Magna Hermandad de Historietistas del Gran Norte" rinde tributo a los dibujantes que esos mismos coleccionistas adoraban.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Canada, Fiction, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics, Comix

136 pages, Hardcover

First published October 11, 2011

About the author

Seth, born Gregory Gallant in Clinton, Ontario, is a Canadian cartoonist celebrated for his distinctive visual style, deep sense of nostalgia, and influential contributions to contemporary comics. Known for the long-running series Palookaville and the widely acclaimed graphic novel It’s a Good Life, If You Don’t Weaken, he developed an aesthetic shaped by mid-20th-century magazine cartooning, particularly from The New Yorker, which he blends with themes rooted in Southern Ontario’s cultural memory. After studying at the Ontario College of Art and becoming part of Toronto’s punk-influenced creative scene, he adopted the pen name Seth and began gaining recognition through his work on Mister X. His friendships with fellow cartoonists Chester Brown and Joe Matt formed a notable circle within autobiographical comics of the early 1990s, where each depicted the others in their work. With Palookaville, published by Drawn & Quarterly, Seth refined his signature atmosphere of reflection, melancholy, and visual elegance. Beyond cartooning, he is an accomplished designer and illustrator, responsible for the celebrated book design of the ongoing complete Peanuts collection from Fantagraphics, as well as archival editions of Doug Wright and John Stanley. His graphic novels Clyde Fans, Wimbledon Green, and George Sprott explore memory, identity, and the passage of time through richly composed drawings and narrative restraint. Seth also constructs detailed cardboard architectural models of his imagined city, Dominion, which have been exhibited in major Canadian art institutions. He continues to live and work in Guelph, Ontario, noted for his influential role in shaping literary comics.

Reviews

[Eric Orchard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely brilliant.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the book Seth was working on before inspiration struck and he abandoned the book unfinished to set off and create "Wimbledon Green" in its entirety. This book could be seen as a prequel to "Wimbledon" which celebrated comics collectors while "The Great Northern Brotherhood" celebrates the comics creators.

The narrator talks about the golden age of cartoonists when there was a great society of them and he recounts their varying, eccentric personalities and the strange comics they created. Some of these are real such as Doug Wright's "Nipper" or Seth's friend and peer Chester Brown, but some are made up and these are where the book shines with Seth going off on flights of fancy.

While I adore Seth ("It's a Good Life" and the liner notes to Aimee Mann's record "Lost in Space" made me interested in comics again after a decade or so of leaving them behind) and always look forward to his work, I felt this wasn't nearly as good as his other works, especially "Wimbledon Green" which had far more charm and imagination than this book. "The Great Northern" fails to interest because it's basically a monologue told by Seth describing a cartoonist, their work, and then moving on to the next cartoonist, and their work, and so on. It becomes a bit tedious.

Seth's artwork is as beautiful as ever, even if he labels it as from his sketchbook, and the production of the book is as lovely as all of Drawn and Quarterly's publications are, but it's not this artist's best work and a bit of a disappointment, even to a huge fan like me. It's not essential to read this and for those looking to discover this artist I suggest skipping this and going to "Wimbledon Green" or "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken".

[Dominick · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an odd book. It's sort of an alternate history, positing that there's a Canadian cartoonist's society (hence the title) that's existed for decades and has clubs and archives. There is no such organization or archive, and most of the cartoonists Seth describes as belonging to it are also fictitious, but a handful are in fact real (though he omits a great number of real ones readers might have heard of, such as Lynn Johnson), so this book very strangely blurs fact and fancy. There's no story to speak of, just a recounting of the details of the club and archive buildings, and of some of the members and of the comics (frequently ones that don't really exist)they produced. Sometimes, I found myself almost wishing I could read the comics Seth whimsically imagines for his invented cartoonists. It's a non-narrative fiction about fictions that don't exist--talk about post-modern. Even moreso when you throw in its invocation of an ersatz nostalgia and then its final acknowledgement of its own constructedness. I found it fascinating, amusing, and in some respects a terribly sad commentary on the contrast between how comics fans might like their medium to be viewed and how it really is viewed, but it won't be for all tastes. Anyone who thinks a book should have a narrative with a plot and clear protagonists, etc. will probably have his or her socks bored off.

