Hank
12-28-2005, 12:01 PM
Has anybody picked up 'Wimbledon Green: The Greatest Comic Book Collector in the World' yet? I got it for Christmas. It's a hoot.
It's a 'sketchbook comic,' which I guess is Seth's way of telling us that he didn't work very hard on it, but it's a very fun read nonetheless. It sort of employs the same storytelling method of Jimmy Corrigan and Ice Haven, using a series of profiles, testimonials, and short stories to compile a larger narrative. It's definitely a looser Seth than I'm used to seeing, and I like that. It's a funny book, and the art is still damn good, regardless of what Seth would have us think.
Wimbledon is rotund, mysterious, and morally ambiguous. He lives in a mansion, owns a gyroplane, and has a turbin-wearing sidekick. He has a rogues gallery and his mustache might be fake. Basically, he's the Scrooge McDuck of fanboys. The book pokes plenty of fun at the collector mentality, fanboys, comic snobbery, and even the author himself.
Seth creates a really intricate world full of these bizarre characters, who despite being obsessed with 4 color morality tales of good triumphing over evil, are the most unscrupulous bunch of assholes you could ever hope to meet.
It starts out kind of slow. Dense testimonials (at like, 20 panels a pop) of mockumentary style 'talking heads' exposition for the first 40 pages kinda had me skeptical at first, but once things start to take off they really take off. I laughed all the way through the second half of this book, and when it was all over I was sad that it had to ever end.
If you're interested in Golden Age funnybooks, comic collecting, or just feel like picking up a fun graphic novel, I highly recommend Wimbledon Green.
It's a 'sketchbook comic,' which I guess is Seth's way of telling us that he didn't work very hard on it, but it's a very fun read nonetheless. It sort of employs the same storytelling method of Jimmy Corrigan and Ice Haven, using a series of profiles, testimonials, and short stories to compile a larger narrative. It's definitely a looser Seth than I'm used to seeing, and I like that. It's a funny book, and the art is still damn good, regardless of what Seth would have us think.
Wimbledon is rotund, mysterious, and morally ambiguous. He lives in a mansion, owns a gyroplane, and has a turbin-wearing sidekick. He has a rogues gallery and his mustache might be fake. Basically, he's the Scrooge McDuck of fanboys. The book pokes plenty of fun at the collector mentality, fanboys, comic snobbery, and even the author himself.
Seth creates a really intricate world full of these bizarre characters, who despite being obsessed with 4 color morality tales of good triumphing over evil, are the most unscrupulous bunch of assholes you could ever hope to meet.
It starts out kind of slow. Dense testimonials (at like, 20 panels a pop) of mockumentary style 'talking heads' exposition for the first 40 pages kinda had me skeptical at first, but once things start to take off they really take off. I laughed all the way through the second half of this book, and when it was all over I was sad that it had to ever end.
If you're interested in Golden Age funnybooks, comic collecting, or just feel like picking up a fun graphic novel, I highly recommend Wimbledon Green.