FloweringNose Day 2023

I found these photos the other day, of Seth (with hair, which means that he was in college).  He always threw himself wholly into what he did.  He loved street acrobatics.  And he loved inline skating.  I have a photo of him jumping over cars--a bunch of cars--in his inline skates.  I think he told me he cleared 10 cars parked side to side.  Is that true Langdon?  I'd have to get corroboration for that. 

In the bottom two photos, clearly taken on the same day, he is wearing his glasses while he jumps and flips.  Evidently he didn't expect to crash.  

Aw Seth, it's been 17 years now, and I still miss you.

 

FloweringNose Day 2022

Yesterday was the anniversary of Seth's death. 

His ideas for comic stories were so--mmm--odd, that I suspect they were close to unsaleable.  But so charming that you want them to get made into books.  

Case in point: 
Doris and Fruit.  Doris is a woman who lives in the house pictured below.  Fruitman (the drawing below that) is her next door neighbor.  I found among Seth's writings a script for the comic book, intended as a 30-page book, in a square format, with four panels per page, much more static than most of the work he did.  But that interested him.  

It's a simple, traditional love story.  Girl and guy start out as adversaries, and then something snaps, and they fall in love.  But: Doris is a regular girl, but living in a house made of  living animals, and Fruit is a guy made of fruits and vegetables.  It looks like Seth tried to sell the story to DC.  I found the letter with the script, but it was not clear who the recipient was. 

If anyone would like to see the script, let me know and I will send it to you.  It's not very long.  There is nobody I know who has the same artistic finesse, plus weird sense of humor, plus sweetness that Seth had, so I suspect the comic book could never be made now.  

But that has to be OK.  We can imagine it.

Seth's Birthday 2021

 The other day I was going through a box of stuff looking for a particular letter about Seth, and came across this charming doodle.  

My own doodling is more self-conscious than this, and has pretensions to beauty.  He had no such pretensions.  He loved beauty, but he could draw just to amuse himself.     
Probably he had pretensions, but from this distance I can't think of them.  He was willing to be wrong.  He was willing to look foolish.  He was willing to laugh at himself.  

One of my favorite incidents with Seth happened one day when I was visiting him and Hisako in Japan.  I am very awkward in Japan.  I am always knocking down something, and making people wait, and generally doing stupid things.  So one morning, having already done more than my share of bumbling for the day, I was in a bad mood, and said something grumpy to Seth.  Then I felt bad and apologized, "I'm sorry; I guess I am a little testy today."  Seth answered, "Yeah.  I'm a little testy too.  I guess we are just a pair of testes." 

Which made it all right again.  

Happy birthday Seth!

Floweringnose Day 2021

We have all this artwork that Seth has done.  He was so good at what he did that it is possible to just indulge in baths of Seth art soup and fill yourself with it, slurping up all kinds of  pictures:

elegant drawings for Myst 3 Exile--  

comical, clever art with his signature perspective genius, coupled with great visual storytelling in the two part Doom Patrol series,

his own designs for weird spacecraft,

a museum full of art lovers,

the weirdest of all his weird drawings: a scene both horrific and comical, where Our Hero has no chance whatever to escape (even the sun has it in for him) but he remains serene as he contemplates it all,

an absolutely fabulous fight scene, involving four people, where the action is completely clear, in which there are no right angles

 

a calm scene of fishing from a rock in Japanese waters,

or many others.  

In his pictures there are many different life perspectives, different styles, different moods, different 

speeds, different attitudes.  He was able to immerse himself in any of them, and enjoy them.  It was all Life, and that was what it was all about: Life.  

His artwork is so compelling that now we may be tempted to say that it is enough.  And of course, it has to be.  The man is gone.  But I'd like to offer a link to a conversation he had with interviewer Mike Jozic in 2004.  It gives a little flavor of what it was like to be with him:

Mike Jozic interview from 2004

 

 

Seth's 48th birthday July 22, 2020

Perspective.  Seth was SO good at perspective.  He studied it of course, made a point of learning how it works, and how to use it.  But then he owned it, and he could play with it, as in the top page from WillWorld.  

Perspective gives me fits.  Seth recommended a book by David Chelsea, PERSPECTIVE FOR COMIC BOOK ARTISTS  which I am reading and trying to use, but I don't understand what he is talking about a lot of the time.  So it feels a little bit as though I am trying to read it in a foreign language.  

But especially today, thinking of Seth, I am persevering.  

 

FLOWERINGNOSE DAY 2020

Here are some of Seth's drawings for Myst3: Exile.  Little sketches for places on the main island, or world.  Very Art Nouveau elegant.  I don't remember exactly if these got used or not; it's been a few years since I have played the game, and now the technology has changed and I can't get it to run.

And below are some drawings that I found in a little spiral notebook: stuff that makes you laugh.

Ah well.  Let us continue to do our own work and thank God for Seth whose life and work continues to inspire.

It's Seth's Birthday today

I have probably posted all these before, but time goes by and it's nice to see some of the stuff we thought we knew all over again with new eyes.
Doom Patrol was not an Important Work, but it is endlessly creative, every page filled with interesting and amusing details, and beautiful layouts.  I get a kick out of it every time.  Even the pages that are only what in opera is called "recitativo"--the daily conversations that have to be shown in order for the big events to make sense--like this first page, are a delight to look at.  Seth did nothing in a commonplace way, as he had seen it done before.  No artist invents everything himself; they all stand on one another's shoulders, but Seth did not take for granted perspectives, layouts, how a particular emotion is depicted, or how a particular character needs to relate to his/her environment.  He started from scratch every time.

It's a lesson for anyone who wants to create.

Just another reason to say, "Thank you Seth." 

By the way, the kanji on Vic's T-shirt on the first page is "Heaven."