Seth is the pen name of Gregory Gallant (born September 16, 1962), a Canadian comic book artist and writer. He is best known for comics like Palooka-Ville.

Biography

Born in Clinton, Ontario, Seth attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. He currently lives in Guelph, Ontario, with his wife and five cats.

Seth's first published comics work was as an illustrator on the Vortex Comics series Mister X, but he soon moved to his own series, Palooka-ville (published by Drawn and Quarterly), which was part of a miniature boom in non-genre alternative comics from Canada in the 1990s. Seth, Chester Brown, and Joe Matt not only also began their own semi-autobiographical series at the same time but were friends and sometimes depicted each other in their stories. Palooka-Ville began as a low-key chronicle of the artist's daily life but moved on to longer and more ambitious stories, including what was later collected as the graphic novel It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken— an apparently autobiographical tale that was actually fiction.

He is also a magazine illustrator and book designer, perhaps best known for his work designing the complete collection of Charles M. Schulz's classic comic strip Peanuts. The books, slated to be released by Fantagraphics Books in 25 separate volumes combine Seth's signature aesthetic with Schulz's minimalistic comic creation. He provided the artwork for Aimee Mann's 2001 album Lost in Space.

Clyde Fans, the story of two brothers whose trade in electric fans suffers and eventually went out of business from the failure to adapt to the rise of air conditioning, has been serialized in Palooka-ville. Seth's short graphic novel Wimbledon Green, about an eccentric comic-book collector, was published in November 2005.

In April 2006, Penguin Classics released the revised Portable Dorothy Parker, with a jacket and French flaps designed and illustrated by Seth. He said, "It’s fun when you care about the project, definitely. In fact, I’ve been a commercial illustrator for years, besides being a cartoonist, and that's not fun. That's like the kind of thing, I find, you're just selling style in a way."

From September 2006 to March 25, 2007, Seth serialized a new graphic novel, George Sprott (1894-1975), for the "The Funny Pages" section of the New York Times Magazine.

Seth's affection for early- and mid-20th century popular culture, and his relative disdain for pop culture since then, is a recurrent theme in his work, both in terms of the characters (who are often nostalgic for the period) and his artistic style. (Although, as a teenager, he was a vocal fan of mainstream superhero comics; he even had a couple of fan letters published.)

Seth's artwork has landed on the cover of The New Yorker twice, which he said was a professional milestone he was happy to achieve.

A selection of Seth's original models (studies for his fictional city, Dominion) was included in an exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum in Phoenix, AZ from April 21st through August 19th 2007.

Awards

Eisner Award

• Best Publication Design (The Complete Peanuts), 2005 Harvey Award
• Special Award for Excellence in Production/Presentation (The Complete Peanuts), 2005 Ignatz Award
• Outstanding Artist, 1997
• Outstanding Graphic Novel or Collection (It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken), 1997

Bibliography

Graphic Novels

• (1996) It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken – Montreal: Drawn and Quarterly, ISBN 1-896597-70-X
• (2004) Clyde Fans: Book One – Montreal: Drawn and Quarterly, ISBN 1-896597-84-X
• (2005) Wimbledon Green – Montreal: Drawn and Quarterly, ISBN 1-896597-93-9 Other
• (2001) Vernacular Drawings [sketchbook] – Montreal: Drawn and Quarterly, ISBN 1-896597-41-6
• (2002) Inner Drawings and Cover Art for the Record Lost In Space by Aimee Mann, Super Ego Records.
• (2006) Forty Books of Interest: A Supplement to Comic Art Magazine No.8

Notes

References

• Seth at Lambiek's Comiclopedia

External links

• "Quirky Canadian Leads the Return of the Classic Graphic Novel, Globe and Mail, August 6, 2005
• "Retro Man", Toronto Life, Dec. 2005
• An audio slide show from Toronto Life profile
• "Q&A: Seth", The Walrus, August 21, 2008