'Clyde Fans'.
Seth is a Canadian cartoonist, best known for his series 'Palookaville' and his retro drawing style. Born in 1962 as Gregory Gallant in Clinton, Ontario, he studied at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. One of his main graphic influences is Jimmy Frise, while he also expressed admiration for Dave Cooper. Seth settled in Toronto, where he drew his first comic book art for 'Mister X' by Vortex Comics. He then turned to illustrating and had his work featured in such noted publications as The Washington Post, Details, Spin, The New York Times, and Saturday Night.
By 1990, his comic strips began appearing in the pages of the Montréal-based anthology Drawn & Quarterly, and the following year saw the debut of 'Palookaville', Seth's noted continuing comic book series (and the first to be published by D&Q). The series started as a low-key, though fictional, chronicle of the artist's daily life, collected in the graphic novel 'It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken' in 1996. But from issue #10 of of 'Palookaville', Seth took us into the "Clyde Fans" storefront in Toronto and documented the lives of two brothers who ran the once-successful fan company. The story is structured in two parts, alternating between the present-day reminiscences of the surviving brother, and their lives as young men in the 1950s.
'Palookaville' #20.
Besides 'Palookaville', in November 2005 Seth also released the short graphic novel 'Wimbledon Green', about an eccentric comic book collector. From September 2006 to March 2007, Seth serialized his graphic novel 'George Sprott (1894-1975)' in New York Times Magazine. It was published as a book in May 2009. In 2011 he released 'The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists', a graphic novel on a fictional Canadian comics organization.
'The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists'.
One of the main representatives of Canadian alternative comics in the 1990s, Seth is especially influenced by pop culture of the mid-20th century, and by the classic illustrators for The New Yorker (for which he has also provided the cover artwork a couple of times). Seth is also known for his lay-out and design work, like he did for Fantagraphics' 'Complete Peanuts' collection and the Penguin Classics reedition of 'The Portable Dorothy Parker'.
Seth was an influence on Dave Cooper, Sophie Crumb, Maia Matches, Mimi Pond, Joe Matt, Maarten Vande Wiele and Jim Woodring.
'George Sprott'.