Vernacular Drawings

by Seth

Vernacular Drawings is a sumptuous, full-color, cloth bound coffee table book collecting the drawings of award-winning cartoonist Seth. A broad range of subject matter is covered here, from portraits of early jazz greats and scenes of burlesque shows to an oddly intriguing gallery of successful insurance salesmen circa 1947. Nothing is out of place in Vernacular Drawings : there are portraits of R. Crumb and Django Reinhardt and an image of a glorious 1920's ballroom scene is followed by a dilapidated, circa 2000 industrial building. A bold portrait of a North American Indian is preceded by another of a Spanish matador. Seth's illustrations have been seen by millions throughout North America in publications such as The New York Times, Forbes , and The Washington Post , and he is best known as a cartoonist from his series Palooka-Ville and his award-winning book, It's A Good Life, If You Don't Weaken . Available exclusively in this cloth-bound edition, Vernacular Drawings is Seth's first "non-comics" collection, a lavish, full-color art book that will appeal to aesthetes everywhere.

Genres: Art, Comics, Graphic Novels, Canada, Nonfiction

208 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2001

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

[Drew Canole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seth does some Marvel Superhero drawing in this, which I found really surprising. I'd love to see him do a retro-50s superhero comic. I love the production value of this book. I really enjoy just holding it. But of course, a nice book is useless with out good content. Seth delivers some really awesome full page drawings here.

[Greg L Goldstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific collection of art compiled from Seth's first six sketchbooks. Unfortunately out of print, but worth hunting down a used copy.
Seth (Gregory Galant) is in all likelihood the most underrated indie cartoonist of his generation.

[Ademption · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seth doesn't like drawing eyes and feet. Feet, I understand, and yet he renders them quite well. His buildings are superb. In the middle of this handsome sketchbook (circa 2000), he started to avoid eyes. Subsequent group shots have 3/4 of the people wearing opaque glasses or caught restfully mid-blink. The quantity of blinkers lend quiet grace to the pages. But I can't help but notice roughly one set of minimal eyes in every group of eight. For groups of four, everyone is blinking or wearing glasses. Pre-2000, he does expressive eyes well. Post-2000, blink, blink, glasses, blink, glasses, two tiny eye-dots, and blink. I wonder if he got bored with eyes, hates them, felt he spent too much time on them for paltry reward, etc. What's the rationale, Seth? Regardless, this is solid work.

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vernacular Drawings doesn't give me much insight into Seth other than he likes to sketch old yearbook photos and deserted downtown streets. I was hoping the sketchbook would include images that broke the norm or were more personal. Instead the book is just a polished collection of well-drawn people and locations. I mean, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I just feel that Vernacular Drawings could have provided more of a revelation. [see: Chris Ware's sketchbooks with detailed masturbatory images]

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Certainly a must-have for the Seth aficionado, but not required reading either. Rather, it fills out what already exists as Seth's primary drive amongst his published works: an intense interest in the paper archive of human life, representations of which are beautifully rendered on the page. Necessarily lavish, a true pleasure.

[Meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I love more than anything is cartoons that have a real feel to them... a past... a history.

[Damon · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a "coffee table book" than anything else, but pretty great overall.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's always interesting to look through someone's sketchbook

[Sean Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite graphic artist. Love everything he does.