Seth: Dominion Art Show

On Sunday, January 31st, Seth came to London, Ontario for a conversation with curator Andrew Hunter on his Dominion art show - currently on display at Museum London (until March 14th). Seth has built approximately 60 cardboard buildings of his fictional Dominion town, and they have been on display in 5 different art installantions now, each installation being a bit different from the other. 

Originally, Dominion was to be a graphic novel of 5 interconnected stories -- with the connection between the stories being the town itself. Over time, Seth began to construct building of the town so he could better understand it for himself. Along the way he lost interest in the graphic novel, but continues to explore the city.

Here's a blurb from the Museum about the London show:

"Dominion is the elaborate, ever-expanding, work-in-progress of the renowned Canadian cartoonist Seth. An imagined place combining elements of numerous early modern Canadian cities, Dominion captures the spirit of the booming small metropolis at a time of community boosterism and growth."

I've seen Seth speak a number of times now, and he's always articulate and interesting. I went with fellow cartoonist extraordinaire Jesse Jacobs and a couple of others friends to the event.

Here's some highlights from the afternoon: 

About Dominion and Canada

•  Dominion is a fictional Northern Ontario town, but is really more influenced by Southwestern Ontario - especially Hamilton. There is also a lot of London, Ontario in Dominion. Seth likes how the quality of the past lingers into the present in these towns.
• He admits that this is less so today than it was 20 years ago, as "The only place the past really exists is in your memory, which is nebulous and always just out of your reach." 
• Not surprisingly, Seth finds the world today "ugly, cheap and vulgar".

About Art and Cartooning

• When curator Andrew Hunter talks about Canadian art and art schools, he mentions a current distaste or ignorance in young artists about the famous Group of Seven (a group of famous Canadian landscape artists from the 1920s for the uninitiated. Their work is ubiquitous in Canada from postcards & posters to placemats and coasters), Seth's reaction was hilarious:
  
  "Really? I can't see the point in rebelling against landscape art."
Tom Thomson, Snow Shadows, 1917
• Until recently, cartoonists have been forced to find their own ancestors. This has forced them to become collectors in order to learn from the masters who have come before you.
• Seth grew up reading Peanuts, but as a teenager turned to Marvel Comics, he said was: "like going from cocaine to crack."
• There is something about those Marvel Comics that play on adolescent minds - they're like an image of a raging erection going around in the world.
• In contrast, Schulz's work is deeply personal which transmits through his work.    

On his own Cartooning Style

• "I like digression -- where characters ramble on and give more of a flavour to the work. Where what happens is not essential to the plot."
• Cartooning is not drawing, it's graphic design and symbols. It's all about moving shapes around on the page. It's main purpose is as a storytelling medium.
• "Real drawing" is about looking and seeing the world.

My sketch of Seth at the event

Daily Breakdowns 024 - Nancy With The Laughing Face

The John Stanley Library: Nancy
Writing and Layouts by John Stanley
Art by Dan Gormley
Published by Drawn and Quarterly. $24.99 USD

I remember when this book was announced, and some respected blogger types started going on about it, and saying, "Jesus, now I gotta like John Stanley?" The more you get into comics, the further there is to go, and it's often exciting and revelatory to be introduced to another old master, but now and then it feels like a chore as well. What I mean is, anyone interested in reading Stanley's work should start with Little Lulu, available in a series of cheap paperbacks from Dark Horse. There is no really compelling reason for Drawn and Quarterly to publish something called, "The John Stanley Library," and focus entirely on Stanley's late career work for Dell Comics other than the fact that they couldn't get the rights to the earlier stuff, and almost certainly D&Q cartoonist Seth, a Stanley fan who has designed the covers for the series, holds great affection for this period of Stanley. It actually feels like Seth wants the reader to experience this early '60s work--intended to be disposable humor fare suitable for a rainy day or long drive--the way he did, in its crappy original presentation inside, but he can't help gussying up the package with his distinctive font, bold colors and embossing promising a rich, Sethlike experience with previously unheralded work.

It's a nice design (aside from the back cover sticker, which doesn't want to adhere to the raised cloth binding), but a bit overpowering, especially when the contents are kept with their dull, original four color printing and faux-newsprint backing. Whether this is the right presentation for these comics is a subjective argument akin to Beatles fans preferring the original mono or new stereo mixes. On the one hand, readers of a certain age who have fond associations with reading old newsprint comic books will probably enjoy this facsimile, while prospective new young readers may be confused or at least faced with a mild barrier towards engagement with the work.

In addition to being overpowering, Seth's cover with the abstract, almost inhuman white face of Nancy against the dynamic field of orange suggests that this will be the definitive Nancy work. There is no information in the book itself about Nancy being a creation of Ernie Bushmiller, or appearing in newspapers for almost 30 years before this comic book spin-off in which he had no involvement. The book's design is at cross purposes, its lavishness demanding consideration as a major work but with no essay to support this or give the strip any grounding in the context of Stanley's career or how it compares to Bushmiller's Nancy. The half page Stanley bio at the end is all the reader gets, the conclusion about Stanley leaving comics bitterly left unexplored, a tease.

If this all sounds negative, well, no. Seth is a huge talent, and it may be a case where his enthusiasm gets the better of him here; like a hotshot superhero artist, he's calling attention to himself rather than serving the stories. But it beats a brown paper wrapper. Perhaps we should at long last get to the comics themselves.

Stanley is considered one of the most consistently funny comics writers of all time, and here he offers several stories for each of the five issues collected. from one to eleven pages. I don't know Bushmiller's Nancy that well, but Stanley seems to stick to the basic model of Nancy being an irrepressible but basically decent smartass and troublemaker, with Sluggo her dupe, pal and soulmate in equal measure, and with a fair amount of moxie of his own. However, Stanley does introduce a new character, Oona Goosepimple, a nice but spooky-looking, cat-eyed girl with Addams Family-style relations. She appears in a couple stories, but other than that, it's standard, non-mystical hijinks for Nancy and Sluggo.

The artist, Dan Gormley, is a bit of a mystery, but was a frequent artist for Dell and did other work with Stanley. Although he reportedly had a style distinctive enough to be recognized as his own in earlier years, for licensed work like this, he subsumes it, so the results are successful but workmanlike. Perhaps only with Oona, where he was creating a character from scratch, is there a flash of originality, but it's not like those stories indicate a significantly higher level of engagment. He's fine, but seems to be under no illusion that the work he was doing was intended to be disposable kids' entertainment. Probably his greatest accomplishment here is the boyish joy he captures in Sluggo's face, quite a contrast from the frequent blankness of Nancy.

The real reason to get the book, and presumably future volumes, is that Stanley is funny. Stories involving Nancy trying to cover up the damage she thinks her new dog is making, or sight gags involving Sluggo wearing a tortoise costume, work like a charm, and the story of Sluggo seemingly making a rapid career ascent to bank president is well constructed. Stanley knows his business, and his hit ratio for gags is high. Although not quite an essential work, there are plenty of laughs to be had.

Damn, I guess I like John Stanley now.