[Mark]

The "target audience" for this book--a rambling history of Canadian cartoonists, most of them fictional (!), narrated via a tour of the dilapidated old gentleman's clubhouse for a society of cartoonists--can't be more than a few hundred people. Seth himself admits that the book was created as "an indulgence": a sketchbook exercise for his own amusement. However, it's a shame that GNBCC's appeal will be limited to readers interested in a certain kind of highbrow comics, because it's a wonderful book that captures the essence of Seth's interests as a writer as well as his gifts as an artist, suffused with the post-modern melancholic nostalgia he does so well. If you're a fan of comics, think of Seth's GEORGE SPROTT meets Dylan Horrocks's HICKSVILLE, with a dash of Italo Calvino. I loved this book: I read it a second time as soon as I finished it, and I found most moving and delightful the wildly different kinds of comics Seth wished/imagined for Canada's past as well as the mostly sad lives of the (mostly) men who created them. The drawings are pure Seth--loose but confident, with some creative play in a 9-panel grid--and my only quibble would be that he could have introduced different styles for the various strips he tells us about. (I.e., all of the cartoonists depicted draw an awful lot like Seth!)

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting, although it might have been more so if I'd recognized a single one of the cartoons Seth was writing about. And I can't hep but feel that the way Seth described other cartoonists' work was imminently lacking -- he goes on for pages about how so-and-so could draw weather so well you'd feel the heat of the sun or the chill of the frost... or how so-and-so could draw faces better than any other cartoonist (etc.)... but then the picture accompanying the narrative is just one of Seth's simple vintage-looking sketches. It would have been a lot more interesting if there were actually "excerpts" from the famous cartoonists going along with their narrative... and it would have worked just fine with the essay-ish format of the book.
And the end was, all the sudden, super depressing.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sort of tongue in cheek and yet reverent tribute to comics and comic history and Canadians. Sketchbook stuff, he says, but it is clear he is so much better in his sketchbook than 95% of comic writers... urbane, sophisticated humor...not a fascinating story, really.. more whimsical than anything, but it kept me interested in its fictional nostalgia...

[Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un recorrido ficticio -aunque con alguna aparición de realidad- por la historia de la historieta canadiense, inundado por las brumas de la nostalgia y del bajón cocido a fuego lento tan propio de Seth. Un cómic hecho para leer con The Caretaker de fondo.

[Ryan Jantz · Rating 5 out of 5]

That GNBCC originated in the sketchbook with no intentions of publication is its greatest strength. I love the idea of art that is solely for oneself, a meditative exercise and indulgence never intended for anyone else’s eyes. This nonlinear, mostly fictional history of Canadian cartooning is an outpouring of imagination and world building, and it is abundantly clear that Seth is following his curiosities without restraint. I love Seth. I am exactly the target audience for his extremely quiet ruminations on nostalgia, family, industry, a longing for the aesthetics, architecture, graces of the early 20th century. So I am all in on wherever he wants to go. For the not so devout Seth fans, however, I can understand why this would feel meandering, perhaps even tedious (Seth points out exactly what these flaws of GNB are in its intro). In either case, though it is nearly devoid of plot especially compared to Wimbledon Green or Clyde Fans, the same big ideas about nostalgia that Seth so uniquely conveys still seep through every page.

[Derek Royal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding! I'm not sure what else to say about this title. I love Seth's work, so I was predisposed to like this book anyhow, I think. This one is much like his previous "sketchbook," Wimbledon Green, which I really liked. But whereas WG seemed more of a side project--and Seth, by his own admission, states as much--The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists is a full-blown narrative project. One of the things I love about Seth's work is when his comics are ABOUT comics and the history surrounding the medium (whether that history is real or not), and this book gives us all of that with a vengeance. In fact, by the time I finished this book I felt that this was Seth's tribute to his chosen profession, complete with reverence, frustration, pathos, and of course imagination. The latter largely takes the form of a faux history, complete with detailed backstory and all. As Seth points out, this book is similar, to a point, to Dylan Horrack's Hicksville, and now I want to go back and reread the latter, just to see how the two sit well together.

