Clyde Fans

This is really well done, and appreciate it because it's such an opus, but there's also something very dusty and male about this. About the erosion of business, buildings, factories, one family and one's sanity.

This was 20 years in the making after inspiration struck peering into an actual Clyde Fans shop window in downtown Toronto. There past the dusty desks, rotary phones and old fans were the black and white photographs of two middle aged men looking back at author Seth. And here the rich imaginings of their lives.

It can feel at once like the limp whining of white privilege, the benefactors of generational wealth reminiscing about how it used to be, veering dangerously close to every bigoted uncle holding court at Thanksgiving or otherwise spewing nonsense on Facebook. Simon, after a disastrous attempt at sales in the field, is able to retreat back to the family home and bide his time collecting vintage postcards and conversing with his collection of mildly racist knick-knacks. His brother Abe opens the book, monologuing like a Southern Ontario Willy Loman for a good 70 pages.

But it is a story of the death of mid-century capitalism and locality as well. About our industrious town, and many like it, of meat-packers, tire manufacturing and parts factories. The days of raising a family, buying a home, sending the kids to school while socking money for retirement thanks to these jobs on the line have long disappeared. Now we're home to code jockeys, scrum masters and agile sprints. The small shops handed down for generations have slowly disappeared as sales move to big box stores sitting on acres of property and online retailers with next day delivery. Something has been lost as a result.

Maybe this recognition comes from my own middle age - I recognize the factories rendered here on the page and how, even laying empty when I was a child, still managed to invoke something. It's that melancholic remembering of things, the ineffable dream that can be weaponized as a call to wanting to be Great Again but just as much a nostalgia for a strong middle class and community that didn't hide behind mouse clicks and refreshed browser screens.

This is just remarkably good. I had no idea how long Seth had been working on this. In fact, I'd honestly not paid attention to who the creator was. Three quarters of the way through the picture novel I kept thinking ‘this really reminds me of “It's a great life if you don't weaken”' only to realize that the author is the same.

Besutiful art, beautiful palette, and an engaging story.