Re: APE 2003
Josh and I hit the Alternative Press Expo this weekend.
The so-called “Alternative Press” is just the media buzzword for comic books that are too cool to hang with the geek-bait superhero comics (just kidding, we love them too). These include graphic novelists, ‘zine producers, mini-comic mavens, and underground comic artists. Probably the most famous products of this movement are the collected works of R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” and “Maus II”, and most recently, Dan Clowes’ “Ghost World”.
So Josh and I were hovering around the Drawn and Quarterly Publications booth when I turned around and saw one of my favorite artists, Seth. I’ve met him before, and he’s always impressed the hell out of me. Not just because he’s a kick-ass artist, who writes introspective melancholy stories and draws like they used to draw in “The New Yorker” in the ‘50’s (a bit of a personal fixation of his). Not just because he’s a super-nice guy who goes the extra mile for his readers. The really interesting thing is that he’s not just influenced by that style; he lives it.
He’s straight-up 1950, baby, everything from his two-tone Florshiems to his three-piece suit to his fedora. Now, lots of people (especially cartoonists) are a bit fixated with the retro style, but nobody does it with the kind of attention to detail Seth does. He’s got Bryl-creamed hair and glasses with thick tortoiseshell frames. His wallet is vintage, his pen case is vintage; he was selling some pages from his super-dooper award-winning comic series, “Palooka-ville”, and being a comic art collector, I couldn’t pass it up. He signed it to me, made out a very cool “certificate of authenticity”, and being as how I didn’t bring the portfolio in which I usually carry my bought art, he offered to roll it up with some rubber bands.
He didn’t pull out some multi-colored thin weak-ass latex newspaper-holders. He brought out the thick gum rubber monsters my dad used to keep with his drafting tools; the kind that raise a welt when your sister shoots one into your eye. Even his rubber bands are retro.
What is the difference between a nut and an artist? An artist wins two Ignatz Awards.
10:06:17 AM 
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