REVIEW: PALOOKAVILLE #25 BY SETH

Palookaville #25

by Seth

(Drawn & Quarterly, April 2026)

review by BK Munn

The latest issue of this long running hardcover "comic book" from Seth features another gorgeous chapter of the graphic memoir "Nothing Lasts" and a new short story about forgotten painter, "Owen Moore," originally serialized in The Walrus magazine, presented here along with the prelim sketch version of the story from Seth's notebooks; a rare glimpse behind the covers! More process stuff includes a middle section of photographs and drawings detailing the creation of his life-size sculpture "Living Room Suite" which I drive by everyday outside the Art Gallery of Guelph. Fascinating!

I talked with Seth recently about comics page design and he compared the narratively driven, almost stream-of-consciousness/speed-of-thought panel transitions of Kirby to those of Kurtzman's more laboured, thoughtful triptychs balanced with single long panels, praising both, but noting his own approach to rhythm and beats hews closer to Kurtzman's. He joked about a  frequent Joe Matt maxim ("The next panel could be anything!") and talked about his own formal conservatism and dedication to page design and thinking about the page (and double pages) as a storytelling unit, in comparison to both Matt and Chester Brown, noting that Brown still draws each panel individually and pastes them down, with seemingly only the vaguest design in mind. Seth also contrasted Chris Ware's information dense pages with Dan Clowes' Ditko-esque simplicity and grids, and confessed that the pure cartoonist ideal of "show, don't tell" that Chester still sticks to has slowly given way in his own work to more and more exposition and narrative text. All very interesting comments to keep in mind when reading "Nothing Lasts" which is a heady, mesmerizing combination of attacks: time jumps, silent panels, wordy panels, narration, differently-sized panels, and a relaxed decompressed rhythm that lets the pages breathe. Really, a master-class in the potentials of comics page design.