Palookaville 20: The First Graphic Novel!

This issue is the first graphic novel version of Palookaville.  In it, cartoonist Seth starts part 4 of "Clyde Fans", which is set in 1975 and features Abraham closing down the factory that made the fans, but also includes other features such as photographs from art exhibitions he's been involved in, pages from his sketchbook, and an autobiographical story from one of his book tours.  Here are some random thoughts on this comic, er, graphic novel:

*The other features are nifty, but, since I've been reading "Clyde Fans" since 1997, I was hoping that Seth would turn over the entire now longer issue to the story and finish it off.  In the welcome textpiece, Seth says that "Clyde Fans" should wrap up in another two issues.  Hmm . . . we'll see.  The next issue of Palookaville is due out later this month (maybe, the release date keeps getting pushed back).

*The art exhibitions featured a model-size town Seth constructed of Dominion, the town Simon from "Clyde Fans" visited on his ill-fated sales trip in 1957.

*In the autobiographical story, Seth, of course, draws his penis.  If there's one motif that holds the entire series together, then it may be Seth's penis.

*With a $19.95 cover price for this issue, it's no wonder not many kids read comics these days.  I was fortunate enough to get interested in them when they were 25 cents, and then the medium kind of grew up with me to produce more mature work such as Seth's comics.  Unfortunately, the price also grew.

*This is the last "comic" in my collection that I started out rereading a decade ago, as I disposed of them.  It was a fun project, and now I'm 30 or so boxes of comics lighter!  So, this blog will now return to a more varied diet of subject matter, though, since I still read comics, they will occasionally pop up as a topic.