[Sara Habein · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists is a love letter. Canadian artist and writer Seth creates a simple world where comics are revered and treasured, and it is as lovely as a traditional sonnet. He creates a fictional world so believable that I had to do a bit of Google research to see if I'd just been ignorant of Canadian comics history. The bits of reality mixed with Seth's creations feel authentic, and that's all we can really ask of a good book.

(My full review can be found on Glorified Love Letters.)

[Sylvain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Self-conscious nostalgia for something that never was, soaked in self-conscious Canadiana.

[Justin Decloux · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book-length tour through a fake organization (and history) of Canadian Cartoonists?

That shit's my catnip.

[Kit Charlton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A companion to Wimbledon Green. I liked the piecemeal structure of Wimbledon Green more than the meandering narration of GNBCC and the former had slightly more interesting meta-narrative devices happening, but it was a stimulating read nonetheless.

Seth's preoccupation with the Canada of before his birth is taken to its logical extreme here, as the Seth-as-narrator fabricates a whole alternate history where the cartoon is among the most revered of Canadian art forms, to the point where it can support a four-branch bourgeois exclusive social club dedicated to it. It's self-conscious nostalgia turbocharged--all nostalgic rememberaces of the past are made up. Just because this made-up one didn't happen doesn't mean any of the other ones did.

I'm struck by how Seth can offer biographical treatments of fictional artists--like Henry Pefferlaw--with equal depth and alacrity as he does real artists, like Doug Wright, who actually produced a body of work that Seth can read and respond to. He's got a remarkable mind. This book could serve as a fine jumping off point for an education in Canadian comics, so long as you can differentiate the fact from the fiction. But of course, not being sure is at least half the fun.

It's especially interesting that Seth's work has spawned real-life versions of his imagined comics--short animations by Luc Marchand adapt both "The Death of Kao-Kuk" and "The Machine." I'm reading an essay now that compares Seth's works to those of Borges, who has seen his own works take on real-world afterlives. This comparison had not occurred to me before, but it is a sharp one, and goes some way toward explaining my attraction to Seth's work. Borges also wrote himself into his narratives, also invented the works of esteemed but obscure writers, and also loved to send-up the preoccupations of people in the literary world.

Next up is George Sprott, which is so physically large that I'm not sure how I'm going to read it. It's nearly the size of a newspaper spread.

[Grégoire Maillard · Rating 4 out of 5]

surprisingly it’s the first book I read from Seth who’s basically one of the Founding Fathers of the D&Q’s spirit with Brown and Matt; this one is far from his most popular or recognized work, but definitely deserve a special spotlight for what it conveys; Seth introduces us to a (sadly fictious) sort of powerful association of Canadian cartoonists which at the peak of its glory would have many building across the country where the cartoonists would meet and feast and in which the different pieces over time would be displayed; the author walks us through the building, detailing us everything that comes to his mind (the decoration on the entrance door, this old story of what happened in each room, the backstory of what happened with a specific painting, etc.) and create a partially fake world with fake cartoonists drawing fake popular series; I was at first a bit bored but ended getting passionated by these fake collection of cartoon which I ended up wish they existed (especially with the one with the Inuit astronaut); visually it looks very smooth and cartooney, the images speak for themselves, i feel his work looks pretty consistent from afar; as external ressources to check out, the review written by @the_comics_journal_ is far more complete and interesting (loved the passage talking about the difference between comics-for-art and comics-for-history in the fake archives), and it exists a short movie of the fake Kao-Kuk comic which has been made and is available on the NFB website!; overall, it felt like the kind of lecture you want to read in the middle of a summer night when you can’t sleep, and get absorbed and dream about all this little stories that unfold her your eyes

[Vittorio Rainone · Rating 4 out of 5]

