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Product Description
Independent on Sunday: Rev'd Tim Martin
`..wonderfully designed and drawn...it's a small triumph for the
form'
form'
Sam Leith, Telegraph
`Seth does not-much-happening with more elegance - swooshing retro brushwork; muted tones - than almost anyone'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Seth, hater of modern life, and big cartoon fan, becomes obsessed with a cartoonist called Kalo, who had a single item of work in New Yorker magazine in the 50s. He sets about tracking down more Kalos, managing in the end to find just 11. At the same time he goes in search of the life story of the artist.
I was reminded a great deal of Robert Crumb in the character of Seth. Like Crumb here is an ubergeek, obsessed with old things and unable to form relationships in the present. Where Crumb covets old records, Seth is into cartoons (although there is a reference to his 78 collection too!)
This is a subtle and at times slow-moving piece. Seth will often set up a scene with a series of panels containing just images of buildings or landscapes. Quite a filmic approach. I liked it very much.
Overall, you get a picture of a sad and lonely individual, who throws his energy into pointless anorak behaviour, while retreating from a love affair with someone he admits is a "smart and pretty woman".
This then is a subtle portrait of that usually male individual - the eccentric, the geek, the nerd - whatever you want to call them. Who is intelligent but unhappy, and who searches in vain for a true meaning in life through something haphazzard and irrelevant, while avoiding the reality and opportunities around them. Quite moving I thought, and subtly done. Wonderful artwork too.
I was reminded a great deal of Robert Crumb in the character of Seth. Like Crumb here is an ubergeek, obsessed with old things and unable to form relationships in the present. Where Crumb covets old records, Seth is into cartoons (although there is a reference to his 78 collection too!)
This is a subtle and at times slow-moving piece. Seth will often set up a scene with a series of panels containing just images of buildings or landscapes. Quite a filmic approach. I liked it very much.
Overall, you get a picture of a sad and lonely individual, who throws his energy into pointless anorak behaviour, while retreating from a love affair with someone he admits is a "smart and pretty woman".
This then is a subtle portrait of that usually male individual - the eccentric, the geek, the nerd - whatever you want to call them. Who is intelligent but unhappy, and who searches in vain for a true meaning in life through something haphazzard and irrelevant, while avoiding the reality and opportunities around them. Quite moving I thought, and subtly done. Wonderful artwork too.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I enjoyed this book alot. I've tried not to include any spoilers in this, but I have gone into little bits of detail here and there and made some conclusions based on events in the book, so to be safe you might want to just read the last paragraph and return to this review once you've read the book for yourself..
I was prepared for self indulgence thanks to some of the reviews here on amazon and I do think it's wise to take heed on said warnings.
One of the reasons I still really enjoyed this (beside the awesome artwork, compositions and general pacing of the story telling) was that I have the sense that Seth (as an author) genuinely thinks he's an interesting guy. It's almost like he's oblivious to the fact that the rest of the world doesn't actually spend their entire existence talking about cartoon strips. I like avant-garde black metal but I'm fully aware most people would see me as a freak if I talked about it like it was an attribute to my personality. Because of this oblivious element, I sort of sympathise with him. However...
There's one section where seth is talking to his incredibly good freind 'Chet' ('Incredibly good' because we see 'Chet' constantly lending seth money and listening to his benile mysanthropic rants like he cares without interuption) Seth changes the topic from his love life, which he allows to be complex for the sake of his comic obsession, back to his hunt for 'Kalo' and in doing so claims (periphrased ~) 'enough of this boring unimportant stuff - check out my new kalo cartoon I found'.
Was seth aware of this when writing or not? Complacency towards what he deams unimportant, when in actual fact it is important (in some ways this is approached when the book resolves).
