Nostalgia is an odd, very peculiar thing. We look back upon the past and romanticize the pictures that we see float through our minds. Yet it is often the case, when we return to the location where those memories occurred, that idyllic locale almost always fails to measure up.
Canadian cartoonist Seth, aka Gregory Gallant, is often characterized, much to his annoyance, as a nostalgic. He certainly understands the 'why' he is so labelled but "you realise that the word nostalgia has a real pejorative quality to it. It tends to imply looking back with a certain kind of sickly sweetness" [Q TV interview, October 15, 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m5D9kGmxlk]. However, I think we can safely assume that Seth ascribes to the notion that Mass Culture Media is very much at work in today's society.
( From Its a Good Life if You Don't Weaken, by Seth, 2011, p. 89)
When we look at Seth's work through the lens of Mass Culture Theory, there are two characteristics of MCT that stand out in both his artwork and his ideology: 1) Today's Pop Culture artifacts are somehow inferior when compared to the culture, including Pop Culture, of the past, and 2) There is an embedded fear of change with respect to the future that includes the demoralization of society. This melancholia is consistently apparent in both the characters and stories that Seth creates.
In the over-sized Picture Novella George Sprott, 1894-1975, Seth explores the history of the local television industry prior to the deregulation of Cable Television, through the biography of a fictitious local television personality. In Seth's sketchbook The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Comics, Seth the character, treats us to a tour of a fictitious museum that celebrates Canadian Comic Artists--both real and imagined--filled with many anecdotal reminiscences. However, it is in It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken (IAGLIYDW), a story which was originally serialised in Palookaville issues 4-9, that Seth's penchant for the past truly shines.
Briefly, in IAGLIYDW, Seth the character, is tracking down an obscure--and fictitious--Canadian gag-cartoonist by the name of Kalo, aka Jack Kalloway, that in effect is an exploration of art and artistic legacy. Throughout the ongoing search to find this elusive Kalo, the character Seth, through the author Seth, treats us to a narrative that seeks to discover the fading past and justifies his own ever-present dissatisfaction with present day existence. Again, both Seth the character, and Seth the author, dissociate from the ongoing advancement of today's society and in this instance we are privy to Seth's subtle commentary that nostalgia and/or the past is already a construct, rather than a reality.
(From Its a Good Life if You Don't Weaken, by Seth, 2011, p. 43)
The documentary Short documentary on Toronto Graphic Novelist, Seth, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rjy3c2YFZI recreates a film from an era long ago; the film looks as though it has suffered over time. The soundtrack harkens to the Jazz clubs of the 30's and 40's. This documentary also examines IAGLIYDW and Seth's attraction to the Pop Culture of the past. We visit Seth in his home, and it is clear from his manner of dress (yes he does indeed dress like this all the time) Seth has recreated himself in the image of a man from the 1930's. He addresses how, in his opinion, 'Culture' has "become increasingly cheap and vulgar as years go by. The quality of the Pop Culture that they are selling us is a very shoddy bill of goods that we are just accepting because we are trained to." Much of society then, to Seth's way of thinking, is simply composed of passive consumers and the products available to society lack any true value. This documentary clearly showcases Seth's drawing techniques, his attention to detail, further reinforcing his position regarding the value contained within today's Pop Culture media.
In another video, taken during Seth's interview with Jian Ghomeshi for CBC Radio's program Q (feel free to skip to the 6 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m5D9kGmxlk, Seth discusses his work, describing it "is about people going over their lives. I don't think it is about longing for a golden age" ... "I make it a point to really clearly show that I am confused, that I don't know what I really think about this time period"... "but not seeing it as some sort of, you know, beautiful golden age". Seth concludes the interview stating that he does think there has been a cultural decline that depresses him.
Seth perpetuates this construct of the past in his attempts to create an artistic alternative to our present day now (Hoffman, E. & Grace, D., 2015, p. 219). Reclaiming the aesthetics and ideas from the past would, according to Seth, improve our present day existence (Hoffman, E. & Grace, D., 2015, p. 219). Seth believes that this utopian alternative present day, were he to create it "would be something incorporating favourite elements from the past --aesthetics from the past, ideas form the past" (Hoffman, E. & Grace, D., 2015, p. 219). However, Seth himself contradicts his own ideology, through his creativity, the clean lines in his artistry, his choice of presentation: paper, book size, and packaging; there is no present day decay in quality nor does Seth produce a "shoddy bill of goods" with his comic material. The following that consumes Seth's Graphic Novels quite obviously consciously chooses to purchase his product rather than a substandard alternative. Seth himself, in a very meta way, is motivated by what he perceives as lacking in today's society in actuality provides consumers of his media with superior consumer goods, outperforming that which was available in the very era that he himself seeks to immortalize. Seth, through his artistry, passionately applying his knowledge of the past, in concert with the materials and resources we have in the the present day publishing houses is in effect creating his own "utopian" Pop Culture media.
Works Cited:
Hoffman, Eric and Grace, Dominick, eds. Seth Conversations. USA: University Press of Mississippi, 2015. Print.
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