E' uno strano libro, (ben) più strano di quel Wimbledon Green al cui contesto fa riferimento.
Seth descrive una associazione di fumettisti canadesi, fondendo invenzione a nomi realmente esistiti.
E tutto il volume è una visita guidata a una sede (e a un gigantesco archivio) di questa associazione.
Con il risultato straniante di indurre il lettore che non si sia informato in precedenza (come me, purtroppo) ad aspettarsi nelle prime pagine un lungo preambolo, salvo poi continuare con la lettura e scoprire che TUTTO il libro è il "preambolo".
In questa ottica il volume all'inizio è difficile, poi subentra l'accettazione del contesto e l'attenzione si risintonizza sulla sottile malinconia che permea, come sua abitudine, la narrazione del maestro canadese.
A lettura finita rimane tutto il piacere di essersi immersi in questo placido stagno su cui si è riflesso un mondo.

[Ángel Oreste · Rating 2 out of 5]

A medio camino entre el estilo más bonachón y simplista de Wimbledon Green y la pesadez evocadora y nostálgica de Ventiladores Clyde. Quiere ser lo segundo pero con la inmediatez del primero pero al menos para mí no logra ser nada estimulante.

El dibujo tan naif que le caracteriza aquí sobre simplifica a menudo la narración visual. Hay muchísimas panorámicas (quizá demasiadas) que siguen estando cortadas por ese formato 3x3 y no entiendo muy bien la fijación por mantenerlo. De haber experimentado con más disposiciones y formas seguramente el resultado habría sido mucho más interesante.

Un poco aburrido y bobo.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very typical Seth book. Nostalgia for the past, a tribute to the cartoonists, real and imagined, of yesteryear, and a wry, slightly-date view of Canadian culture. I like Seth and his artwork so I enjoyed it, but not a lot here if you're not a fan.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure it this is true and I don't feel like researching this but I thought this was fascinating. The cartoonist and the cartoons and characters seem real.

[Jiro Dreams of Suchy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seth goes into the lore of the Canadian cartooning world. Each facet of the building holds story and significance, every little bit matters

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Achingly real and heartbreaking, like nearly all his work. You want to read every artist he mentions, whether it takes a lifetime or not.

[Jon Hewelt · Rating 5 out of 5]

ReRead 7 September 2019
---
A graphic novel about graphic novels? Oh boy, this one's right up my alley!

I'd read little Seth prior to The G.N.B Double C: only Clyde Fans, which I highly recommend. But reading Clyde Fans, I instantly liked his style. Quiet. Somber. Reflective. Reading Clyde Fans, life around me slowed down. Reading Clyde Fans, I breathed easier.

That's a hecka heap of praise, and perhaps a little hyperbolic. But Clyde Fans, for its quiet nature, was thrilling to read. Just this complete little world, packaged neatly, easy to understand, but with long-stretching ramifications.

But this is not a review of Clyde Fans. This is a review of The G.N.B. Double C, though the two books share similarities.

The G.N.B. is about a society of cartoonists in Canada, but it is moreso about their headquarters and the history therein. An unnamed narrator (I think unnamed . . . it's been a while since I finished this) (presumably Seth) gives the reader a guided tour of the G.N.B.'s hallowed halls and, as with Clyde Fans, there is much on which to reflect and remember.

Not to spoil too much, but the G.N.B. has seen better days, and thus this graphic novel deals a lot in nostalgia and its nature, what it means to be a part of a grand tradition, and especially one that is no longer so grand.

I understand that this is from Seth's sketchbook and "finalized", but I like it better that way. The layout is simple: each is page is a grid of uniform panels, 3 by 3. Quick to digest, but again: the information packed in those panels is expansive, comprehensive.

There is also a nice mix of fiction and reality within the pages of G.N.B. The Brotherhood doesn't exist (though you'd never believe it from the level of detail), but some of its members were/are famous Canadian cartoonists. Some of the names I recognized. Others, I could not tell if they were real. But the mark of a good read, I find, is its ability to spark curiosity. I fully intend on checking this book out again, researching names, and discovering Canadian cartoons I'd never read before.

