6 October 2023
[comics] the SETH shoot interview … Long interview with Seth on Joe Matt and much more from Cartoonist Kayfabe.
4 October 2023
[comics] Remembering Joe Matt … Memories from friends including Seth and Chester Brown. Seth: ‘It always struck me as funny when someone would read one of Joe’s comics and get angry. “What a jerk” they’d say, getting all worked up about Joe and his actions in the story. What amazed me was that they were reacting to the work as if they’d just watched a documentary about him. Totally forgetting that this was a work of art by a very calculating and smart artist who deliberately made the choices in the book that caused this reaction. Joe knew exactly what he was doing. He didn’t paint himself as a creep by accident. That was the point. He did everything on purpose. That weird obsessiveness of his made absolutely nothing an accident. Every line, every panel, every exclamation mark was carefully considered (too carefully considered!). He was a master cartoonist and the work shows it.’
19 October 2020
[comics] Adrian Tomine in conversation with Seth … I wonder how they coerced Seth to use Zoom? :)
24 November 2014
[comics] Canadian cartoonist Seth Interviewed … ‘I try not to worry too much about meaning with what I’m doing, because I think meaning is accumulated or accrued from just doing it. It builds up its own meaning. I think that might be the bad legacy of modern art, the concern about ‘what does it mean?’ I don’t think that’s important to the artist. The artist kind of knows what it means, but it’s up to other people to determine that.’
31 January 2011
[comics] Is Palookaville #20 The Last Comic Book? … ‘I bought Palookaville #20, mainly because I wanted to see the pictures of Seth’s cardboard city (which he says he fantasizes about as he drifts off to sleep each night), not because of the comics.’
12 May 2009
[comics] Canada’s Comic-book Hero … interview / profile of Seth …‘Seth characterizes his world as both “grandmotherly, in that it’s like this desire to create this cozy 1930s, 1940s kind of environment” and “kind of adolescent because the place has a lot of toys. There’s something about the teenage boy, trying to create your perfect teenage room. “I can’t live unless I’ve got control of the aesthetics,” he declares. “If I want a couch, it has to be an old couch – unless it’s really successful at pretending to be an old couch.” Luckily, his wife, a 32-year-old men’s hairstylist who met Seth while working as a model in a life-drawing class he was taking, doesn’t have strong views on decor (although they did “feud” briefly earlier this year over her wish to put a Sylvania colour TV set in the living room).’ [via Waxy]
31 August 2008
[comics] Q&A: Seth … part one of an interview with the Canadian cartoonist. Seth on memory: ‘I recall the sense of being somewhere-the visceral feeling of being in a childhood room, for example. The images themselves in such memories are Frankenstein constructions of what might have been in the room. You almost have to reassemble the room piece by piece when thinking of it. Feelers go out and supply the details. The mental images are somewhat akin to high contrast photographs-much of the detail is gone but the graphic moment is captured in the bold shapes…’
12 August 2008
[comics] Seth on the Quiet Art of Cartooning … ‘There is something very lovely about the stillness of a comic book page. That austere stacked grid of boxes. The little people trapped in time. Its frozen and silent nature acting almost as a counterpoint to the raucous vulgarity of the modern aesthetic. Of course, the drawings aren’t really frozen. When we look at them, we immediately invest them with life. That little ink world pops into life as our eyes move across the drawings.’ [via ¡Journalista!]
28 January 2006
[comics] A Comics Panel with Chris Ware, Seth and Ivan Brunetti. [via Waxy]
9 June 2004
[comics] 5 Questions for… Seth — the writer/artist is interviewed by Alan David Doane at Newsarama … ‘If you were to take the first part of Clyde Fans and change the electric fan, like all references to electric fans, to comic books, it would kind of explain who the character of Abraham is, because being a cartoonist in the 20th century has that same kind of feeling of, say, being an electric fan salesman, it’s a kind of an antiquated occupation that’s sort of fallen by the wayside as technological progress has moved us into such totally different media. In many ways, like working as a cartoonist, just drawing little things on pieces of paper seems like such an old fashioned method compared to all of the technological computer science that has come along.’
13 February 2003
[comics] Seth Returns to Palookaville — update on the cartoonist Seth … ‘Outside of his work, Seth is probably best known for his appearances in Joe Matt’s Peepshow comic, where the conversations between those two and Yummy Fur’s Chester Brown has become part of comic book legend. Do the three still hang out? “Sure. But last night the three of us had our farewell dinner for Joe Matt. He’s leaving Toronto for good.” What, can this trio really be broken up forever? “It’s going to be odd. But Chester and I were friends before Joe showed up.”‘
2 December 2002
[comics] Seth and the City — profile of Seth … ‘He’s a self-acknowledged workaholic, often passing 12 hours a day hunkered over a drafting table in his small basement studio. But much of Seth’s time is spent creating editorial illustrations for major newspapers and magazines. The commercial work earns a decent paycheque, while Palooka-Ville is his personal obsession. He labours over every detail, hand-lettering every word and aiming to create “a perfect object.”‘ [via ¡Journalista!]