First off, Seth is a great artist. For true admirers of the craft of graphic novel illustration, Seth is one of the top people...but enough about Seth.

The story opens up with the main character Abraham Matchcard recounting his life as a salesman for his father's fan company, Clyde Fans. Seth takes us through this man's morning routine while introducing us to an involved landscape of his home, surrounding streets and long-since defunct company office/showroom and store room.

Some reviewers did not like this story-telling construct. but I felt that this narrative "monologue" was true to the life of the character. He was mostly a loner whose only interactions with people were more of a sales performance while he was still working but now it is just him. Now in his retirement, this person is most likely prone to thinking and even talking to himself.

The story takes a great turn with a flashback to the 50's with our main character's brother Simon, a very shy person to the point of being socially awkward. Again we are taken through a rich landscape of Canada's towns, people, fashion, architecture and style. Seth must be a 1950's buff because the detail is incredible.

We find Simon ultimately thrown to the sharks on his first sales trip, which he was begrudgingly sent on by his rather bullying brother. I was rooting for Simon the whole time; hoping for the miracle sale, the bagging of the elephant or some Tony Robbins style "walk on fire", life-transformation experience, that will some how overnight turn this guy into a successful salesman.

If this was a Hollywood story, like, say, Back to the Future, Simon would punch out Biff, win the heart of Marty's mom and become a successful author. But this is not Hollywood. Simon is who he is and he act accordingly.

I found this book particularly endearing as a person who has worked - at times successfully, at others unsuccessfully - in sales, and who has a salesman father of the same age as our characters.

I enjoyed this book and highly recommend it

B

Canadian graphic superstar Seth here collects issues 10-15 of his "Palookaville" comic book to tell the partial story of a pair of introverted Toronto brothers. The first half of the book is set in 1997, and is a rambling interior monologue by the older of the brothers, Abraham. The panels follow the elderly Abraham as he wanders through the downtown building that was the home and office for his family for the last fifty years. We see him getting dressed, making food, taking a bath, puttering around, checking the weather, and soforth while declaiming on the art of salesmanship and giving the history of the rise and fall of the family fan business and his own role in it. Most importantly, perhaps, he explains how he overcame his preference for solitude in order to operate in the "real" world, while his brother spent his whole life hiding from the world. The second part follows the younger brother Simon on his one attempt to brave the outside world, a spectacularly unsuccessful sales trip in 1957. Every encounter Simon has is one of negation and his lack of self-confidence feeds into a whirlpool of failure. There's not a lot that goes on over the course of the book, more the evocation of a sense of failure and unfulfilled lives. The art is beautifully printed in a mix of cyan and black on a natural color stock which greatly adds to the sense of wistfulness and nostalgia that permeates the story. However, like a well-crafted short story about a characters I can't identify with, the book didn't do much for me, although I can recognize its quality and potential to appeal to others.

Seth weaves a tale of two brothers and their failed Fan business. The first half is basically exposition where the more successful of the two brothers Abraham tells of his business, his brother, and the effects it had on the two. Abraham lives a soliary exsistance which adds to the stark nature of his narrative.

The second is the more moving half. It follows the younger brother Simon on his first attempt at sales. His backstory has been so well created that you feel for him as he fails to make any sales. You sense his shame, and his fear of failure.

Oh and Seth's art is a beauty to behold as well.

This entire book is a work of art. It is meticulously created with care and beautiful attention to every simplified detail. Every page reeks of sadness and nostalgia. The lonely character of Simon becomes understood by his brother only after his death... though we're not sure exactly why in this first part of the story of Clyde Fans.

The narration by the character Abraham in the first half of this book is really the only gripe I have. He, as an old man, has such a keen awareness and understanding of all of his shortcomings and mistakes in life. He is completely self-aware, and makes it a point to tell you all the things I believe Seth could have told without words. Or at least without ones not so obvious. No one is that aware of themselves.

I hate to compare to Chris Ware - but I will anyway. The lonely character of Jimmy Corrigan never comes out and tells you he's pathetic, you gather it from his mannerisms, his conversations with others, his inner monologue. In "Clyde Fans" however, everything is spelled out. It leaves very little for the reader to interpret, and causes it to be a little cold and matter-of-fact, rather than the more moving novel it could have been.

Still, it is visually impeccable, and I will be buying the sequel.

I was first exposed to Seth via Aimee Mann's last CD, the packaging of which contained four pages of moody sequential art -- okay, we can call it "comics" even though there's nothing particularly comical going on -- and ever since I've been waiting for more.

So I was thrilled to discover that CLYDE FANS: BOOK 1 had been published. It's the story of two brothers in the fan business, one of them successful and the other a failure, in the 1950s. But of course that description doesn't tell you anything worth knowing about CLYDE FANS. What's worth knowing is that Seth masterfully depicts these two characters with stark dialogue and a palette composed almost exclusively of blue, black, and gray.

In its way, CLYDE FANS is as affecting as any pure-prose novel that I've read. A truly amazing book that deserves to find a wide audience.