It's a gushing review, but don't let that deter you, because I believe The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists is worth the gushing. It's breathtaking. Check it out.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readers are taken on a building tour of the Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists. As we are lead on the tour, a fictitious history of Canadian cartooning is detailed by a narrator who is largely unseen. Despite the book being given top-notch production values including an embossed cover and rounded page edges—the story originated from Seth's sketchbook. As he explains in the 8-point-font preface, he did redraw the worst parts, but this book is not exactly action-packed.

According to the internets there are a couple of actual historical cartoonists discussed. If they were there, I didn't find them. I only googled the authors and characters I wanted to be real—and of course, they weren't. My favorite character discussed was "Canada Jack," a mountie-looking fellow who wears a mask and three maple leaves on his sweater. According to the story, the plots of his comics were often quite random, like a discussion of transportation infrastructure and extolling the benefits of walking. In the world of the book, the only ad for this quirky series that has been found appeared in a square dancing magazine. And in one issue he appeared with a very off-model, out-of-character, and unlicensed Snoopy, struck dumb (or at least inane) by the 1967 Montreal World Exposition. Wouldn't you love for that to be true? But alas.

I'm not the most savvy graphic novel fan, but I've seen some of Seth's work augment The Complete Peanuts series. A few of his panels were interesting, such as a nine-panel page that showed the lobby of the GNBCC, in segments. When reading each panel, just a glimpse of the room is shown—when viewing the page as a whole, the entire room comes into view. In other places, he'll use three side-by-side panels in a similar way.

Originally I glanced through a copy while on a friend-date at Powell's a couple months ago, but when I saw the book again facing me on a library shelf, I knew reading it was my manifest destiny. A fun short read for people interested in Canada, history (especially fake history), and of course graphic novels.

[marvellings · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a delightfully weird little book. The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists is a fictional history of Canadian cartooning from the sketchbooks of Seth. It feels very much like a fanciful sketchbook exercise (which it was) than a fully fleshed-out story, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

There were lots of little bits I loved. I loved Seth's art, the three by three panel grid, the endpapers, and the "Brushes ho!" motto on the GNBCC crest. I'm also disappointed some of these stories aren't real! I'd love to read Pefferlaw's The Great Machine, and Munn's Kao-Kuk of the Royal Canadian Astro-Men—though I'm bummed even this fictional story about an Inuit astronaut had to have a white author. At least the lack of racial and gender diversity is somewhat addressed in-text, though "Canada" seems to be defined mostly as Ontario and Quebec, here.

As a librarian, the whole section about the tragically underfunded GNBCC archive in a remote northern location amused me greatly. And as an Estonian-Canadian, the bit where the Mountie in the lobby unexpectedly turns out to be an Estonian guy named Fred had me laughing out loud.

The story is filled to the brim with Canadiana, loneliness, and a nostalgia for the way things never were. I wish I knew a bit more about Canadian comic history to recognize if/when Seth is making references or providing commentary on real people or events. I imagine this book will only be of interest to those fond of Canadian culture, comics, or maybe archives, but it's definitely a gem.

[Gary Butler Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Seth's "sketchbook" story The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists seems too polished and perfect to be derived from such a messy source as an artist's sketch-and-scrawl 'ideas' book, it's because it is. As the noted cartoonist admits in his typically dry-yet-jaunty introduction, the work started in the sketchbook but a good 2/3 of it was redone for the collected edition. Still, he remained faithful to his original instincts and visions -- and what instincts and visions they are. Seth creates a faux history of Canadian cartooning so rich in detail and character that readers will wish every anecdote, book and artist to be real (only a very small number of them are), not to mention the thoroughly planned-out towns and buildings, hallways and rooms.

Also addressed in the introduction is the book's inadvertent thematic similarity to Dylan Horrocks's Hicksville -- for the collected edition of which Seth once wrote a preface! Coincidence aside, this book is a terrific complement for Horrocks's, as well as for Seth's other "sketchbook" story, Wimbledon Green.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fun little tour of the GNBCC in Dominion on Milverton Street with Seth as our personal tour guide (and definitely my favourite book by Seth thus far). Once again we are treated to Seth's nostalgia for the past. And again this story is a mixture of real and imagined history, peppered with real and imaginary cartoonists in real and imagined places. However, I found with this "sketchbook" I fell into the tour that Seth was taking me on, listening to his stories as he took me through each little room, treating me to one anecdotal tale after another. This time I was right with him as we strolled through the club house taking in the comic treasures housed within.

