Starred review from June 1, 2019
Finally complete and available in one gorgeous volume after two decades of work, the latest from Seth (It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken) presents an intimate epic spanning four decades in the lives of brothers Abe and Simon Matchcard, the owners of an electric fan company in Toronto. Opening in 1997, with an elderly Abe delivering a long, captivating monolog about his successes as a salesman and ultimate failure as a businessman after the advent of air conditioning leads to a decline in demand for electric fans, the story flashes back to 1957 to focus on Simon. A much more sensitive and poetic soul than Abe, Simon endures one humiliation after another during an ill-fated attempt to prove himself a capable salesman before experiencing an epiphany that sets the course for the rest of both brothers' lives. Seth's deceptively simple illustrations, reminiscent of classic New Yorker cartoonists, conjure a rich sense of melancholy and nostalgia as he explores aging, memory, regret, and the endless march of time. VERDICT It's only June, but Seth's long-anticipated masterpiece is already a strong contender for one of 2019's best graphic novels. [See author Q&A on p. 99.]
Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from July 1, 2019
Canadian cartoonist Seth began serializing Clyde Fans 20 years ago in the pages of his Palookaville comic book. Finally completed, the finished work is a quietly tragic family saga told with a reflective deliberation befitting its two-decade gestation. It chronicles the rise and fall of a family business that manufactures and sells electric fans through the deteriorating relationship of the two brothers who carried on after their father's desertion. Elder brother Abe, who's been on the road as a reluctant salesman, stepped in to run the business, with the painfully introverted Simon helping out around the office. Following a disastrous, short-lived attempt to go into sales?depicted in excruciating detail?Simon becomes a recluse, retreating to the family home and assuming the care of their elderly mother. Abe fails to adapt as home air conditioning becomes affordable, leading to the firm's inevitable demise. The trajectory of the business over the course of four decades is echoed in the brothers' bitter history, with Abe growing estranged from the world as Simon loses his grasp on reality altogether. Seth's masterly two-color graphics, with their thick, expressive brushstrokes, lovingly evoke the brothers' bygone milieu. Seth's masterwork is an eloquent summation of his career-long themes: stultifying nostalgia for an irretrievable past and an equally crippling alienation that leads to tragic isolation.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)
Starred review from May 24, 2004
This quietly mesmerizing book contains no jazzy bursts of color or tricky layout, no costumed superheroes or villains, no car chases, not even a single gun. Yet its subject matter is of vital importance. Like Chris Ware and Harvey Pekar, Seth creates art out of the apparent banality of average life. Part one, set in 1997, is essentially a monologue in which elderly Abraham Matchcard describes how he became an effective salesman despite his unsociability, how his father ran a briefly successful company, and how baffled he was by his brother Simon's futile life. Very little "happens," but as the old man's thoughts drift, readers realize how seldom people recognize the shapes their lives are falling into. The book's second part, set in 1957, follows Simon on his desperately uncomfortable attempt at a sales trip. Again, nothing obviously significant happens, which is the point: even when someone recognizes decisions must be made, actually making them may feel too momentous to contemplate. The effect of this accumulation of non-events, depicted in absolutely convincing detail, fascinates. Seth works with a restricted palate (blue tints overlaying the simplified but realistic brushwork) printed on beige paper, which gives the book a unique, antique feel. The formal portraits of the main characters that frequently stare from the pages are echoed in the book's endpapers, which show the Matchcard brothers among their high school classmates. Seth implies each of those faces might conceal a private, mysterious universe. That thought is simultaneously disconcerting and wonderful, as is this book.