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Wimbledon Green
posted July 14, 2005
 



Creator: Seth
Publishing Information: Drawn & Quarterly, October 2005, 128 pages, $19.95
Ordering Numbers: 1896597939 (ISBN)

It's unfair to write a formal review before I can see the finished art, but I can already tell from the roughly-printed preview copy this is a really entertaining book. As it deserves any advanced buzz I can give it, I'd like to point out a few of its more apparent virtues.

Wimbledon Green consists of a series of overlapping profiles, testimonials and one or two adventure stories starring a portly, affected comic book collector bearing that name, who lives in a world where such men act as junior-league relic hunters, flitting from abandoned farmhouse to auction to address in a newspaper ad, and frequently stabbing each other in the back for the sake of their acquisitions. Seth injects a few real-world witnesses to help hold the reader's interest, and provides just enough of a context for this world so you can give yourself over to the adventures while keeping skeptical of every claim made within it.

Instead of going big and broad with the presentation, Seth is working very tightly here, covering every spare inch of the material and running the danger of repeating himself -- in fact, some of the more salient points about the book's subject are made through repetition. Seth uses 20 panels on a page at times, making Wimbledon Green a thicker, more satisfying read than it has any right to be. This also allows him to stop the action with certain close-ups, a face or townscape or pose that stands outside of the narrative as it progresses. The work might fall just short of coming together to make a grander point, but a reminder of Seth's usual themes that appear as a coda fit it quite well. Mostly this is pretty darn funny, and a pleasure to read. Retailers should buy a few extra copies and press them into people's hands; it has that lovely all-you-need-to-know-is-right-in-your-hands feel of a Hutch Owen's Working Hard or a Louis Rieli. All hail Wimbledon Green.