His search for Kalo is clearly about his relationship with change. He wants to idealise and preserve this man who's artwork really speaks to his inner child. The search for Kalo is really a search for an identity only the past will allow Seth to have for himself. It's like he wants to follow in Kalo's footsteps, even though Seth has become a far more acomplished artist anyway. So really it's a search for inner peace. Something Seth won't have because he treats people badly... his brother... chet... his girlfriends. To be honest, he's not the nicest guy and definately not a likeable protagonist.
This doesn't stop us from enjoying the resolution and the journey in general. For fans of independant comics, this won't disapoint (unless you're an over opinionated conisseur who doen't just allow yourself to be immersed in what is essentially, a really immersing tale). If you get the same satisfaction I get from graphic literature, this will only leave you hungry for more.
I was prepared for self indulgence thanks to some of the reviews here on amazon and I do think it's wise to take heed on said warnings.
One of the reasons I still really enjoyed this (beside the awesome artwork, compositions and general pacing of the story telling) was that I have the sense that Seth (as an author) genuinely thinks he's an interesting guy. It's almost like he's oblivious to the fact that the rest of the world doesn't actually spend their entire existence talking about cartoon strips. I like avant-garde black metal but I'm fully aware most people would see me as a freak if I talked about it like it was an attribute to my personality. Because of this oblivious element, I sort of sympathise with him. However...
There's one section where seth is talking to his incredibly good freind 'Chet' ('Incredibly good' because we see 'Chet' constantly lending seth money and listening to his benile mysanthropic rants like he cares without interuption) Seth changes the topic from his love life, which he allows to be complex for the sake of his comic obsession, back to his hunt for 'Kalo' and in doing so claims (periphrased ~) 'enough of this boring unimportant stuff - check out my new kalo cartoon I found'.
Was seth aware of this when writing or not? Complacency towards what he deams unimportant, when in actual fact it is important (in some ways this is approached when the book resolves).
His search for Kalo is clearly about his relationship with change. He wants to idealise and preserve this man who's artwork really speaks to his inner child. The search for Kalo is really a search for an identity only the past will allow Seth to have for himself. It's like he wants to follow in Kalo's footsteps, even though Seth has become a far more acomplished artist anyway. So really it's a search for inner peace. Something Seth won't have because he treats people badly... his brother... chet... his girlfriends. To be honest, he's not the nicest guy and definately not a likeable protagonist.
This doesn't stop us from enjoying the resolution and the journey in general. For fans of independant comics, this won't disapoint (unless you're an over opinionated conisseur who doen't just allow yourself to be immersed in what is essentially, a really immersing tale). If you get the same satisfaction I get from graphic literature, this will only leave you hungry for more.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I enjoyed this a lot though maybe being a fan of The New Yorker helped. Seth brilliantly gets inside the mind of his self-absorbed and opinionated main character.But it is much more than a study of youthful angst. The search for the mysterious cartoonist Kilo broadens the focus considerably. Marvellous drawings of urban and rural scenes, together with pastiches of cartoons from earlier decades, make this a very good read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Deeply poetic
This is utterly gorgeous- both in terms of it's art work and it's content. The story of a man caught up in an almost source-less nostalgia is told subtly as Seth's writing passes... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Rozina Bashir
Incredibly self-indulgent
I bought It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken with high expectations. It comes with a good reputation, it has a wonderful title and Seth has some pedigree as a comic book writer... Read more
Published 22 months ago by A. Robertson
Hard to get into, but worth it
I bought this because I'd heard lots of good things about it and the book itself is very attractive, printed on yellow/cream paper with black and blue ink. Read more
Published on 7 Feb 2009 by anonymous
all style, no substance
I hadn't heard much of this book except the reviews by other amazon buyers, but was seduced by the clean graphic-design style and 'wavy' inking. Read more
Published on 16 Mar 2008 by D. Stilwell
A highly readable and well drawn work, but irritatingly indulgent
This book is about the quest of Seth (the author) to find out more about an old cartoonist for The New Yorker called "Kalo". Read more
Published on 11 Mar 2007 by Clarity Kim
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