Clearly though, in this particular case, Seth is not taking this one as seriously as some of his other works. This Seth seems more relaxed with his story telling and he pokes fun at it himself, admitting to a few fibs along the way (which I think made me like this little tale even more, truth be told).

This is simply a charming and quiet read that I am sure I will read many more times to come.

[Thomas Vree · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd little book, like all his others. It ostensibly tells a history of Canadian cartooning, through the ploy of a tour through one of the declining lodges of the Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists. I thought the only fictional aspect was this imaginary lodge in a make-believe town. He discusses with quite a bit of accuracy the old Doug Wrights Family, which I recall very well from growing up. (I wonder whether there has ever been a more meticulous visual chronicling of life in 60s/70s suburban Canada.) All the other stories he discusses I hence though were also real, and some of them sounded intriguing enough that I wanted to find them. It turns out that they were all inventions of the author. He does a pretty good job of convincing you that there was once a golden era where Canadian cartoonists were exalted citizens, who congregated in posh fraternal lodges, but also that this should have been. Like I said, bit of a head scratcher.

[Garconniere · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this. After coming across "It's a good life if you don't weaken" I wanted to consume everything he's ever made... I wanted to read Wimbledon Green first, but it was checked out of the library.

The element of the book that irked me the most wasn't so much the self-referential dynamics, but rather Seth's attemps at denouncing (or just addressing?) so much of the sexism and racism in the comics world, even in this fictional one. It just irked me... when describing Kao-Kuk the "Eskimo" or using words like "Regrettable" when talking about a racist caricature of a black man. I get his desire to at least acknowledge the fact that these fictional cartoonists were mostly white men with less than perfect politics, but it overshadowed a lot of the content for me.

Also, as a Quebecker, I wanted to be laughing at Yvette Mailloux's "Father Robert" but couldn't get past the mispelling of "Trembley."

[Damon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this, but it was actually a bit disappointing. I'll admit that may be mostly due to my expectations, but after reading the promotional material, I was kind of expecting a sequel or companion piece to "Wimbledon Green" in content moreso than just in execution.

Where Wimbledon Green is full of adventure, and walks a great line between fussy and funny, this is just... Well, it's literally like taking a sort of boring tour of a sort of interesting place. There's really no "story" here, and since I really have no concept of what's fiction and what's fact, it doesn't even serve as a departure point for a deeper investigation of potentially interesting material.

I still love Seth, and I'm excited to read anything new he releases, but here he maybe went a bit too much towards the margins for my tastes. It still looks great, but that's most of what I got out of it.

[Brian Grover · Rating 2 out of 5]

Shame on me for not understanding what this book was about before buying it. Based on a blurb I saw a few years ago, and the cover art, I thought this was a funny graphic novel about a bunch of Canadian cartoonists who were also super-heroes or spies or something. Well, that's definitely wrong.

The author/artist here, known only as Seth, basically just made up a bunch of fictional Canadian cartoonists and their signature characters/strips, and he "immortalizes" them all here as his narrator strolls around what amounts to a Canadian Cartoon Hall of Fame. It's really, really boring. I'll give it a second star because I'm just kind of a sucker for graphic novels, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is my favorite book by Seth thus far. It's an obvious companion piece to Wimbledon Green, but the context of this story works better for me, as Seth interweaves fictional and real retrospectives of Canadian cartooning history into a surprisingly cohesive narrative. The hallmarks of Seth's familiar style are all here: nostalgia for past decades, an obsession with the minutia of comics history, and an oppressive sense of loneliness and isolation (and an odd sense of joy brought on by those last two sentiments). And the adventures of the spacefaring Inuk Kao-Kuk are priceless - one of Seth's finest creations to date.